Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Hinge and Bracket of English pace bowling

The issue of new Liberator is arriving with subscribers, which means - I very much fear - it is time for Liberal England readers to spend another week in the company of Lord Bonkers.

Enjoy.

Monday

Like every red-blooded Englishman (and, indeed, ever red-blooded Englishwoman), I am looking forward to this winter’s Ashes series Down Under.

How will our touring party fare in the likely absence of Ben Stokes? He is the chap who was filmed engaging in a bout of fisticuffs at chucking out time in the middle a one-day series – scenes reminiscent of the Minor Counties Championship before the recommendations of the Archbishop of York’s Commission were implemented.

Will it prove a tour too far for Anderson and Broad, who have justly been acclaimed as the Hinge and Bracket of English pace bowling? Why has no place been found for the Blessed Liam Plunkett when one of the Overton-Window twins from Somerset has been included?

Should Mason Crane be on the ship at all? In my day a boy of that age who bowled a googly would have been sent straight to the Headmaster, just as surely as if he had used a semicolon in an English composition.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.