The Language of Cricket

I love cricket. I am in love with the language of cricket even more than the game itself.

When I was a kid, my father used to tell me about the field placements. Though I did not understand a word of it, I liked the sound of all those field placements. I liked 'slip', 'gully', 'point', 'midon', 'midoff' and so on.

As I grew, I fell in love with the game and at the same time, I continuously used to translate these words into my native language - tamil - and fell in love with these words even more!!

See, for example, 'slip' - if you translate it in any language - means that you fall!  Add the interesting twists of 'first-slip,'second-slip, 'third slip' and so on, translate and visualize so many people falling down on top of each other, I am sure you get the feeling! And then that other word : point. Again, in any language, the meaning is the same : it is a singular thing which can be made with a pen or pencil. Then you try translating the other placements such as 'cover', 'extra cover', I can never quite stop laughing!

I have never quite understood why you should have a field placement called thirdman but a reserve called the
twelfth man? On top of it, the bowler can bowl a chinaman. The one who is batting is called the 'batsman' and not just a 'batter'. What is this fascination with 'man' in cricket? I have not really understood this.

It is called a run and yet, the bastsman, for all we know, can walk. Nowadays, even that walk is called 'doing a ranatunga', after the great Srilankan Captain, who used to 'walk' his runs. If you walk, but not run, should it be still called a run? But it is still called one.

Even more bizarre thing is this : it is counted as a 'run' even when somebody else is doing the running. It happens often enough when one batsman is injured and yet is batting on.

The 'wicket keeper' actually does not keep any wickets.

He is in fact, as far away from the wickets as possible. Especially when a fast bowler is bowling. He in fact tries to break down the wicket as he tries to run out the batsman or tries to stump him. Since he is the only person with the gloves on in the fielding team, shouldn't he be called a 'glover'?

Bowling comes first. Catching comes later. And yet, when the bowler catches off his own bowling and the batsman gets out, it is said 'caught and bowled'. Shouldn't it have been 'bowled and caught'?

The bowler bowls the ball and the ball is actually there. And yet, magically, sometimes it becoms a 'no ball'. 

The sign language cricket has is also fascinating. The finger goes up when the wicket goes down and yet the real wicket - the stumps, need not go down.

In recent times, the finger which goes up can even be crooked and it still is out...

Both the hands go up, it is a six.

So, one hand should go up when it is three? But, no, actually, hands don't really go up when somebody scores three. Funnily, just one hand goes up it is called 'bye'. The umpire is not bidding bye here. The captain is sure to bid bye to the wicket keeper if it continues...

It is a 'good bye' for the batting team and not so a good bye for the fielding team.

The 'wide' is something even the lay man can understand from what the umpires shows. He actually extends both hands in their respective directions and you can understand that it is a reasonably logical one and not really a wilde one.

For a long time, I thought that for somebody to get out 'Leg Before the Wicket', the basic requisite is that the ball has to hit the leg first. However, it is not so. Even if the ball hits the helmet of the batsman, as a Sachin Tendulkar would tell you, he can get out 'LBW'.

As if all these crazy languages of cricket is not enough, nowadays you also have this 'Duckworth and Lewis'. The D/L system, as it is called, came into sharp focus in a world cup match when just before the rains the South African team was cruising to a win and suddenly, after the showers, the "best runs scored" system told them that they needed to get a 21 run of one ball. Just before that stoppage, they required 22 off 13 balls. There was plenty of artificial light. There was plenty of time. It was a crucial match. The spectators who had paid for the match were willing to see it through.If the D/L system was there, it would have set a target of four runs to tie the match! But, the D/L is not without its critics and controversies!! Is it applicable for a shorter version as the T20? Is it applicable if we were to have a 25 over a side but two innings one day match? (It would still be only a one day match!!). There are questions.

Well. You can expect nothing less from a game which has taken the name of an insect to start with.

It is full of fun, full of surprises and full of funny language which just adds to the fun quotient!