The caption competition results October 21, 2005

Another day, another award

The results of Cricinfo's caption competition



What's the winning caption? Find out below © Getty Images

Another day, another accolade for Andrew Flintoff. At the recent ICC awards, he walked off with the Spirit of Cricket trophy, on behalf of his England team-mates, and shared top billing with South Africa's Jacques Kallis as the overall Player of the Year. Such frequent appearances at the podium meant, as the evening wore on, he became increasingly chummy with the host Mark Nicholas, as this photo shows. But what was actually said?

"Ah, Mr Blair, so nice to finally meet you," quipped Neil Aldridge, in reference to Flintoff's inebriated visit to Downing Street on the morning after the Ashes triumph. "Sorry, who are you again?" suggested Ben Ferrao, a man who had clearly spent the entire summer adrift in the Sea of Tranquility (and yes, that is on the moon).

"Churchill, could you save me 15% on my car insurance?" said George Hicks, in one of the more random entries (and there were several!), while Sameer Vermani set out to confuse all and sundry with his suggestion: "Thank you so much Mark, but the real prize was that proverbial urn of a bird's remains." Pardon?

"I have got more hair than Kallis, right?" queried Maqsood, perhaps implying that Freddie should have sneaked the award by a hair's breadth. "Oh great, another ruddy trophy," groaned Anthony Newton. "I thought Kevin said that the prize was a keg."

Kevin [Pietersen] was a frequent theme for the evening, "Caprice keeps nicking my sausage rolls," complained Edward Meredith of KP's latest squeeze, before Mike Green shocked everyone by crooning: "Can you feel the luuurrrvvveee tonight, as I look into your eyeeessss ..." Enough!

The ICC prize wasn't quite the biggest award to have come Freddie's way, however. "First the city of Preston, and then the world! Bwahahaha!" cackled a maniacal Tim Graf. "Shepherd Neame Breweries present Flintoff with a special award for increasing their share price by 200% in 24 hours," volunteered David Tummon.

Not everyone was playing nicely though. "Does this big black spot on my head really make me look stupid when I cut my hair short?" pondered Matt Thickett, and yes, he was an Aussie. Sohaib, meanwhile, was taking a pop at the competition itself. "Hope this one's better than the fruit caption!" he grumped, with some justification no doubt.

"Here's the 50 quid I owe you for getting rid of Mandira Bedi," joked Vikram Huilgol, while Ramona D'Costa scooped the weekly missing-the-point-entirely-yet-gloriously award for his deadpan offering: "Thank you very much. It has been a great year for me as well as for England." Bullseye, Ramona. Bullseye.

But the winner this week, for his allround rib-tickling effort, is Jack Napier from Aberdeen, who wins a copy of David Frith's latest book, Battle for the Ashes, published by Ebury Press.



© Getty Images

Andrew Miller is UK editor of Cricinfo

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