As an avid England cricket fan, I’ve got a lot to be disappointed about just at the moment. But after all the excitement and hype leading up to the current Ashes series, the biggest disappointment of them all, in terms of both his attitude and his bowling, has been Shane Warne.

We all love Warney, don’t we? I know I do. He’s the best bowler who “ever walked this planet” in the prosaic words of Kevin Pietersen. Last year he bowled beautifully, took 40 wickets and it didn’t make any difference because Australia lost, but he got all the credit he deserved and was made BBC International Sports Personality of the year. He deserved that as much for his personality as his bowling. He was “hard but fair”, competitive but generous.

This year he’s bowled absolute filth. Not just by his standards, by anyone’s. And what’s more, he isn’t taking it very well.

Oh and the papers are singing his praises. And the Aussie team are going out of their way to do the same.

Now this just looks like I’m a bitter England fan, devastated by our recent implosion, who doesn’t mind Warne’s brilliance when he is on the losing side, right? Okay, I’ll grant you that there is something in that. I like him more when he is playing well but losing, because I am better disposed toward giving him the credit he deserves. But above all, like all proper cricket fans, I like him when he is playing well, full stop. And we all like him because of his attitude to the game. That’s fast disappearing.

In the First Test Warne bowled averagely well by his standards. 4-149 in the match. Yes, there was always brilliance there and the England batsmen were never out of danger, but Duncan Fletcher was right in many ways when he said England had played him quite well (just as he was right when he said that England had played him quite well in 2005). Ex editor of Wisden, Tim de Lisle, in fact, put it best in his Ashes blog:

“In [the 2005] series, England handed Warne loads of wickets, but refused to let him dominate. For years, Warne and Glenn McGrath had been both attacking and defensive at the same time, adding up to a quadruple whammy for their captains. Under Michael Vaughan, England’s approach said: we can’t stop you taking wickets, so we’re going to make you pay more for them.

Warne went for 3.15 an over last year, the first time he had been above three in an Ashes series. England took 797 runs off him in 252.5 overs, whereas 12 years earlier, in the wonderball series, they scraped only 897 off 439.5, at the ridiculous price of 1.99. Kevin Pietersen fearlessly laid into Warne; Flintoff played block-or-bash; Vaughan showed his usual flair; Andrew Strauss slowly learnt to survive; Geraint Jones managed better than usual against high-class spin. Only Bell and the tail were mesmerised.

In this match, England have again shown Warne a healthy disrespect. Pietersen sashayed down the track to him as if he was Mark Ramprakash on Strictly Come Dancing. Paul Collingwood, far less predictably, took the same route. He perished by it, but not before he had made far more runs than many people thought he was capable of at no.4.”

Until England’s brilliant decision to “block their way to safety” in the 4th innings at Adelaide, Warne leaked 3.29 runs per over and had an average of 63. Matthew Hoggard’s average in a series where England are getting flogged, is 27.

In the first innings of the Second Test, Warne bowled simply abysmally: 1-167 (his worst bowling figures of his entire first class career) was a combination of negative Gilo-bilge over the wicket, long hops, full bungers and generally losing the plot because he wasn’t making any inroads whatsoever against Paul Collingwood, a batsman Warne generously rated to his face as “no good”. It was turgid offal, with the odd flicker of brilliance just to make you frustratingly regret what he did last year.

Warne’s reaction to his own impotence on this occasion has been petulant, obnoxious and not worthy of him. His sledging is for the most part unpleasant where it used to be funny (we’ll allow him the Sherminator in mitigation); his newspaper columns are childish where they used to be insightful. He will say his reaction was positive and that he bowled England out on the final day but I’m sorry, this is half-truth: what actually happened was that England simply self-destructed in a morass of dreadful negative tactics and loss of bottle. Of course someone as talented as Warne was always going to capitalise on this, but too much credit has been ascribed to him in the press. Ponting saved that match, and England threw it away.

I’ll give the Australians all the credit they deserve, where they deserve it. Ponting and Hussey have been superb and they are the reason Australia are 2-0 up in the series. Michael Clarke has not received due credit for helping to effectively save the second test, and he is the most stylish batsman on either side. But look at their bowlers for a second. Lee’s still averaging 50 against England and 64 in this series. The Aussies will be hoping McGrath steps on a ball again so they don’t have to drop him. This attack against a batting side which isn’t determined to throw their wickets away, is an underwhelming prospect. The frustration is that neither attack in this series is really as good as the series deserves. England won’t take 20 wickets and Australia won’t take them cheaply unless they are handed to them by England. Unfortunately England have been all too ready to oblige in this regard.

Now for Warne and Ponting to go on and claim this was Australia’s greatest ever victory is pure industrial strength Aussie psycho-babble, designed to re-create an aura around a team whose aura has long since disappeared, and some kind of last hurrah for him and his “legends”: Hayden, Martyn, Langer, Gilchrist, McGrath etc who really shouldn’t be there any more. Botham was a legend, but when he ambled in to bowl long hops weighing 15 stone, he deserved to be treated like a mortal. Maybe Ponting wants to go on an open topped bus? England didn’t turn up until the 4th day in Brisbane and they matched Australia but imploded during one session in Adelaide, which would otherwise have been a draw. It’s our ability to recognise these facts for what they are, that allows us to recognise that Australia were 10 or so overs away from winning the Ashes 3-1 in 2005.

So we should criticise England, sure. They deserve it. They beat Pakistan 3-0 without Flintoff, Vaughan or Jones, and they’ve let themselves down here about as much as one could imagine. But really, we don’t need to big up the Aussies. Save that for them to do themselves in their own press conferences. There really isn’t much of a difference between the sides. There ought to be, given how ragged, shorn of fit players and mentally shot England are after this terrible start, but there isn’t. Why? Because Australia are simply not as good as they are telling everyone that they are. Warne knows this and hates it, which is why he’s behaving like a spoilt bastard. Let’s give him credit when credit’s due to him, not just whenever he demands it.

There is one major drawback to ripping the piss out of that jumped-up little prick Nicky Fucking Campbell’s weekly Guardian column: having to read it.

This week I have opted out – I just don’t have the mental strength today – so I am obliged to a friend for his considered critique:

God that Nicky “Blue Eyed Boy” Cnutbell is an ignorant cnut.

Campbell’s last column – about the cost of the 2012 Olympics – also managed to defy the sort of boundaries traditionally set by the mores of constructive criticism.  However, for reasons that are probably only apparent to Alan Rusbridger, Campbell’s column of 23 November was published on the Guardian’s blog site, thus inviting comments from readers on what they had just read.

The first comment came from “DoctorDick” at 5.26am:

You do realise that it’s going to be the summer olympics in 2012 don’t you? There isn’t going to be any curling so Scotland will win sweet FA so why do you care? Tell you what, give me your surplus council tax money if you are so obliged to be rid of it. Better yet go back to the land of nessie and stick your head in a deep fat fryer. They should make that an event, I’d watch it. But I still wouldn’t pay for it.

“Hulahope” later commented:

There is a difference between journalists who stimulate interesting debate by playing devils advocate. And fools.

“ChuckT” waded in:

Why is your drivel, Campbell, allowed in the sports section when you know nothing about the subject. you are a clown. 

And “AndrewM” managed:

Since Russell [Brand]‘s column became tolerable – not good, but tolerable – NC is my new figure of contempt. However, for once I will be sensible and simply avoid his garbage in future.

NC, you have been inflicted upon the British people for too long.

Do one.

“Doleywino” provided the coup de grace:

Nicky, it’s bad enough that I just can’t listen to Five Live in the mornings any more thanks to your self-important faux-intellectual unfunny know-all drivel. Why are we subjected to it in print as well?

You know how the British public wholeheartedly embraces some celebrities and takes them unto the collective national bosom? Well, you’re not one of them.

And all before lunchtime! 

It’s always nice to learn that you are not alone in your irrational hatreds and prejudices.

Oddly enough, this week’s column is not open to reader comments…