I've refused to return after tea.

I'm not a huge fan of cricket. Personally I find the whole scoring system a bit of a mystery, which has held me back from really watching it seriously. Eh! Amigos? Does that make me less of a Señor?Anyways, I was catching up with the news and saw this headline "Pakistan refuse to return after tea". If you haven't seen it then link here. After much laughter and listening to the facts I was reminded of a similar incident in my life.
I used to play futbol with mi amigos in the local park. At the time the legendary Shoot5 football's were all the craze. For those not in the know, these were basically a 99p excuse for a football. A thin plastic coating painted with black and white hexagons, inflated to a near fatal psi and light as a feather. You talk about Bend it like Beckham! I once saw a goalie take a goal kick and score an own goal with a Shoot5. It was like a boomerang. Being short on pocket money, all those proud Shoot5 owners were very possesive of their footballs. It was quite common for them to explode if kicked against anything too hard. So it was an unwritten rule that Shoot5's should be treated with a certain ammount of respect. I remember on this particular day taking my Shoot5 to the park and one of the older boys team was quite frankly breaking this rule. Kicking it against the stone chip surfaced garages! NO, he wanted to pop it! This went on for a bit I repeatedly told him to stop it but he wouldn't listen.So I picked up my ball, grabbed my goal-post jumper (hand-knitted by mum) and stormed off home in a huff for tea! An hour or so later all the local kids (who had also had their tea) came round my house to see if I was coming out again with my Shoot5 for the second half of the game. I refused to return after tea unless the older boys stopped trying to pop my Shoot5, this caused an up-roar, with them threatening pop-age and saying bad things about my jumper. So me and mi Amigos stayed round my house playing Lego instead.

Some striking similarities with this and the current Cricket-Crisis, the only thing was we were 10 year old kids not professional sportsmen!

Shoot 5 Picture courtesy of http://www.bakerross.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=TFB1 . I can't believe they still make them! In order to prevent any legal action, they are in fact a wonderous football. As mentioned I have many times purchased them and their airborne handling are the stuff of legend. What other ball could spiral through the whole defence and lob the keeper in one shot (via a cross-wind)!