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Essex, England – Concern is growing that former England cricket captain Nasser Hussain is suffering from a rare form of sporting ‘yips’ that have left him almost housebound.
Since retiring from the professional game, Hussain has forged a second career in broadcast media, where his detailed analysis of batting techniques have attempted to establish that no modern player is capable of scoring runs on any pitch, against any bowling attack, in any match situation. It’s believed that Hussain, who has been missing from the Sky Sports commentary box since the end of the English season, has been unable to leave home after turning his hypercritical eye for biomechanics onto his own ability to open and close doors.
According to a source within the Sky Sports production team, “Each year we make a ‘blooper reel’ with all the summer’s commentary box mistakes. Nasser became obsessed with one particular clip of him stubbing his toe on the door to the storeroom where we keep Bob Willis in suspended animation during daylight hours. He kept watching the footage over and over again. Asking our technical staff for close ups on the way he gripped the door handle and slow-motion replays of his foot movement. He became convinced that the heavier domestic doors he had to open at home were too slow to prepare him for the much faster, lightweight doors you encounter in an international media centre.”
“He was so fixated with the mechanics of what he was doing that he started to suffer from paralysis whenever he saw a door handle. It was like watching a rabbit caught in the glare coming off Shane Warne’s teeth.”
“We’ve tried working around the problem by wheeling him in and out of the studio on a luggage trolley similar to the one they used to transport Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Lambs. But all he does is complain that it’s the worst idea anyone’s ever had, which is a little hard to take from the guy who put Australia in to bat at the Gabba in 2002.”
Whilst no official statement has yet been made by Sky Sports, it’s understood Hussain is currently working on video analysis of Don Bradman’s famous 334 at Headingley in 1930 which shows his runs were scored using a series of technically imprecise leg-side prods which wouldn’t have been possible if England had fielded a faster opening bowler than Harold Larwood.
Hussain himself could not be contacted at the time of writing, presumably as he’d left his phone in another room.