So It’s Come To This: Things We Found On YouTube Part 18

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Nichael Bluth in Opinion

When times get tough at 51allout HQ, with inspiration sorely lacking, there’s always the safety net of another in our ‘So It’s Come To This’ series, in which we mess around on YouTube for a bit, find some vaguely cricket-related videos and post them here, along with pithy comments. Except we didn’t even bother with the finding bit, instead being sent one of the videos by a kind reader, who probably just felt sorry for us.

Still, it made a nice change from getting emails trying to sell us solar panels, SEO or some sort of posh light bulbs, usually in the sort of garbled, nonsensical English that’s traditionally reserved for Richard Keys’ legendary blogs.

England International cricket star Moeen Ali doesn’t like ieat ready meals… he LOVES them!

There’s a lot to like about Moeen Ali, such as his fantastic beard, his occasional cameos down the order and the fact that he represents a wonderful role model for young British Muslims. Basically, everything except his bowling (which really isn’t very good) and this advert, upon which bestowing the phrase ‘really isn’t very good’ would be one of the great understatements. Without wanting to overstate our case, this is 50 seconds of your life that you’ll never get back, even missing out on the easy comedy that would inevitably result from Moeen keeping his batting gloves on to eat. If this ad was a Danish-born Test cricketer, it would almost certainly be Amjad Khan, soaring gloriously through the air to land somewhere about a foot beyond the bowling crease, to the sound of a whole nation slapping themselves on the forehead and wondering exactly when then world went to hell in a handcart.

We should also take the opportunity to thank the eagle-eyed reader who sent this into our mailbox – thanks Ben Timpson, if that is your real name. Without our reader, this site would be little more than the incoherent ramblings of a few middle aged men, on those rare occasions that they’ve stopped playing Zelda or getting married long enough to actually write a few words.

Anyway, here’s the video, complete with the commentator flunking his lines around the 42 second mark, something which no-one seems to care about:

Jonny Bairstow delivers groceries for Waitrose

“So what’s it like playing for England?”

“Yeah, pretty good”

If the above quote doesn’t make it clear, this is a hard-hitting look at life in northern England, people attempting to make a life for themselves while surrounded by crime, squalor and rancid filth at every turn. Where other supermarkets fear to tread, Waitrose bravely risk the lives of delivery drivers and England cricketers alike to make sure that some old biddies have plenty of water for their grand-daughter’s seventh birthday party. Particular highlights include Bairstow confessing to being ginger, driver Megan nearly killing everyone jumping a red light (presumably trying to get away from a failed carjacking) and the crushing realisation that, despite studying biology at university, Megan now drives a van through war zones for a living.

Stuart Broad’s GoPro Challenge. Can he smash the camera?

There’s nothing worse than an ageing hipster and they don’t come much older than Soccer AM, which seems to still be going despite being shit for the best part of fifteen years (see also: Simpsons, The). Here Stuart Broad takes part in the most pointless challenge you could ever think of, attempting to break a GoPro with different sets of sporting equipment, just to prove how rich he is. Does he succeed in this pointless destructive endeavour? The answer to your question is no.

Ian Bell & Tim Bresnan – Stowford Press trick shot cricket contest

We’ve always said that Ian Bell was the most gifted batsman we’d ever seen, just with the mental fragility of a particularly scared small child. Actually, that might have been Mark Ramprakash, Graeme Hick or John Crawley, but the point still stands. Here we have definitive evidence of Bell’s talent, as he hits some barrels from miles away, even when completely and utterly blindfolded beyond all doubt, a full on Tom Baker Doctor Who scarf covering his eyes. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, Tim Bresnan – his right arm strengthened beyond belief by all those shifts at B&Q, where he had to carry heavy things to old blokes’ cars – then breaks the tap on a big barrel of cider, presumably because he hates the stuff, preferring to drink liquid gravel like his fellow northerners.

It’s the lack of enthusiasm that really gets us from this advert, as we see yet again the effect of the never-ending treadmill of touring, playing and starring in shitty adverts on our favourite players. And Tim Bresnan.