Case for Good Old Belly-laugh - and Cloned Chinese Hendrys

It could and should have been a memorable moment in sports broadcasting. One of the great comedy own goals of all time had been scored at, of all times, the fifth minute of added time in a semi-final of a Champions League tie. It couldn't have been funnier.

Yet to listen to Petr Cech and Frank Lampard in the tunnel afterwards it was neither surprising nor amusing. Somehow the pair kept straight faces as they deadpanned about 'just about deserving it in the end' and 'Salomon having gone on a great run'. This despite the fact that they had been battered off the park and Kalou had beetled off to the corner flag as if his team were leading, rather than trailing 1-0.

Far better, surely, to have had a good old belly-laugh. The duo should have stood there doubled over as they did impromptu John Arne Riise impersonations. Pulling themselves together to ask: 'I wonder how Stevie G's feeling right now?' 'And little Xabi Alonso?' 'And what about Rafa?' 'And as for the ginger ... ' Before collapsing into another impersonation.

The whole joy of an undeserved result is pissing oneself laughing at those who deserved to win. That's elementary mind games.

The other story of the week was Ian Wright. It seems I may have been unfair when I described Wrighty as being less an analyst and more a shouty dad watching Sprowston under-14s who was in the habit of withdrawing his punditry in a huff whenever his son was substituted at half time.

Not a bit of it. Ian was, as he explained to the comedian's friend Jonathan Ross, actually attempting to take punditry into the new millennium. To rid it of its stuffy shirt-and-tie image and inject it with a bit of the old pizazz. He continued the argument with an interview, in the paper to which he contributes a column, during which he said: 'They [the BBC] put out sinister ads about the license fee then serve up a load of rubbish and an unbelievable amount of repeats.' Ian Wright, in contrast, is hosting a series of Gladiators on Sky One.

And, finally, the snooker, which bills itself in the listings as Live Snooker: The World Championship. No other sport does this. You don't read about 'Live Horse Racing: The Grand National' or 'Live Tennis: Wimbledon'. But snooker, quite wisely, comes with a health warning. Imagine how hard it would be to stay awake in front of Dead Snooker or, even, Ailing Snooker. As it is, match-ups such as Graeme Dott versus Joe Perry have seriously tested the stay-awake snooker fan.

Those who did hang on received their reward when Ronnie O'Sullivan made his entrance in a match against Liu Chuang, who could not have looked more like a Chinese Stephen Hendry if he had been cloned. The under jaw is there, as is the acne, with every spot identically placed. It's uncanny. And consider this. Chuang is 17 and Hendry won the Asian Open in 1989 and 1990. The window of opportunity was there for a Chinese Barry Hearn to finagle a sample from the Scot, bomb back to Shanghai and start manufacturing oriental Hendrys.

Someone, almost certainly Kevin Keegan, once said a team of Bertie Vogts would be unbeatable. A tournament of cloned Chinese Hendrys would also be unbeatable, and equally unwatchable.