Gourmands,
Did note that Pup was used sparingly on the Channel Nine Commentary Team, in his television debut.
You'd imagine that it'd be a bit difficult, as a current player allegedly in rehab, to commentate on other current players, so he was used as some kind of analyst - there's no doubt MJ Clarke has a large cricket brain, and he has learned to speak media speak very well.
The bloke has probably got a future in it.
Found myself spending whole days, weeks, months, nay years, as a cub sports journalist lounging around sports grounds in my early professional career, and it wasn't very hard.
Far from it.
Pup will soon work out that it's an easy living.
Discovered from the get go, much to my astonishment, that a free lunch at someone else's expense was pretty much available in some part of the ground, no matter what ground, or what game was being played.
And it was tip top.
It had a name.
The Gravy Train.
Toot! Toot!
With the right sort of media pass you can get yourself into all sorts of places that you really shouldn't have been in, but hey, it was all off the record.
So not that too surprised or dismayed on hearing SK Warne on the telly recounting the fact that he was responsible for the creation of the spaghetti bolognaise pizza at his local pizza a bar just around the corner from his place.
You heard right, a pot of spag bol dumped on a "dirty rotten" pizza dough, doused in cheese and tomato sauce, and then baked, baked good.
Michael Clarke, who just happened to be in the same pizza bar with Shane this week, was sceptical at first, according to Warney "Pup said, 'oh come on Warney, you're giving me a gee up here'".
But no, Pup smashed a few slices of SB Pizza with gusto, and pronounced it good.
Mr Warne said they went down a treat with "a few frothies".
As far as rehab goes, Pup, that's the end of the section right there - yr mate has turned you over and dobbed you in.
In the meantime, back at the ball park baby, Smiffy is going from strength to strength, scoring a crucial century and a half and then some that gave him the whip hand throughout the course of the five days.
Some pundits say his handling of the last day didn't reflect very well on his captaincy, which is plainly bullshit, for mine.
With the mighty time-honoured Border-Gavaskar Trophy on the line, SPD Smith was perfectly within his rights to play for the draw, and win back the godawful thing, there and then.
It was only fitting that MS Dhoni fell on his sword and was then hoisted on his own petard.
Good on him for just admitting that he'd simply lost it.
No point in going on.
The BCCI gave him an offcial Au Reviour via press release, and thanked him for "bringing laurels to India".
They were probably refering to World Cups and stuff, not the series he'd just lost
The Stats Guru says there's not too many other blokes who've scored nine tons in ODI's and six centuries in Tests, going large and making all those hundreds at home, all of them, nowhere else.
The potty-mouthed Kohli Kiddie has some big millionaire shoes to fill.
MS likes motorcyles, and he owns a lot of them, so enjoy, and Goodluck Jonathon to you in retirement.
Getting a bit off topic here, so back to the free lunch.
Burgers, schnitty's, fried potatoes, buns, creamy salads, you could almost always find a roast [with baked ham a particular favourite], and you might get lucky with a beef stroganoff.
On the best buffet's you could get shellfish; in the run up to Sydney 2000 the prawns were the size of yr elbow and smashing a dozen oysters while no one was looking became an art form.
But that's another story.
Also seem to remember that if you knew where to look there would be a generally pretty good vindaloo of some description on offer, almost always with fried rice, strangely enough..
The next test match at Sydney will be a different bottle of mussels altogether compared to Melbourne.
Rather than appearing on the telly, MJ Clarke should just content himself with a long lunch in the SCG Members Dining Room, every day for nigh on a week.
Throw in a couple of breakfasts as well, and who would blame him?
He should do some stretching and limbering up before he tackles the entree and a cheeky glass of Chablis...
