ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
North Korean leader and speed merchant Kim Jong-un has made an explosive return to the North Korean domestic cricket competition overnight, taking a recording-breaking 10 for 0 of just one over.
The COVID-19 interrupted season was put on hold in March and has only now jumpstarted the competition.
Playing their cross-town rivals, The Hongwŏn Reds, in ‘the best of a three’ match series, the Pyongyang United captain-coach was quick to work his opposition out on the dead wicket that local curators describe as being a ‘batting paradise’.
The impressive feat comes only two seasons after the 36-year-old made a clutch 807 not-out to save the DPRK’s innings against communist cricket powerhouse Cuba.
Coming in around the wicket to the right-handed openers, Kim was said to channel his personal hero and mentor Wasim Akram by achieving phenomenal in-swing to both trap the batsman LBW or slip one through the gate and onto the stumps.
Cricketing journalist Gideon Haigh was on hand to witness the stunning feat first hand.
He spoke to The Advocate a short time ago.
“It was one of the most athletic feats I’ve ever seen and probably the greatest display of cricketing talent I’ve ever seen,” said Haigh, who assured our reporters that he was alone in the telephone box and nobody else was listening.
“Kim [Jong-un] is too good to be playing the game, he has simply mastered it. He bowls with the accuracy of Glenn McGrath, with the speed of Jeff Thompson and Shoaib Akhtar combined. He can also turn it around corners,”
“His sexual exploits dwarf even those of Shane Warne. He is truly a once in a millennium sportsman. I must go now, gentlemen.”
Haigh then assured The Advocate that he was being treated OK and that he looks forward to catching up in England later this year.
More to come.
