By any standards cricket must have the most complicated scoring system known to man. Not just rivalling but actually surpassing GAA “points v goals” system in this respect. Consider the following score:
South Africa: 170, 178/4 (57.0 Ovs)
And that’s just the one team’s score! But that’s not what makes the whole pursuit so utterly impenetrable to the casual observer. All fields of human endeavour generate an individual argot, but cricket takes the prize for building its own private tower of Babel. The quaint English pastime has added to the lexicon: “Zooter”, “Bump Ball”, “Doosra”, “Silly mid-off”, “Arm Ball”, “Beamer”, “Bosie”, “In-ducker”, “Jaffa”, “Bouncer”, “Googly”, “Grubber”, “Leg-cutter”, “Yorker”, “Sticky wicket”. You could look up the definitions, but I promise you; you’ve got better things to be doing with your time. Consider the following excerpt:
“...he tried to hit off-spinner Shoaib Malik for six
with 21 needed and six wickets still in hand,
he was stumped”.
with 21 needed and six wickets still in hand,
he was stumped”.
He’s not the only one that’s stumped by that sentence. Or this:
“Ireland reached 2 for 32 after 10 overs ...
Pakistan losing wickets when Hafeez (4)
was caught behind from seamer Langford-
Smith. Khan then followed with a third-ball
nought, caught at slip, to make the score
2 for 15”.
Cricket people say things like this all the time and actually expect to be taken seriously.
So why am I so concerned with this particularly bizarre example of the English practice of creating-a-sport-and- exporting-it- so-that-everyone-else- can-beat-them-at-it? Well the hint is in the two quotes above. We were all more than a little surprised last year to discover that not only did the Irish have a cricket team, but they had actually advanced to the World Cup in the Caribbean. Then they took the huge scalp of Pakistan – on St. Patrick’s Day! The BBC describes this as “one of the greatest victories in cricket's rich history”.
Over a year ago, Paul Davey, an Irish friend of mine based in Sydney, had the idea of making a documentary film about the Irish participation. He took a huge risk. Giving up his lucrative technology job and investing his savings in the venture. Paul had unprecedented access to the whole team. In a sense he became part of it, getting first hand reactions of the players.
The resulting documentary is a really good story, even if – like me – you don’t know the first thing about cricket. The players were all part timers and Paul shows them going from their ordinary lives as postmen and teachers to the superstar world of international sportsmen and back to their inevitable postal-rounds. And on top of that you will all remember the controversial, untimely death of the Packistani coach. The documentary has had great critical acclaim and I want to encourage you all to go and see it. To do so, follow this link.
3 comments:
I think that quite a few of your example obfuscations must be taken from a curiously Australian dialect of cricketese. I've been a keen fan for several years (you know you're in the right country when their favourite two sports become your favourite two sports in less than a year), and I recognized only a half of your examples.
I like that kiwis have their own version of rugbyese, though it's slightly less inaccessible than "Jaffa" and "Doosra", seeing as they (we?) export fluent speakers of our dialect all over the world (or at least, all over Europe). You could probably guess what a half-back is, right? Did you guess "scrum half"? Told ya!
Care to try Sailing.
Left and Right are not good enough, Port and Starboard start the confusion.
Ropes are "Sheets", except when they are "Lines", or perhaps "Halyards"
You walk around on the cabin sole, not the floor.
Floors connect the frames to the keel.
Sails have a Foot, a Luff and a Leech.
It's all to make it seem so much more difficult and impressive to the outsider.
Heh, you should try sailing around the Whitsundays. Or anywhere in Oz, in fact. The tops of the sails and masts are called "pigs". Took me 5 days to figure out that they meant "peaks".
Muah.
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