Pointless rituals we do to try and make England take a wicket

After 30 squillion overs since the last wicket, it's scrape the barrel time.

What do YOU do to try and take a wicket (or five) for England?

Personally, I try to convince them I just don't care. I leave the room. I go shopping ostentatiously. Sometimes I even turn the commentary off in an effort to fool the game.

It often works! My many hours of effort yesterday got us the wicket!

Am I really the only one who does this sort of thing?

Cripes. No wonder England are doing so badly.

Well i decided to go into the arden for a bit and it appears to have worked

Working on the arden ? Disgusting !!


I tried to watch the first 5 overs yesterday but couldnt be bothered and went out .

Today I watched the first few with the new ball and that did get a wicket, as soon as I drifted off to read the paper the bowlers returned to their leg side filth and no way was I going to watch that.

I'm going to watch the first few after the break to see if they can get another one out.

Bless me and my spelling abilitues lol. *Garden

I 'd also add on a similar note that Nasser Hussain has me to thank for his 105 against Australia in '97 not because of his batting skills BUT because I watched the whole of his innings with the sound turned off !

Going swimming took us one wicket today....

I tell myself I am not allowed to have a drink until a wicket falls ...if that fails I tell myself I have to abandon that plan and keep drinking until a wicket falls...some time after that we either skittle them or I collapse in a heap and read about the score in the next day's papers...

lol alfie.

trebell seems to have lost his powers somewhat. He has normally been very good at Lords

I've lost some powers over the last two years or so too...or my methods need reworking.

I have lost at least one Ashes series (maybe two), a couple of Test & ODI series against India and the last World Cup.

This is not what to do:

Celebrate an early breakthough...or even a good day's play...better to wait until final overs of Day 5 (if it lasts that long)
Half-heartedly 'pretend' it's not that important - "it's only sport"
Check the mailbox in the middle of the night - hoping that when you return 'they' will have lost a wicket.
Thinking that if you have a shower and wash your hair - then opposition wickets will tumble.
Reheat your coffee in the microwave more than once - means you are not paying attention properly, it should be drunk when hot.
Get angry at certain commentators - and feel like reminding them of their past failures at the crease (never do that!)
Boycott all fast food, furniture stores and telcos which advertise during breaks in play
Blame Justin Bieber, Avril Lavange and a selected assortment hip-hop/rapsters for a deterioration in the 'standards of everything'
Wait until the 100th over to take a leak
Being too humble after a loss - (got to maintain the aggression in a fair and reasonable way...)
Give too much credit to the opposition and their fans - thinking it will create big-headedness...and then failure will result though bad karma.
Hit 'Send' to a rub-it-in type posting before the fat lady has sung her very last note...and left the ground.

See?... a SL wicket has now fallen.

btw, I've just changed channels from FoxSportsNews to watch the Test...

Well it seemed to work this time ....only seven to go!

Indeed.

And I was on plan "A" so I've poured myself a scotch...

alfie: I like your approach!

I feel that all on this thread can congratulate ourselves on Dilshan's wicket. It's quite clear to me that we got him out because none of the English bowlers looked like doing so.

I come up with stupid predictions of what the other team will achieve in a futile attempt to jinx them.

I've done a few of the above.

Switched off the TV or TMS, as my watching or listening almost inevitably jinx England.

Spoken, texted, emailed or posted triumphal comments, when our batsmen are close to centuries or bowlers have taken a wicket nearly always has disastrous consequences.

Adopting unusual seating or standing postures when batsmen / bowlers are close to a milestone usually just results in cramp or bruises.

Saying Player X is useless and will fail to score any runs / take any wickets sometimes works (in that my predictions are nearly always wrong). The only exception to this seems to be KP.

lately I've just learned to chill out and leave things in the lap of the cricketing gods (and the review system).

turning off the radio/TV/stream is a big favourite of mine. This afternoon I was watching off the computer, and whenever I switched tabs for a few balls a wicket seemed to fall (well it worked for the first four wickets anyway, I actually saw the last three).

I tend to mute it when things start to go west....

I would turn over the channel and then every few minutes turn it back over to see if they took a wicket. If they hadn't I would switch it back over again. This would go on till England took a wicket...

Ok.

Mute button polished.

Shopping list written out.

Garden chores listed.

Wild predictions readied.

Distractions arranged.

I think I'm ready for the final day's play!

You do know we'll lose our last 8 wickets for under 50 runs, don't you?

Cowshot
"You do know we'll lose our last 8 wickets for under 50 runs, don't you?"

Pathetic attempt at the inverse jinx.