England physiotherapist
Loughborough, October 15th 2010
Final preparations for the winter tour to Australia are going well, although I have some concerns about one or two fringe players. On today’s fitness exercise at the outdoor athletics track, Samit Patel ordered a taxi to take him the last two laps. This would be bad enough in itself; however, telling the driver to take him “via the nearest Nandos, innit” simply will not do. In my professional opinion, chicken nuggets are not “isotonic”, as Samit believes. And pausing during a timed beep test to order a pizza seems unlikely to convince management that he will be able to perform under pressure in a big-game situation.
October 16th
While Tim Bresnan is a whole-hearted player in a lot of respects, what you might call the mental side of his physical conditioning needs work. He is extremely sensitive to perceived jibes about his size: in this morning’s gym session, I told him to consider some work on the hamstring and gluteus muscles to increase power in the delivery stride. 45 minutes later, he was still locked in the lavatory sobbing: “You said my bum looks big in this tracksuit – how could you?” It was only by agreeing that the whole squad could work for an hour on their “Sprinkler Dance” – and sending James Anderson out for a bunch of flowers – that we managed to coax him out at all. While there has not, to the best of my knowledge, been a Yorkshire fast bowler with anorexia in the past, we should keep an eye on this.
October 17th
Called AF and told him we need to talk about Kevin. Stuart Broad’s recent forays into the world of topless modelling have caused great amusement among most of the lads, but Kevin has reacted very negatively to (in his words) “a younger pin-up coming along and turning everyone’s heads”. He has taken to working obsessively in the aerobics/dance studio with his shirt off, shouting “I’ve still got it” and watching Black Swan over and over again on his iPad.
While a bit of healthy competition between the boys is great, I think today’s episode went too far. Kevin found out that Stuart was on his way to a photo shoot and substituted the baby oil that Stuart uses for his pectorals with linseed. With a gruelling winter schedule coming up, we could scarcely afford to lose a key member of the bowling attack with a grade-two irritated nipple, and this injury will need careful monitoring.