Couple the weekend's injuries to Jason Gillespie - this guy can break down stepping into a shower - and Stuart MacGrilla with the fact that Glen McGrath, injured or not, would probably have trouble breaking through the top order of the Mount Gravatt Under 14s Cs in his current form and we're looking at a third-rate side that even the Poms might take into a fourth day.
Now I'll be the first the admit that I've never been a great fan of Kasper's.
I'm sure former skip Mark Taylor at first slip spotted what I've thought for a long time. Sure, Kasprowicz topped the shield tally a couple of seasons but he's always been a bit of a sook. A bit soft.
Saw him once at the Gabba bowl Mark Butcher off a no-ball and just shrug his shoulders and trundle back to his mark. Most Test speedsters at the very least would have given the umpire a look that left no doubt in his mind that his family wasn't safe. Another time some clown dropped a sitter in the outfield and he didn't tamper with the guy's brake-fluid lines or anything. I've known the giant Queenslander personally for some time and when I first met him he was a semi-regular member of the Aussie side.
Now I don't know what expectations I held of seeing an Aussie Test speedster at close quarters but the first meal we shared I expected this bloke to rip hunks of meat of the roast, eat it with his bare hands, swear like a trooper and, if the urge took him, to fill his pants at the table and acknowledge the fact with a wink and a "that's left more fucking room for pudding!".
Plenty of mongrel, plenty of "fuck youse" and constant belching. Instead, he was shaking hands with everybody, jumping up to help in the kitchen, eating with a knife and fork and chewing with his mouth closed. Basically, he came across as a regular all-round, nice guy. A total disappointment.
Now, sure, at the time he was squiring a lovely young lass - now his wife - who's the daughter of my partner - hence the personal knowledge of the man - so he was probably on his best behaviour, but it got me to thinking Kasper just didn't quite cut the mustard as a feared Test speedster.
It's one of the reasons that in previous Bug columns, we've touted a new name for the Bulls quick. We declared "Kasper" just wasn't right. What opposing batsman struggling to get the ball of the square is going to think: "Uh, oh! I'm in deep shit now because they're bringing on the friendly ghost from the Vulture Street end?" We came up with The Castrator, and Kasprowicz was recalled for a tour of India not long after.
I've also explained in the past how I helped bring a little bit more of the mongrel out of the man, taking him down to the nets at Bottomley Park, East Brisbane, and daring him to "do his best" with a brand-new compo ball. I broke his heart that day, battling without pads and for the last half hour popping my plums out and over the elastic rim of my boxer shorts and shouting "hit them if you can, nancy boy!" as I tonked delivery after delivery into a creekbed in nearly Norman Park A more steely Castratorwicz took a hat-trick in the Shield comp not long after that.
But the bottom line was that we never, really, got rid of the nice guy that lurked within, and I'd just about given up hope for his Test recall.
Not any more. I don't know what has happened but he's changed.
When he returned recently from a stint with Glamorgan county, I extended my hand with a few congratulatory comments about his tally in the northern summer. He just looked me up and down and sneered: "What's it to fuckin' youse?"
It was then that I noticed on his Bulls training shirt the "Crean for PM" badge.
I knew instinctively the big fella had changed and was ready for a recall to glory in the sport's highest arena.
