January to December: Our (irreverent) cricket predictions for 2025 - Chris Waters

JANUARY: The final Test of the Australia-India series descends into the realms of fantasy fiction when Virat Kohli once more shoulder charges Australia batsman Sam Konstas. Only this time, after their set-to in Melbourne, Konstas is ready for him, with an electric force field hidden beneath his shirt.

The subsequent high voltage shock sends Kohli flying some 30 yards into the leg gully area, where he is badly dropped by Yashasvi Jaiswal. Afterwards, Kohli and Konstas appear together on Instagram with the words: “Luv u bro!”

FEBRUARY: The Champions Trophy is dramatically called off at the 11th hour when organisers announce they have lost their only copy of Queen’s We Are the Champions, rendering the entire event pointless. The song was to have been played after India lifted the trophy (regardless of results) in Dubai, following their refusal to play in host nation Pakistan. An alternative suggestion to play the theme tune to Champion the Wonder Horse, the TV hit of the 1950s, is rejected.

MARCH: Yorkshire’s bid to demutualise falls agonisingly short when 74.86 per cent of members vote in favour, with 75 per cent needed to force the move through. An idea is hatched in which local restaurant-goers are menaced at gunpoint to become voting members and back the club’s plan. The audacity of the tactic - and the restaurants link - appeals to the Mafia, which announces it is “potentially interested” in buying a club that “clearly understands how to take care of business”.

APRIL: Anthony McGrath’s recent comment that he is looking forward to the first match of the season, “provided it’s not snowing”, proves eerily apt when the opening game at Hampshire is called off due to the worst blizzards since the Ice Age. The players pass the time with a snowball fight won by the equally aptly-named new signing Jack White, who cleverly injures all of his nearest rivals for a place.

MAY: The sale of The Hundred franchises - including the Headingley-based Northern Supermuffins - becomes a legal minefield amid claims that buyers have been duped. Pointing out they would never have been so foolish as to invest in the cricket competition, they protest they thought they were buying into the television series The 100, an American post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama based on the novels of Kass Morgan. “We’ve been done up like a kipper,” bemoans a spokesperson for Chennai Super Kettles.

JUNE: Headingley stages the first Test of the India series, which England lose 4-1. The tone is set by this 248-run thumping, and it comes after England - some say arrogantly - pick six debutants who have neither scored a first-class fifty nor taken a first-class wicket, but have shown promise in second-team clips on X. “Serves ‘em reight,” blasts one reader.

JULY: An anonymous letter bearing a Lord’s postmark arrives at The Yorkshire Post asking whether its correspondent would be prepared to change his “clearly malicious view of The Hundred if he was offered £150,000?” A meeting is arranged in a lay-by on the A1 in which said correspondent sticks to his guns and reports the matter to anti-corruption chiefs. They promptly slap him with a two-week press box ban on the grounds of “gross stupidity”.

AUGUST: A bizarre incident takes place during Yorkshire’s one-day match against Middlesex at Radlett when a spectator rides around the boundary on horseback claiming to be the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper. Meanwhile, the hunt is on for “Jack the Snipper”, after rumours that the Yorkshire players’ socks are again being tampered with - a development which, entirely coincidentally, last occurred when Anthony McGrath was previously at the club.

SEPTEMBER: The new women’s competition ends in tears – quite literally as the Tier One, Tier Two and Tier Three champions celebrate their seasons. Yorkshire’s men win a one-day trophy for the first time since 2002, a development that causes stock markets to crash, the Earth to shift on its axis and a Victor Meldrew of 19 Riverbank to announce: “I don’t believe it.”

OCTOBER: The cricket world is stunned when the ECB announces it’s scrapping The Hundred - only to backtrack by saying it “accidentally sent out its 2026 April Fool’s joke six months ahead of schedule”. A new IT system is blamed.

NOVEMBER: The Ashes, which again finishes 2-2, begins badly when the first Test in Perth is cancelled after England completely forget that the venue has been switched from the usual Brisbane. Another IT failure is blamed, and a woman by the name of Melinda Carlisle outed as the culprit. One Australian newspaper quips: “Heaven is Not a Place in Perth for Stupid Poms.”

DECEMBER: A man dressed as Santa climbs down the chimney at Headingley cricket ground. He leaves £25m with the message: “Hopefully this will pay back the Colin Graves Trust and solve all your financial problems. Cheers.” Meanwhile, The Yorkshire Post prepares its irreverent predictions for 2026.