NZ clashes to Ashes... and Ashes

It’s not the size of the task. They were more than a handful for captain Alastair Cook and his boys during the winter to suggest they will not be merely cannon fodder for England’s men in white, or garish one-day blue, red and white.

No, sympathy is reserved solely for the fact that the Black Caps are just the warm-up act for the more serious business to come in what could prove a momentous cricketing year.

An Ashes tour – international cricket’s most significant collision – follows with the Australians arriving. But it’s not just a single series encounter between the arch-adversaries. There’s an unprecedented second Ashes showdown later in the year.

Just think, you wait all that time for one Ashes series to arrive and then two promptly turn up like looming London red omnibuses.

The upshot is that left at the bus-stop like Suralex Ferguson and one-time assistant Mike Phelan (check out the youtube video, it’s a brilliant evocation of British football’s most successful and hot-headed manager) are the New Zealanders.

For all the protestations of captain Brendan McCullum that his nation are not doing the early rounds this summer as just some sort of picnic snack ahead of the main full-on feast, in most of the cricketing public’s mind they are precisely in that sort of pickle.

The current two-match series, followed by the obligatory five one-day crash, bang, wallop fixtures, represents the finger buffet before the over-blown British summer spread, followed by a maximum-heat barbie that no doubt awaits in the grilling sun down under when England and Australia resume hostilities in our winter.

So this might be the time to secretly cheer for the black-capped underdogs, and not simply because of their lowly status.

If England are to dispense of McCullum’s marauders emphatically, easily and elegantly, then complacency could creep in like so many ants on a Victoria sandwich invitingly plated up on a chequered cloth.

Australia, remember, are already being written off as unworthy successors to previous powerhouse baggy-capped line-ups, so an easy England series triumph over their Antipodean cousins would engender over-confidence.

It may well serve England if New Zealand were to harness any insult they may feel at being cast as scraps before the big blow-out and deliver a waspish sting to the three lions’ neck.

That would wipe away any danger of smugness in advance of the Aussie invasion.

For if ever a cricketing nation deserved to be sent back home with its dingo tail trailing between its legs it’s the Aussies.

To do them over is one of sport’s driving forces – on or off-side of the wicket.

And to then inflict another series humiliation in their own Melbourne, Sydney, WACA, Adelaide and Brisbane backyards would put the icing on the jam sponge.

• Oh aye, David Beckham has retired – nuff said, methinks.

Bosses should say Beniyez

IT’S the biggest shoo-in since Prince Charming finally Jimmy Choo-ed his Cinderella – outgoing Sir Alex Ferguson will be crowned football’s manager of the year.

But at the risk of drawing the wrath of Suralex (and it will – FACT) I suggest the title should overwhelmingly go to his old Spanish sparring partner Rafa Benitez.

Has any manager operated in such a cauldron of hate and detestation as Benitez when appointed interim manager at Chelsea, those gracious, grateful, graceful Cockney charmers?

Bad enough having to work with self-proclaimed ‘ledge’ John Terry, but Benitez was mysteriously blamed for the sacking of his Stamford Bridge predecessor Roberto di Matteo, and for the vicissitudes of time that diminished the power of Terry, and no doubt for the world’s debt crisis too. He has had to have the hide of a rhino to bear the barrage-balloon of bile launched weekly by those polite Blues fans.

Even when he delivered the Europa League bauble and a Champions League slot, the dignified Benitez was decried by some of the club’s fans. Deffo, manager of the year.