Playing on a literal road - and other jargon 

Even to the initiated, cricket is a game full of nonsensical jargon. Silly Mid-wicket, Googly, Duck - all terms that sound like absolute nonsense. 

But what do they all mean? And when would you use them? Well, we'll come onto that a little bit later. 

Firstly, lets start with a look at last weekend:

We arrived at our hosts to find that the pitch was a literal road and so, to cut a short story slightly shorter, the game was cancelled and another cricket-less Saturday ensued. 

A literal road

We had some good results from the rest of the weekend however, with 4 of the other 6 teams getting the win and the vibe around the club being extremely positive and jovial. 

This weekend promises to be even more fruitful however, as 7 sides over Saturday and Sunday will take to the field. We also have the club's first social of the year, the club's inaugural Bowl-Off Cup. Hosted by Social Secretary Joe. He has promised that this will be a social not to be missed and that is will all be streamed live on our YouTube channel  (subscribe and hit the notification bell) so you can see slightly inebriated gladiators fail miserable at a relatively simple cricketing task. 

The Bowl-Off Trophy

    Fundraisers and socials are a massive part of club life. It allows us to firstly stay afloat financially, giving not only our adult sides a home and a club but also the vast amount of colts teams and kids that use and enjoy the club a place in which to enjoy and develop their cricket.  Additionally, money coming through these fundraisers and socials allow the club to improve facilities and buy new equipment. With around 250 colts and nearly 100 adult members using these facilities on a weekly basis, development of these things is absolutely vital. 

This seems like a good time to start mentioning a large fundraiser that will be coming along towards the end of the season - The Mega Raffle.

With 101 prizes, the Mega Raffle will be drawn on August 29th with tickets being sold at £2.50 each which will be going on sale soon. As head of the team running the raffle, I would like to invite local businesses and club members to donate prizes if they wish to help us get closer to that 101 prize goal. 
    Any local business who would be kind enough to donate a prize will naturally get many good mentions in our social media and internal club literature. Additionally, we have a plethora of sponsorship opportunities which will have the wonderful benefit of that large captive audience mentioned above.  Please do get in touch with myself or anyone at the club to talk about this or to donate some nice prizes. We already have some local businesses who have very kindly donated and we would be honoured to bring more on board.  

    back to the cricket....

So, as promised, here is a guide to understanding some of the more technical terms in the cricketing world:

Pie Chucker - interchangeable with grenade launcher. This is a colloquial reference to bowlers with perhaps mediocre ability and a higher likelihood to bowl poor deliveries. Interestingly, these types of bowlers take a high amount of wickets frustrating many others especially bowlers with higher skill levels.

Googly- Sounds fun. What does it actually mean? The truth is no one actually knows. It was a buzz word in the 90s. Something about a posh delivery spin bowlers bowled. Probably.

Sledging - a term often used to describe vocal anti-encouragement between opposing teams. At a professional level this was once described by a professional Australian cricketer as 'Mental disintegration'. At an amateur level, it's known as 'a bit of banter' and in truth it's just people telling crap jokes.

Dolly - Easy Catch that should be taken, but often isn't, ANDREW!!!!!! 

Duckworth Lewis Method - invented by someone who actually liked algebra at school. It is based on an equation that is also capable of turning lead into gold. Devised purely so that a TV audience had another hour of one-day cricket to watch when weather effected a game. Despised by the purist and teams that bat second.

Jug - They who perform well shalt be required to purchase this. (it's beer) 

 

LBW - Leg Before Wicket. It's pretty straightforward, unless the ball hits the batsman outside the line of the off-stump unless he's offering a shot and then he can be given out. The batsman can not be given out if the ball pitches outside the leg stump. Clear? Good.

Ringer -  A player you 'ring' when you're short who isn't part of the normal side. Often a mate of the vice-captain's from the pub. Usually a former Middlesex Second XI player who is a bit handy and spends the day being sheepish about their superior ability. 

 So there you have a small glossary of terms to help you with understanding cricket. I'm sure they probably didn't help but i did manage to get all the way through the blog without using the word community (see last blog to get that gag)

   With seven sides playing and the Bowl-Off social this weekend, there isn't many places much better to be this weekend than Old Wimbledonians and remember, as always We Play As One         

                                                               Simon Bath

                                                            @simondobath 

                                                           #WePlayAsOne