h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The poms are the English. I believe a similar term in the USA would be limey. How pom came about is subject to debate its either derived from Pomegranite (rhyming slang for immigrant? or I was told fruit eaten by sailors to ward off scurvy - like limes ) or POME, Prisoner Of Mother England.

No doubt Walter and Wandrin Gurustar will be back to tell me I've got it all wrong but at least part right

Sounds like you got it pretty close, I found this in Microsoft Bookshelf:

QUOTE

pommy or pommie (pòm´ê) noun
plural pommies
Australian & New Zealand.
Used as a disparaging term for a British person, especially a recent immigrant.
[Short for pomegranate, alteration of Pummy Grant, probably alteration of immigrant.]

END QUOTE

All this cricket lingo makes me feel like I'm watching a ping-pong match between various segments of the Empire. Maybe I'll start talking about "big bodies in the paint", which the USA was a little short on in the Olympics

Okay Steve, what are 'big bodies in the paint'?

pom is also short for Pomeranian which is a sort of small, long-haired dog that yaps a lot. This hasn't got anything to do with whingeing British types. It's just to prove to Phil that I _could_ think of another possibility

What hope is there of any money actually reaching the younger players next year? Have been hearing a lot of waffle from the Test & County Cricket Board types lately.

Okay Steve, what are 'big bodies in the paint'?

I would guess a centre in the keyway in basketball

Okay, what's the keyway in basketball?

Isn't it the bit in front of the basket which the markings look like a keyhole?

I almost decided to just let the explanation of "big bodies in the paint" develop without me ... it was a better story

Yes, its having some large players positioned in front of the basket in basketball. In the NBA (I don't know about international), the area in front of the basket (usually called the "lane") is painted a contrasting color, hence the "paint". The players don't have to be centers, just BIG - and not just tall, but wide - sometimes its called "wide bodies in the paint", an allusion to some vehicles, or even "double-wides", an allusion to very large mobile homes - this might apply, say, to Charles Barkley who has a LOT of acreage under those shorts

Another cricket question: If the bowler just misses the stumps, and the batter either misses or doesn't swing at all, and the wicketkeeper misses the ball, which goes off down the field - can the batting team run to score?

They don't need to - they score what is known as a 'leg-by'.

... and if it goes to the boundary they score 4 leg by's. I suppose if the bowler was having an extraordinarily bad day 6 leg by's would not be totally out of the question. Never seen it though

Just to clarify:

If it misses batsman, bat and stumps, the batsmen can run. The runs thus scored are called 'byes'.

In theory, you can score a bye even if the wicket-keeper catches it cleanly: it sometimes happens towards the end of a limited-over match, when the chance of an extra run is worth the big risk, especially when the keeper is standing a long way back for a fast bowler. In practice, byes normally happen only when the keeper fumbles. If the ball goes all the way to the boundary, four byes are scored.

The scoring of six byes would need the ball to pass within the batsman's reach (otherwise it's "wides"), and then clear the boundary without bouncing. That would need a *very* quick, flat trajectory on the ball. I've never heard of it happening.

Leg-byes can be scored when the ball hits anywhere on the batsman's body(*). In order to score leg-byes, he must be trying either to hit the ball with the bat or to avoid being hit (and hurt) by the ball. The first part is to make sure the batsman can't just kick out at the ball to score, the second is rather like a "walk" in baseball when the batter is hit.

Leg-byes are much more common than byes, because the act of hitting the batsman makes it more likely the ball will evade the wicket-keeper: byes are often viewed as an embarrassment to the keeper, though sometimes extreme bounce or swing will take the ball beyond his reach.

Four leg-byes is common. A six would certainly be possible, for instance with a fast bouncer clipping the batsman's helmet or shoulder on the way through, though still very rare.

Byes and leg-byes count to the team's total, but not the batsman. They are scored under "extras" (sometimes in Australia these are called "sundries")

(*) - The exception to this rule is the batsman's hands and wrists, as covered by the gloves, while he is gripping the bat(**). They count as part of the bat in all respects: if the ball hits them the batsman may be caught; the batsman can't be LBW if the ball hits his gloves; and if runs are scored after contact with the gloves, they count to the batsman as "proper" runs.

(**) - if the batsman's glove is used to divert the ball when NOT gripping the bat, the batsman may be given out "handled the ball".


Gary

Thus, you will attract pitying smiles if you say 'strike' when the batsman (not batter) misses the ball.

Another little wrinkle to remember is that, if you're right handed for example, you will be a right-ARM bowler (not pitcher), but a right-HANDED batsman. Also notice that it's not a right-armed bowler.

Now. Who's going to get the conversation going about the difference between 'round the wicket' and 'over the wicket'?

Okay, just to make sure I'm following this (not likely) ...

A "bye" requires running, but a "leg bye" does not?

And another example of my complete lack of understanding:

The book "Cricket's Strangest matches" has a chapter "NatWest Bowl-Out", whcih describes a tie-breaker at Bishop's Stortford, June 1991. As I read it, there are no batsmen and the only fielder was the wicket-keeper in normal position. And the umpires were in normal position. So the bowlers had to just hit the unguarded stumps. And mostly they missed ... ?!? "Derbyshire went first. Mortenson failed with his two attempts, as did Warner and Griffith and Base. ..."

Am I understanding this? Or were they blindfolded and the author left out that fine point?

The cricket scores were apparently a little unusual:

HERTFORDSHIRE 2 (Needham, Merry), DERBYSHIRE 1 (Goldsmith)

The Yankees used to have a pitcher named Ryne Duren, who was evidently legally blind, had a different pair of glasses for every conditions of sun, clouds, shadows, etc. His only pitch was a screaming fast ball. He reportedly threw his first warmup pitch over the fence once, thus instilling terror in the waiting batter.

Firstly, you still need to run to get a leg bye - unless it goes to the boundary in which case you would get 4 runs without actually having to run...

As for the tiebreak game - the bowlers were probably either nervous or incompetent or possibly both to miss hitting the unguarded stumps, although they may not have been at a high level of competition.

A while ago I said that for the "Timed Out" rule the 1980 code gives 2 minutes for the batsman to come in. I now have a copy of the 2000 code and it has been modified to 3 minutes.

Oh, DP. I bowl over the wicket but not very well.

I didn't believe the tiebreak scores either, when I first saw them - I assumed that they must be bowling at a single stump, but from what I've read since I'm fairly sure it was a full set.

Nerves are a possibility - this had never been done before - but it wasn't that high-pressure a match, just a first-round tie. These scores are unjustifiably pathetic. I'm no star, but I reckon I could hit an unguarded set of stumps 6 times out of 10 if that's all I had to do. The trouble may have been that, knowing they only had to hit the stumps, they bowled much more slowly and "carefully" than they normally would - and therefore tensed up and choked.

As for the level of competition - Derbyshire's players were all full-time professionals. They picked their team's best bowlers for the task. They've no excuse. Hertfordshire are a "minor" county, but their side would still have been a mix of very good club players and borderline professionals (Hertfordshire being next to Middlesex, their team often contained Middlesex's second XI players: I know that Bill Merry, for instance, played several times for Middlesex).

It's probably indicative of the way bowlers' minds work in one-day cricket: they either bowl just outside off stump, or just short of a good length (making the ball bounce over the top of the stumps), those being thes easiest two ways of stopping a batsman scoring. English cricketers play more one-day cricket than any in the world. Is it any wonder we have such trouble winning test matches, when you actually have to be able to bowl teams out?

Having said that, we haven't ever won the one-day World Cup either.

Whew! I was worried about getting flamed for not understanding how cricket is a very difficult game ...

The tie-break bowling effort reminds me of a scene in the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", when the two robbers are auditioning for jobs as payroll guards. The boss asks The Kid to shoot his tobacco plug thrown out on the ground, which The Kid promptly misses. The Kid asks, "Can I move? I'm better when I move." Then rolling across the ground, he hits the plug, which flies into the air, then hits it a few more times in the air.

Not to mention Shaquille O'Neal trying to hit free throws ... or another player, Isaiah Thomas, shooting an "air ball" on a free throw (missed everything, backboard, rim, wall ...). Or golfers getting the "yips", hitting a 4 foot putt clear off the green.

Another question - what is the logic of "declaring"? Why would a captain declare or not declare? I can't think of an American sport with a similar provision - its either time (basketball, football) or number of rounds/innings (baseball, boxing) that completes a game.

The declaration exists because the only limit on a cricket match is the overall time available for the match.

If you're playing a three-day game and you're much better than your opponents, you might bowl them all out in two sessions (a day's play is generally divided into three "sessions" of two hours each, or thereabouts, with lunch and tea in the two intervals). Your team then starts batting, and by lunch on the second day you've passed their first-innings total. By the close of play on the second day, your team is 200 runs ahead and only three wickets down. You're in a very strong position, but winning is by no means certain.

If there were no declarations, you would be faced with either batting right through the third day as well (which would result in a draw), or your batsman having to get themselves out, which is against the spirit of the game, and would distort the statistics - a batsman's average can be the difference between keeping his job and not, so they don't like to be told to get out.

Much better that you as captain say "Okay, you chaps have your second innings now". If you can bowl them all out for less than 200, you win the game. If they get 250 and then are all out with half an hour's play left, your team can go in for its second innings able to hit out and risk losing wickets, because you have only 51 to get. If you can't get them all out in a day... well, you weren't going to win anyway.

The second innings declaration is more tricky, because there's no comeback if you haven't got enough runs to win, and the team batting last have a real winning total. Sometimes offering them a total they might just make will tempt a team to take risk and give your side more chance of winning. The timing of the declaratin is one of the most interesting and challenging parts of captaincy.

Note, though, that a declaration never *completes* the game. If your team was batting last and you declared behind, you'd lose. If you get ahead, you've already won the match, it's over. I suppose you could declare with the scores tied, but from that point you can't lose, so why would you?

There has probably been a case of some terribly sporting declaration with the scores tied, for strange English gentleman-related reasons. It's the sort of thing cricket is full of.

Oh, and check out the match in your book where Brian Rose of Somerset declared with only one run scored and deliberately lost a match. if you can follow that, you're getting the hang of this cricket lark!

I presume that had something to do with run rates?

Okay, the fog is lifting ... very, very slowly. I gather if the team batting second is still batting when the alloted time runs out, it is a tie, regardless of how far ahead they are. So they declare, well ahead of the time limit, in order to force a decision, one way or the other. In simple, American oriented terms.

I read the chapter about "The Ten-Minute Game", Worcester, May 1979. Brian Rose declares after the first over, which according to Wisden "sacrificed all known cricketing principles". So his team loses the match 2-1. I only understand this halfway at best, but apparently Linus had it right, it was about tie-breakers and wicket-taking rates. Somerset was better off losing the match and protecting their wicket-taking rate. Or something. Apparently Somerset was within the rules (which were changed) but not the spirit, and were expelled.

Using the rules to your advantage is a time-honored tradition, in my opinion. For example, in American football, being tackled in your own endzone is a safety, two points for the other team. But if you're 3-5 points ahead and forced to punt (kick) on fourth down from your own two-yard line, there is a danger of a blocked punt and a touchdown for the opponents, 6 or 7 or 8 points. So late in the game, teams will take an intentional safety (you can also just run out the back of the endzone), giving away two points, then getting a free kick from the TWENTY yard line, virtually no danger of a quick touchdown. I've never heard anybody say this is not in the spirit of the game. In fact, coaches have been crucified for forgetting this fine point and losing the game.

So, cricketers are more into the spirit of the game, a good thing overall to me. But I'm having trouble understanding the chapter "Sixty From One Over: Sherborne, Dorset, July and August, 1988". " ... the Dorset captain, the Rev. Andrew Winfield Digby ... instructed seam-bowler Graeme Calway to bowl wides ... (which) travelled to the boundary without interruption ... his over cost 60 runs, 56 of them in wides." As I read this, it apparently had something to do with avoiding a draw, but beats me how.