Bond plays. Fleming dies of shock

People in New Zealand woke up to the shocking news that their beloved cricket Captain, Stephen Fleming had died of shock. The story goes that when Bond declared himself fit for one match and, actually, played for a major part of the match, Fleming couldn't handle it. Eye witnesses tell us that Fleming suddenly collapsed in a laughing fit so violent and so prolonged that it took its toll on his heart.

For those of you coming in late, Shane Bond is an injury prone speedster who has been flattering to decieve from the time he made his debut. Every time he was selected, he'd end up with an injury that had to be taken care of to prolong his career. His injuries were so frequent that he was being continuously rested so that he could play when fully fit and have a long career serving New Zealand cricket. Unfortunately, the only career he ended up having, so far, was a very long one on the sidelines. Until this happened.

One fine sunny day in a match against South Africa, Bond's name was sighted as being pencilled into the playing eleven. Fleming, having seen this before, was unperturbed. The same, fine sunny day, Bond was seen with the new ball in his hand and at the top of his bowling mark. Fleming, having seen this, too, before, continued to remained calm and quite unaffected by this inconsistent consistent sighting. A few overs later, Bond was still bowling. A quick Madras-cut of the camera to Fleming's handsome visage revealed a man a man with a furrowed brow and looking increasingly stressed out. A few more over later, Bond was simply refusing to breakdown. That's when Fleming couldn't take it anymore and died.

When queried as to the reasons for his untimely death from shock, this is what Fleming had to say, "My system just couldn't handle the extreme expectations of breakdown it was being put through every additional ball Bond ended up bowling. I kept expecting Bond to breakdown and collapse. When the inevitable collapse didn't come, I collapsed. When your system is used to a regular diet of expected breakdowns and unexpected replacements, a sudden infusion of the real thing can be very, very dangerous and very, very fatal. As you may have noticed, that's exactly what happened."

The same unreliable sources didn't tell us how they got this thoughtful piece of process-mapping from a man who was dead. Our own investigations into the matter reveal that the same supernatural forces which kept Shane Bond going, despite all previous evidence disproving the possibility of any such thing happening, might have something to do with receiving messages from a dead Fleming, despite all the previous evidence disproving the possibility of any such thing happening.

In other more predictable news, Shane Bond has declared himself unfit for the next match. Any comments from Fleming on the same matter will be brought to you as soon as we get them in much shorter and more intelligible sentences than those resorted to in the previous paragraph.

And now, we request all of you to observe two minutes of silence for a man who died so suddenly for little more than a false alarm. Despite all previous evidence disproving the possibility of any such thing happening, we urge you to keep your fingers crossed, not hold your breath and fervently pray for the return of the phlegmatic Fleming. And a fit Bond.