Once a byword for fairness and moral certitude, cricket was used to illustrate the exact opposite by Eddie Jones, England’s rugby coach, after Italy resorted to underhand tactics in their recent home nation’s match at Twickenham.
The intricacies of the rules being stretched by Italy may elude many of us but Jones, who once played cricket for Randwick in Sydney, likened it to Trevor Chappell’s underarm ball to Brian McKechnie in 1981, when New Zealand required six runs to win off the final ball of a one-day international – an act that many considered beyond the pale despite it being within the Laws at the time.
Jones might have been less specific and summed up Italy’s skulduggery as “just not cricket”, but that might have upset his paymasters who probably feel rugby sets the sporting moral compass these days.
Cricket’s long history, at least 300 years of the game in England, means that many of its idioms have entered colloquial speech. They show no signs of diminishing either, cricket’s position as the second most-watched sport in the world, after football, means more and more people around the globe are au fait with its expressions and the elasticity of their meanings.
A term like “batting, or being caught, on a sticky wicket,” for instance, is commonly used in business and political circles to warn of potential difficulties and impediments to a deal, usually to the bafflement of Americans.
Of course, strictly, it should be “sticky pitch” (the wicket being the three stumps and bails) but that might confuse the Yanks even more given that an entirely different pitch exists in baseball, although never a sticky one.
City gents also talk of “playing with a straight bat”, which can mean anything from being cautious to being honest with no hidden intent.
Boris Johnson has mentioned needing to maintain a straight bat with regard to the UK’s forthcoming Brexit deal with the European Union but having seen Boris use anything but a perpendicular bat on a cricket field (he is a savage swiper), fielders everywhere, Brussels included, should stay on their toes.
The one thing Britain and the Foreign Secretary would not want from Jean-Claude Juncker over the next two years is “an unplayable delivery,” unless it goes on to miss everything and ends up merely as a dot ball. Unplayable deliveries cannot be countered.
You merely have to be phlegmatic about them and hope any damage they cause is not irreparable.
This is very different from being “bowled a bouncer” which possesses a degree of menace with the potential to cause harm. Bouncers, even metaphorical ones, are sent to test the mettle of those in receipt of them and can be dealt with, usually with bravery and a sharp eye.
Indeed, some would say they are essential in any rite of passage that involves responsibility for others.
Being “bowled over” is another term one hears outside the game, though this tends to have more positive connotations off the cricket field than on, where such an event, while good news for the bowler, is terminal for the batsman.
In Civvy Street one can be bowled over by a maiden, an event or, literally, by something like a runaway horse. You tend not to be able to see something that bowls you over coming, so stay loose at all times to avoid unnecessary bruising.
There is a shift in meaning too with being “hit for six”, a pleasurable feeling for the batsman but not the bowler, who feels chastened. Being hit for six in normal life usually means suffering a setback, or a shock.
It is not dissimilar to being “in a spin,” though that has connotations of confusion, possibly of one’s own making, rather than trauma. Another difference is that sympathy is often given to victims of the former but not the latter, unless they are English batsmen on a Mumbai bunsen-burner.
Then there are the momentum shifts of “being on the front foot” or “back foot,” depending on the “state of play,” another cricket expression from a game that takes longer and has more pauses for reflection than any other.
In modern cricket, on covered pitches, being on the front or back foot, has no positive or negative connotation as runs can be scored with equal facility off either. Where the extra conviction of being on the front foot, or the defensive caution of being on the back foot, comes from, is when pitches were uncovered and at the mercy of the elements.
So, when rain had made batting difficult, batsmen would tend to play off the back foot, mostly to give themselves that extra fraction of a second to adjust their shot should the ball pop or misbehave. In those circumstances, getting on the front foot was a clear sign the pitch had improved and runs were easier to score, hence its wider meaning of moving onto the offensive.
There are some cricket expressions that have only just found favour in the wider language, such as he or she is a “wrong -un,” in other words a nasty ‘so and so’. If the majority of society is good and well-behaved and wrong-uns are the exception, you could argue that a googly, cricket’s wrong-un and the exception rather than the rule, is where its origins lie.
On the other hand, I’d like to invoke that famous headline which leapt from the back page of The Sun in 1987, after Pakistan’s Abdul Qadir had destroyed England with 7-96 at the Oval. “STRUNG UP BY THE GOOGLIES” it screamed, something that should happen to wrong-uns, at least of the male variety.
Finally, for all those who make it to 80-plus before meeting their maker, there is the widespread sentiment that he or she “had a good innings.” Of course in WG Grace’s time, the figure would have been 60 but life expectancy, like batting standards, is rising and it won’t be long before 100 is the new benchmark.
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, March 3 2017
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