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The England and Wales Cricket Board, the national governing body of cricket, has announced a significant change to the rules for assessing the outcome of matches shortened by natural events.
"If one side in a fixed-over cricket match were prevented from playing their full allocation of overs, because of rain or bad light or other natural disasters, how could you tell who had actually won? Previously, two very clever statisticians, Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis had come up with a system that dealt with that problem. The Duckworth-Lewis method calculated all the various intricacies of runs, wickets, overs, and balls, and determined the winner. Unfortunately, however, that meant that occasionally England still lost. We had to find a better, more effective, means.
"Luckily, we have found two gentlemen whose expertise is exactly in this area of being prevented from completing their expected tasks, for reasons they assure us were completely outside their control. Both of them experienced this end of play in their respective fields. Mr Schofield and Mr Johnson have come up with a modern equivalent which doesn't require calculations, algorithms, formulae or even numbers at all. The Schofield-Johnson method simply insists that they were right all along. No matter what evidence is presented, the new system says, 'No, no, no, England won. That's all there is to it. And anyone who disagrees is obviously quite mistaken and has an alternative agenda. They want England to lose and would throw their country under a cardboard bus to ensure it happens.
The EWCB did some trials with a Trump-Johnson variation, but, regardless of the result, an angry mob ended up storming the pavilion and abusing the cucumber sandwiches in Latin.
Hat tip to FlashArry
Image: PDPics - Pixabay
"We came into government intending to clear out all the muck the Tories left in the stables, and really try and help the British people," a tired and emotional Labour Party spokesman told journalists, gripping the Downing Street lectern tightly as he swayed from side to side.
"But it turned out we were spreading muck around at quite a rate ourselves. And besides, all you ungrateful slugs in the electorate kept griping about the government, whether it meant you well or not.
"This left us thinking: Why should we try so hard to be wholesome when we could spend the next five years giving zero tosses about the state of the UK and having huge fun at your expense?
"That's why the Prime Minister is taking this opportunity of replacing the highly competent, if slightly avaricious, Sue Gray as his chief of staff with the utterly incompetent, and highly avaricious, Boris Johnston.
"Boris will do invaluable work by telling us the names of every British millionaire with a weird tendency to gift money to politicians. He'll also be advising which central London off-licences do the best bulk deals on Tokay for wine-time Fridays, and he'll give us tips on how to spend months on end explaining away depraved, night-long, drinking-and-governing sessions in Downing Street.
"We'd never have got that from Ms Gray, the dreary old kill-joy.
"The PM wants you to know that from now on, it'll be wine-time all the time at Number 10," continued the spokes-sot, pulling a bottle of Amontillado from the Downing Street 'Partygate' shopping trolley at his feet and uncorking it with his teeth.
"I mean, why not? Britain's so messed up there's probably no saving it and besides, there's sweet sod all you can do to stop us.
"Your very ill health!" slurred the spokes-lush, taking a long swig from his bottle and collapsing in the gutter.
Following the news that Boris was returning the government, sterling fell 100% against the dollar. No one in the Prime Minister's office was sober enough for comment.
Image: Photo by Jannes Van den wouwer on Unsplash
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