It seems someone in the United Nations Cricket Team camp made the grave mistake of allowing Marcus Stresscothick a pen and paper in his padded room, out of which has come the revelation that his cheating resulted in the reverse swing that ultimately bagged England the 2005 Ashes.

It comes as no surprise to most people that the Poms (and Welsh) are nations of cheats, and I thougth I’d share a few of their other dirty secrets.

1945 – World War 2 – British RADAR stations detected Luftwaffe raids before they’d even arrived, allowing Spitfires to be deployed and meet the threat.

1966 – Soccer World Cup – George Best was running on performance enhancing kidney’s

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been a long while between drinks here

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1990s – Rowing – Steve Redgrave affixed a small electric propulsion system to his Cox

2003 – Rugby World Cup – Johnny Wilkonson wore specially designed shoes that inject the ball with Helium at the point of impact thus reducing it’s ‘weight’ and increasing it’s flight distance by up to 28%.

2005 – Ashes – Trescothick as the team polisher used mints to sweeten his saliva and ensure extra shine on the ball. This resulted in reverse swing for the English and Welsh bowlers as early as the 16th over.

2007 – Rugby World Cup – Andy Sherridan carried a can of mace that he kept squirting into Matt Dunning’s eyes during scrums which made it almost impossible for The Dunning to hold up his side of the scrum.

2008 – Olympics – Convinced three of their neighbours to compete in their team, and then take all the glory themselves. You don’t see the West Indies combining in order to try and ‘beat’ their former colonies, but the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are apparently happy to compete under the Great Britain flag. Time to play Braveheart on ITV again..