Cricket, lovely cricket...........

Test cricket is back, so the papers can get out their most-used headline ‘England collapse’ .

 

Explaining the rules of cricket to an American is a completely impossible task. The land of instant gratification can’t comprehend a game that can last 5 days without a result.

 

When an old buffer was asked by a Yank what this game of cricket was about, he relied ‘Game? It’s no game, sir. It’s way of life’.

 

How true! It has two characteristics not possessed by any other sport.

 

It combines a code of conduct that reflects the decencies of life - and wit! Sportsmanship, individualism but playing for the best interests of the team, playing by the rules, not cheating. And think of how much of our language is based on cricket. ‘I bowled a bit of a fast ball there’; ‘It’s not cricket’ – underhand or unfair; ‘caught-out’; ‘sticky wicket’; ‘bowls from both ends’ and many more.

 

The fact that the modern game honours these more in the breach than the observance is just a sign of our times

 

As for wit, how much of this do you see in the grotesquely named ‘beautiful game’? Foul language; racist taunts, maybe. But wit? Never a trace.

 

‘Sledging’ means putting the batsman off his stroke (another cricket expression)  by some witty or caustic remark.

 

Some are pretty coarse – Australian bowler to English batsman. ‘Oi, there’s piece of sh** on the end of your bat’. Batsman looks at bottom of bat. ‘No; the other end!’

 

Brian Johnson and Jonathan Agnew were masters of the art of witty commentary – ‘The batsman’s Holding; the bowler’s Willey’, although I suspect that some of their jests were rehearsed. One that wasn’t was the famous occasion when the commentary came to a stop altogether because they were laughing so much.

 

Botham was batting. He played too far back and desperately but unsuccessfully tried to lift his leg over the stumps and was out. ‘Oh dear’ says Johnners, ‘Botham couldn’t get his leg over!’ Aggers corpsed. The next you hear is ‘Oh, do stop it, Aggers!’ and then he corpsed. Then listeners to ‘Test Match Special’ joined in, and hard-shoulders on motorways received thousands of drivers who were laughing too much to be able to carry on driving.

 

The commentary is on YouTube.

 

Maybe the best-ever riposte to sledging came from Ian Botham. As he took guard, Marsh, the Aussie wicket keeper yelled out ‘How’s your wife and my kids?’ Botham – ‘The wife’s fine, but the kids are retarded!’

 

Fred Truman, the great Yorkshire fast bowler had a wicked tongue. The batsman hit a ball of Fred’s for an easy catch but it went between the fielder’s legs. ‘Sorry, Fred’ he said, ‘I should’ve kept my legs closed’. ‘Aye’ said Fred ‘And so should thy mother!’

 

And of course we still have the mordant humour of Geoff Boycott’s commentaries – ‘Batting like that ‘e was lucky to get nought!’; ‘My granny could’ve ‘it that wi’ a toothbrush; ‘My granny could’ve caught that in ‘er pinny!’ But my favourite was about a particularly portly player, so noted for his appetite that when he appeared on the field he was greeted with chants of ‘Who ate all the pies?’

 

When he dropped a not-too-difficult catch, Boycott commented ‘ If it ‘ad been a cheese roll he’d of caught it!’

 

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—

Ten to make and the match to win—

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"