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This week in all honesty has been less than inspiring. I've endured rather than enjoyed each day, wading through the week like poor Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank Redemption crawling through 500 yards of shit and filth to escape his nightmare. But while young Andy won his freedom, I have won only the misery of another Monday. Oh Joy.

I think every wager I've placed this week has been a loser. The one winner - Middlesbrough to beat Liverpool - returned nothing as it was part of a multiple bet, embedded with other selections a retarded monkey wouldn't have wagered his ration of bananas on. The £50 freeze-out I played tonight went much the same way. I wasn't even there long enough for my buttocks to make an impression on the seat.


However arduous my week, it still wasn't as tedious as the test match between the West Indies and England. I like cricket, but I don't follow it too closely. Are the cricketing powers that be making a conscious effort to ruin test match cricket forever? It does seem rather shambolic to me. Perhaps it's just this series.

Either the game is abandoned altogether because no one noticed the outfield was made of sand, or the wicket is so flat and perfect it makes taking wickets impossible - so much so that the umpires are having to 'use' the technology available through the referral system to progress the game a bit - this can be only reasonable explanation for how a third umpire can look at the same video evidence as everyone else yet come to a completely different conclusion. Or he'd been on the rum and coconut punch and was on a jolly - either way he was going to find some way of dismissing some batsmen.

It still didn't work anyway. Nearly 1,400 runs scored in four days for only 14 wickets. I'm loathe to agree with Americans about anything, particularly cricket, but a five day game that can and usually does, end in a draw is endangering the future of the sport given that the attention span of the average person these days is about 7 minutes.

He's what I think they should do people to spice up test matches. Cap the runs total in a single innings at 400. If a team makes 400 runs there's a mandatory declaration.

Same for every innings. This ensures you at least get four innings' played in every test match. You'll still have draws, but not nearly as many and there won't be quite as many people sat in the stands swallowing their own tongues from the tedium of the play. If it means players can no longer make record breaking scores of 300+ then so be it. At the moment the consensus view is to try and bat the opposition out of the game i.e. play not to lose. They need to play to win.

The current test match was clearly going to be a draw. We knew this after a couple of hours of play. How do players maintain their motivation? They get paid handsomely and are playing for their place in the team, but the crowd have no such incentives.

One day cricket and that 20-20 nonsense has exaggerated the length of test match cricket. There aren't enough purists out there who will accept draws as part and parcel of the game. Every aspect of the game is being tinkered with but these revolutions are stunting the games evolution, that's what I always say. They need to rethink the fundamentals people. And maybe have some tits on show.