Captain Alistair Cook sets off to sea to ‘undiscover Australia’

No-stralia: the undiscovered country.

The England Cricket Board has funded a major sea voyage, with the hope that Captain Cook can ‘undiscover Australia’.

Whittled from ash and unusually rudderless, it’s hoped the vessel can complete its voyage before sinking without trace.

Speaking from the poop deck, the dashing figure of Alistair Cook pledged that he ‘would not return until the seas below Indonesia were proved to be completely devoid of any troubling land masses’.

The hand-picked crew are using an ancient map for their voyage, which predates a previous expedition by a Captain Cook in 1766. The only clue to a hypothetical Terra Australis left by ancient cartographers is a sketch of a fire-scorched bat, and the words ‘Here there be Mitchell Johnsons’.

“I’ve got everything I need for my mission, including some limes and a compass, and 38 barrels of hair gel for Pietersen”, said Cook. “We’re going to drift about in the doldrums without learning a thing, and prove once and for all that there’s nothing down here to worry about.”

Little is known about the indigenous people that don’t exist in the Southern Ocean, although some of the team are said to be rattled by talk of murderous rituals.

“That’s all rumour and heresay, you don’t hear about human sacrifice these days”, claimed Cook. “Other than Piers Morgan, but if anything that was natural selection.”

So far the mission has been a 100% success, with absolutely nothing new being added to the charts for several days now. “There was a moment yesterday when we panicked a bit, when one of the crew shouted out ‘Land Ahoy!’. Fortunately, we had three umpire reviews left so we appealed immediately. And then made Swann walk the plank, just in case.”

Cook is shortly expected to return to the spot where there isn’t any land now, and triumphantly hold aloft a blank sheet of blue paper.

“Now there’s no-one to play here, we’ll have to concentrate on beating some teams in the Old World”, Cook is expected to say. “I’m confident of victory when we play our first test against Atlantis.”