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

Hi Loony,

Enzed to kick Oz butt? You wish! Another second placing to the all-conquering Aussies is about as good as it will get for you, cobber. Have a Boags premium or three, relax and enjoy. If it gets tedious, switch stations and watch McGrath, Gillespie and Lee (B) get among the Windies in Perth. Take care,

Walter

Alas, yes. Clear is a telco.

Clear as mud...

G'day Walter. The joke game, Aus V WI from Perth, clashes with the competitive series NZ v SA from Port Elizabeth and the Aus PGA Golf from Brisbane - keep an eye on Kiwi, Michael Campbell.

Looney -

Thanks for the cricinfo site, it looks well done (I haven't had time to really explore it yet). But I have to admit being confused about all the times - 10 PM British, 11 AM NZ, 6 PM Pacific (Florida)time.

Here in Texas (in Houston, at least, on the Gulf Coast), we talk about being the "Third Coast". But I think Floridians (or maybe Californians) might object to Florida being on the Pacific coast. OTOH, they can't seem to figure out a simple ballot, so maybe not ...

Just kidding, of course, in the UK, I was confused about every coast - Liverpool? Dover? Manchester? Scotland? But I knew where the pub was - right over there.

Excellent work Steve. Here's a couple of letters about the Women's World Cup from the cricinfo mailing list. Enjoy.

David Druery writes from Australia:

To The Australian Women's Cricket Team, You are the world champions. Continue the tradition of proving to the cricket nations that Australia is supreme.

To Belinda Clark, captain of the Australian team, my best wishes go with you and your team. You are an admirer of Steve Waugh and furthermore you also are admired because of the skill and determination you have. You inspired Australia to victory in India during the last World Cup and you would inspire Australia to victory once again.

Best wishes to you and your team.

---

Penny Kinsella writes from New Zealand:

Most reasonable non-Australians would like to see a new champion - no malice or spite involved. At the top of the tree, the champions look down to see the smiling faces of those climbing up to challenge. However, the view looking up is a little different.

I have very fond memories of Australia's worst effort at a World Cup (1993) - all out for 78. New Zealand won by 10 wickets (having earlier been comprehensively beaten in the Rose Bowl). It can happen again...

Sounds like the women cricketers get a lot of attention. I always thought women's sports were some of those WAYYY late at night ESPN things, even AFTER the two white guys boxing But Houston's WNBA (women's basketball) team gets a lot of attention, probably due in no small part to the fact that they have been champions every year since the league started (three?). And in fact they can be more fun to watch - the ladies actually rely on basketball skill rather than the Sumo wrestling techniques the men have adopted.

You wouldn't normally hear about it, and once this world cup is over you won't hear about it again until the next one...

To try and explain the commentary:

>>80.1 GW Flower to Tendulkar, two runs, on the middle and leg, swept fine to the fine leg region
80.1 means the first ball after 80 complete overs.
GW Flower bowling to Tendulkar, two runs scored (pretty obvious)
Ball bounced in line with a point between the middle stump and the leg stump(closest to the batsman) of the wicket
Swept means that the bat was brought across the body of the batsman to push the ball behind him.
Fine leg region is the area just behind the batsman. (If you consider a clock and 12 o'clock was straight down the pitch, fine leg would be between 12 and 1 if the batsman is right-handed or between 11 and 12 if he is left-handed)

>>80.2 GW Flower to Tendulkar, no run, short delivery on the off, and comming in a bit, defended
Short delivery on the off means it bounced closer to the bowler than usual deliveries and bounced outside the line joining the off stumps(furthest from the batsman)
Comming in a bit means that the ball had some spin, so moved more toward the wicket.
Defended means he played a defensive shot (pretty much straight down, doesn't go very far)

>>80.3 GW Flower to Tendulkar, no run, driven straight to the cover fielder
Pretty obviously hit to the cover fielder, who is on the off side and around the other wicket

>>80.4 GW Flower to Tendulkar, one run, tunded away to fine leg of his backfoot and the batsman goes for a easy single
I'm not really sure what tunded means. The rest is fairly obvious

>>80.5 GW Flower to Dravid, FOUR, quicker one pushed down the leg side, dravid plys it fine to the fine leg boundary
Plays it fine to the fine leg boundary means he didn't hit it hard, just a nudge to move it enough to miss the wicket-keeper. It travelled right to the boundary in the fine leg area.

>>80.6 GW Flower to Dravid, no run
Obvious

>>End of over 81 (7 runs) India 284/2
7 runs made in the 81st over. Total score 284 runs for 2 wickets

>>GW Flower 8-0-24-0 - Corporation End
Flower's bowling stats: 8 overs, no maidens, 24 runs, no wickets (I believe is the order) and he was bowling from the Corporation end of the ground (Different grounds name the ends differently, so you need to know the ground to know which end this is)

>>SR Tendulkar 35* (69b 4x4) R Dravid 85* (178b 12x4)
The two batsmen who are in are SR Tendulkar who has made 35 runs and is not out (the * means not out), faced 69 balls and has made 4 fours and R Dravid who has made 85 runs not out from 178 balls and has made 12 fours.

Hope this helps your understanding.

Yes, many thanks for the patient explanation. When I bought the little Gem book "Cricket" in London (the book that started all this, way back even before the US election started ), I was hoping for similar explanations. But apparently the editors of the book considered that kind of info as something people are born knowing. In a funny bit on the US TV show "Frasier" (the title character is a lovably pompous shrink with tastes including opera, wine, and art - not sports), someone says the baseball team that night has a double-header. Seeing his confused look, Daphne (his father's British accented physical therapist) says "They're playing two games".

Just read that Colin Cowdrey died this morning
Though I'm too young to remember them mans playing days, it seems like he was a player true to the spirit of the game and continued after his playing days had ended.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/cricket/newsid_1055000/1055384.stm

I read about the passing of Mr. Cowdrey in the London Times on the Web. I did not know the name, but it sounds like he had a pretty good life.

The Times article did raise a question:

"For the next 15 years Cowdrey, when fit and available, had a virtually automatic place in the England side. In 1957 he shared, with May, a world Test record partnership for the fourth wicket of 411. It was against West Indies at Edgbaston, and "Sonny" Ramadhin, the puzzlingly unorthodox spinner from Trinidad, was never quite the same threat again, largely because of the forward "prop" which Cowdrey patented to counter him. With the front pad being used as a lateral extension of the bat, the stroke, if such it can be called, has done more than anything to reduce the effectiveness of all but the very best slow bowlers."

I still don't understand the order of batsmen, or the idea of partners, so the part about the "record partnership for the fourth wicket" is confusing. Are the batsmen at the fourth wicket always better/worse than the earlier/later batsmen? And if you can substitute (?) a night watchman, wouldn't that change the order of batsmen? Also, it sounds like a batsman can hit the ball with his glove/pad?

Hi Steve,

Your enquiries are a constant reminder to me of all that needs to go in my Cricket project

Cowdrey was a true great: he produced results, and did it with great style. He was a real gentlemen and hugely respected in the game. I believe he and his son Christopher are the only father/son combination to have both captained England - but Chris was only competent, and wouldn't have got the job without the name.

Anyway, partnerships:
There are eleven players in a team. Two bat at once. (but you knew that)
The First Wicket partnership is between the first two guys in.
Then one of those two is out, and batsman no.3 comes in to join whichever of 1 and 2 is still in, and that's the Second Wicket partnership - that "partnership" being the runs between when the first and second wickets fall.
So one batsman in a partnership is always "numbered" one more than the partnership number (no.23 in the 2nd wicket etc), and one is an earlier batsman.
When the tenth batsman is out, one is left without a partner, so the innings ends. So, ten partnerships per innings.

So May and Cowdrey (and etras) scored 411 runs without a wicket falling. That is a *lot*.

The rules of who bats where are flexible, but as a general rule:
Batsmen 1 and 2 (the "openers") are players with good defensive technique. Their primary job is to bat through at least the first hour and not get out - run-scoring is usually secondary at this time. That's because the first overs, when the fast bowlers are fresh and the ball is very hard, are the most difficult times not to get out.

Batsman 3 tends to be a bit like the openers (he often has to go in early, because of the aforementioned difficulty) and a bit like...

Batsmen 4 to 6(approx) - the "middle order". These guys are the showmen and the run-scorers. They accelerate the pace against the softer ball and the tiring bowlers.
The end of the middle order is only approximate, rather like the edge of the atmosphere - it just thins out. Some teams tend, in some situations, to play more batsmen and fewer bowlers (the classic line-up is five bowlers, five pure batsmen and a wicket-keeper, but many teams take the field with only four good bowlers). All-rounders also extend the middle order.
A genuine all-rounder is a bowler (or sometimes wicket-keeper) who is worth his place for that, but also would be purely as a batsman. More common is the player who is okay at bowling and okay at batting, not really quite top-class at either, but he gives you options. Such a man is often called a "bits-and-pieces" player.
Some teams are bursting with all-rounders: South Africa, for instance, are currently very fortunate to have players like Jacques Kallis (excellent batsman, dangerous bowler), Shaun Pollock (world's no.2 bowler, also capable of scoring centuries) and Lance Klusener (past his best as a bowler, but a huge-hitting batsman, cricket's Mark McGwire).

Towards the end of the innings come the bowlers (and sometimes the wicket-keeper, though he is normally at least competent) who really don't have much chance of batting for long - they are known as the "tail-enders".

Your "best" batsman may bat anywhere from 1 to 5 or 6. Because of the extra difficulty opening, a later player may average higher and still not be as valuable to the team as a dogged opener (see Atherton, Michael).

The current top-rated players in the world:
Sachin Tendulkar tends to bat no.3 or 4 in tests, and opens in one-dayers.
Andy Flower bats in the middle order (usually no.5) and keeps wicket.
Steve Waugh bats in the middle order, sometimes as low as no.6 (and bowls).
Saeed Anwar opens.
Inzamam-ul-Haq bats no.4.

The batting order is decided by the captain and isn't fixed between innings. It doesn't even have to be declared at the start of an innings, hence the ability to bring in a night watchman. Sometimes a team changes the order to keep one left-handed and one right-handed batsman together, which can make it harder to bowl a consistent line. However, the original team list will have a nominal order, which is used on the daily scorecards (programs) at the ground, and on the scoreboard - so you may sometimes see "No. 6" come in at the fall of the second wicket, for instance.

As for the defensive use of the pad:
The LBW law states that the batsman cannot be out if the ball pitches outside leg stump - so any ball landing there can be kicked away quite safely. The advantage over using your bat is that you can't be caught if the ball bounces unexpectedly high, but you also can't score any runs.
If the ball hits you on a line between the two wickets, and would have hit the wicket, you have to play it with your bat, or you can be LBW.
However, if the ball hits you outside the off-stump and would have gone on to hit the wicket, the umpire has to judge whether you attempted to use your bat. If you did, you cannot be LBW. If you didn't, you're out.
The "Cowdrey prod" is a technique where you put the bat and pad together, and thrust your leg down the pitch: you really intend to use the pad so you can't be caught, but you have the bat close enough to it that you won't be LBW. Alternatively, you may be trying to hit it with the bat, but the pad is there in case the ball spins more than you expected and you miss it with the bat.

A batsman's glove counts as part of the bat so long as he is holding onto the bat with it (so he can't be LBW, but can be caught). If he takes his hand off the bat and uses that to stop the ball, he will be given out "handled the ball".

Phew. I hope that's clearer

Well the fourth wicket partnership is the two batsmen who are in after the fall of the third wicket. This could be batsman 1 and 5, 2 and 5, 3 and 5 or 4 and 5.
The night watchmen idea is that one of the lower order batsmen, say the one who would have played at number 10 in the regular order, goes in late in the day to save putting one of the better batsmen in at towards then end of a days play. It does change the order of the batsmen but it's not a substitute in the true sense of changing one guy for another, more a rearanging of the batting order to suit the conditions.
Not sure about the pad/glove thing.

I thought that was the glove/pad item, so thanks for clearing that up for me as well

GVI & Phil -

Thanks, it really is starting to make sense. I need to read your messages a couple of times more to let them digest. But it is interesting about the order of batsmen.

In school, I was a tall, skinny kid who always batted first (baseball, of course). Not a single person questioned my goal - to get to first base. (This was also a goal in other areas, but ...) The third or fourth batter was a BIG guy, like GVI's McGwire, who would "knock everybody in", i.e. hit a long ball (triple, home run) scoring everybody on base.

We always had a coach at third base who gave us a "sign" on what to do. Nine times out of ten, my sign was "bunt". This is apparently like a defensive stroke in cricket, just get the ball down on the field (has to be forward in baseball, of course, otherwise "foul" and a strike), then run like hell. The pitcher (bowler) and catcher (wicketkeeper), and maybe the first and third baseman would all fall over themselves trying to field the short ball and throw to first. This worked a *lot*, I really was fast (said with no trace of humility). Once in my life (sounds like a Beatles song) I hit a home run - to the surprise of everybody, including me.

The point being ... the batting order is a big deal to coaches/captains. But in baseball, it cannot be changed, the listed batter either bats or is out of the game (for a pinch hitter, typically). It sounds like cricket is more flexible.

GVI, you use of the word program instead of programme when explaining some of the intricacies of cricket to Steve was the sign of a caring man. I'm sure our regular correspondent Walter of Croine would be most impressed with how well you performed on a potentially sticky wicket

Ooops, Coine. Sorry Walter.

Loony -

Right, this forum requires bi-lingual participants. Maybe there is a program we could use to translate between cricket and baseball. It didn't work so well with English/French, tho, they tried "Out of sight, out of mind" into French, then back to English. It came out "Blind lunatic", which BTW would be a good name for a rock band.

Blind lunatic is a term used in a caring, sharing way in communications between cricketers and umpires. It can also be heard wafting across the field of play when uttered by spectators - along with some other less savoury comments.