42. JARDINE MAKES CONTACT WITH BOUDICCA.

CONFIDENTIAL

MISSION BOUDICCA

2nd Report Douglas Jardine:

Day Two

Having won the toss I elected to field first. Unsure of the propensity for the ball to swing, in 1st Century Norfolk, I was reluctantly inveigled into venturing half-a-crown that it would.

As cricket didn’t exist in this Celtic society, I set myself the most thankless of jobs of establishing it there. A parlous few of us have sampled a tour down under where all Australians are an uneducated, unruly mob. But compared to these Celts I now live amongst they appear like Oxbridge toffs!

Their danders are at a low ebb due to the trouncing the Roman tourists inflicted upon them. But from what I’ve observed these things need addressing for Boudicca and her followers to gain the ascendancy, and once they’ve got the bastards down there, to keep them there!

• There Are No Sightscreens – how can combatants pick out and deal with missiles headed their way when the delivery is indistinct from its background.
• They’re sadly deficient in arrangements for net practice. Just as many years from now The Battle of Waterloo will be effectively won on the playing fields of Eton, a game of cricket is won by practice in the nets.
• There exists no concept of the term ‘fair play’ and cricket would not exist without this evocation of sportsmanship. This might be legitimately construed, coming from myself, Douglas Jardine, as ‘rather strong meat’ in light of my terrorizing the Australian batsmen with leg-theory, but it cannot be doubted that I played within the rules of the game at that time. I played hard but fair. In conversation with Boudicca I was astounded to learn that when she complained about the Romans ignoring her late-husband’s will she was then publicly flogged and her daughters raped. I’m convinced that this would not have been the outcome if a third umpire had been appealed to.

I was able to persuade them to adopt cricket. The sporting of whites attracted the unwanted attention of a couple of Druids. Just like fast bowlers and Jehovah’s Witnesses they hunt in pairs. They objected to wearing white in cricket as it is sacred to the Druids and so we then conducted our training sessions in secret locations to avoid the dreaded “pair”.

Boudicca, herself, is a magnet for laurels. She has proved to be a capable fielder and a magician with the ball (an improvised cherry constructed from wattle, horse dung, thread and blood….had any captain presented this to an umpire at Trent Bridge it would’ve been changed without hesitation!

After a day of practice I have to say that the Celts who participated won their spurs worthily.

END OF THE DAY’S PLAY