Ashes premonitions: Katich vs Trott – the bore war
Last Ashes, I came up with a 100 Ashes facts. Since I have written a book about the Ashes, I feel a special bond with this series. Now, I have Ashes premonitions.
During the series the words stubborn, curmudgeon, phlegmatic, resigned, dour and sourpuss will be used to explain Simon Katich and Jonathan Trott when batting. The problem is, both of these men want to be known as more dour than the other.
After a gentleman's agreement, they decide on having a boxing match to see who is the dourest of them all.
They book a gym, say publically that all proceeds are going to charity and decide on it being a knockout or die fight.
The first four rounds Trott looks like he is warming up, while Katich's strange stance puts him off. Eventually a punch is thrown in round five, and from there both men dance around each other a lot, and try and work over the body.
Neither player ever throws a haymaker, or even a punch at the head, they just keep it tight at the body.
There is a lot of clinching from the 8th round on, with no referee, some whole rounds are just them hugging and wrestling.
12 rounds in, people start to leave.
The boxing doesn't change, Katich gets annoyed that Trott isn't always ready when the bell rings, and Trott can't work out how to get through Katich's tight weird defence.
During round 32 a Katich punch skids off Trott's smooth chest and cops him in the jaw, he then takes a few seconds out to get himself back right, he does and they continue.
In the 41st Katich's footwork gets him in trouble and he lunges past Trott and ends up getting his chest hairs caught in the rope.
By the 47th round, most of the spectators left there are sleeping or watching youtube videos of lolcats.
In the 52nd it is just Trott and Katich in the gym.
Both men come out of their corner, both tired, but still trying to out dour each other. They fall into an embrace, and the wrestling quickly turns into something more sexual, and they both realise that they have so much in common that fighting is not for them. They start to kiss, which quickly leads to passionate, awkward, slow love in the ring.
The next day they announce that the fight was a draw, as both men had withdrawn at the same time.
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