What is a Googly?: The Mysteries of Cricket Explained

By Rob Eastaway

A new edition of Rob Eastaway's classic guide to the rules of cricket.

Cricket is one of the world's most popular sports, yet for the uninitiated, its peculiar laws and customs are a mystery. What is a 'silly mid off' and a 'long leg'? How can you be 'lbw'? And how can a match last for five days and still end up as a draw?

In this fully updated edition of the classic guide, Rob Eastaway demystifies the jargon and answers the questions you've always wanted to ask. It's also a timely reminder that for the true cricket lover, the game can be absorbing and exciting even when the ball isn't being smashed for six.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Sep 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781911622437

Book preview

illustrationIllustrationIllustration

CONTENTS

Illustration

Preface to the New Edition

1Why This Book?

2Where Did Cricket Come From?

3What is Cricket?

4Who’s Winning?

5What Do All the People Do?

6What About Tactics?

7Do Cricket Matches Last For Ever?

8What About All Those Numbers?

9Am I Ready to Go to a Match Now?

10 But What Makes Cricket so Special?

Glossary and Index

About the Author

Illustration

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

Illustration

One of the things that people love about cricket is its timelessness. In many ways it belongs to another era. Cricket, in a form that we would recognise today, has been played for over 200 years, and its history goes back a lot further than that. In a world that is changing so rapidly, there is comfort to be had in watching and taking part in a sport that is so tied to tradition, and which harks back to more tranquil times.

And yet in many ways cricket, too, is changing rapidly.

When this book was first published in 1992, I could safely assume that almost everybody’s experience of cricket would have been as a game played by men dressed in white clothing, and usually to be seen filling the afternoons on TV during the English summer. Nearly 30 years later, these assumptions no longer hold true.

Back in what feels like the dim and distant past (it was 2005, in fact) cricket was still being broadcast free on Channel 4. That summer, England played Australia in the biennial contest of matches that is famously known as the Ashes. It was an utterly compelling series, full of high drama and tension, and Britain was gripped by the performances of Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen and Shane Warne. Almost ten million people, many of them new converts to the game, watched the climax of the last two matches. Nearly every pub television was tuned to the cricket for the whole summer. By late August, even the news screens at major railway stations were providing live updates. Not only had almost everyone heard of a googly, but they had probably seen Australia’s Shane Warne bowl one, too.

At the end of the series, Channel 4’s contract came to an end, and free-to-air cricket was no more.

Fast-forward four years, to the next home Ashes series in 2009, and the TV viewing figures had collapsed. Live cricket was no longer something people would encounter when flicking through the channels in their living rooms, or when sitting in a pub. (I remember one lunchtime in 2009 trawling around pubs in central London desperately seeking – and failing to find – one that was showing the cricket. I wasn’t interested in having a drink. It was one of the oddest pub crawls ever.)

So while back in 1992 cricket (and particularly Test cricket) was a mystery to many people, today it is a mystery to far more. For the majority of Brits, cricket has become a sport that is seen only in fleeting glimpses while driving past a sports ground on a Sunday afternoon, or as a minute of highlights that feature in the sports segment on breakfast news, or a five-second video clip on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the cricket that people do come across on TV is now far less likely to be played in white clothing. In the last ten years, a new, fast form of cricket known as Twenty20 (or T20) has become the dominant form of the game. The players wear brightly coloured clothes and play with a white ball. The centre of gravity of cricket has moved firmly from England to India. The long version of the game, Test cricket, which is the version that has most of the history, the literature, the subtle variety and the humour, is now struggling for space in a crowded market.

There has been one other significant, and positive, change in cricket since this book was first published. Back in 1992, cricket was, to all intents and purposes, a game played by men. Women’s cricket existed, but it was played by a tiny minority, and few people could claim to have ever seen women playing in a cricket match. Contrast that with 2017, when a sold-out crowd of 24,000 at Lord’s cricket ground in London watched England beat India in a thrilling final to win the World Cup.

I could have completely rewritten this book to become a beginner’s guide to Twenty20 cricket. That, after all, is where the crowds of newcomers to cricket tend to flock. But Twenty20 is only a taster of what cricket has to offer, and to truly understand cricket it’s important to know about its origins and its different formats.

Fortunately, among all the variations, there are some things that are the same in every game of cricket, whether it’s played on the village playing field in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, or at the giant Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Runs, wickets, long legs and googlies can be found in all of them.

So I have decided to tamper as little as possible with the original format of the book. If that means it is a little bit biased towards Test cricket, then so be it. I grew up with Test cricket, just like my dad, and his father before him. And I hope that my children grow up with it too – not least because it’ll ensure we have something to talk about when they come and visit me in a nursing home.¹ And if that now puts me in the minority of cricket-lovers … well, this is my chance to turn things around.

I’d like to thank a few people for helping me in this new edition: Chris Healey, Colin Mayes, Pete Barker, Jean-Christophe Gray, Holly Colvin and the Porter family (Helen, Jon and Gemma) for helping to bring me up to date; Benedict Bermange and Andrew Samson for some great statistical nuggets, my editor Nicola Newman for being such fun to work with; and finally Mark Stevens, who happily threw himself into redrawing many of the cartoons and illustrations, 26 years after he did it the last time.

BATTER/BATSMAN

In the days when cricket was an almost exclusively male sport, few people gave the word ‘batsman’ a second thought. However, as women’s cricket has grown, the word ‘batter’ has increasingly become the norm, especially in youth and Twenty20 cricket. I’ve therefore decided to use ‘batter’ throughout the book, except in those situations where a specific player or historic situation is being referred to.

Illustration

_________

¹ Only joking, kids.

Illustration

1

WHY THIS BOOK?

Illustration

Some time ago I was having a drink with an American friend. He had spent the afternoon half-watching a game of cricket on Kew Green and I asked him what he’d made of it. He said there were a lot of things that he didn’t understand (which turned out to be an understatement), but in particular he couldn’t grasp two things: why were all the players wearing white (didn’t they all have terrible laundry bills each week) and why were they all prepared to stand around for so long without doing anything?

My American friend is not alone in being rather baffled by cricket. In fact the majority of people I have talked with since have – with a little coaxing – confessed to having ‘one or two’ questions about cricket that they have always been too embarrassed to ask. Highly popular on the list were: ‘What exactly is a silly mid off?’ and ‘What is a googly?’ And it seems that half the United Kingdom is anxious to know the answer to: ‘Why do they rub the ball on their trousers?’

Those large numbers who play cricket every weekend, however, seem to take it for granted that their families, friends and work colleagues will somehow understand its importance. ‘Hang on, Steve, can I put you on hold, England have just taken a wicket.’ ‘I’m sorry, dear, but you’ll have to entertain the grandparents on your own this weekend because I’m playing cricket.’

Of course, those who are not addicted to cricket don’t necessarily understand this obsession, partly because nobody has tried to explain the game. Nobody, that is, except the inventor of that tea towel which can be found in many of the kitchens of Great Britain, and which pretends to explain cricket to Americans.

Illustration

Has it ever occurred to cricketers that the only reason most of their partners come along to the game is that it is marginally preferable to be able to see your other half at 100 yards than not to see them at all? And that the remote, glazed look that comes over them when the cricketer is explaining a catch at silly mid off is not one of admiration but of incomprehension (and boredom)?

Well, this book is an attempt to uncover the freemasonry of cricket so that those who want to can get a better understanding of what it is that so obsesses the millions of cricket-lovers all over the world. I have tried to explain why it is that people get so passionate about cricket. Perhaps it will take more than a book to convince a newcomer to the game. But I hope at least that it will sow a seed which, after further study and not a little patience, might just convert one or two people.

The chapters are all based on the questions I have been asked most often – by Spanish, Irish, American and Scottish folk as well as by the English. The book is designed to be read straight through, but you can dip into it to answer particular questions. The first time that I have used a bit of cricket jargon, I have underlined it – and of course, if you are ever confused by a word, you can always look it up in the glossary.

The glossary may seem a bit long, but I thought it was better to include too much than to have too little, because cricket abounds with technical terms. What is particularly confusing is that there is often more than one term to describe something in cricket – and often you will hear a commentator using all of them in one sentence. For example, those three sticks behind the batter are called either the stumps or the wicket.

Just to confuse matters even further, there are also some words that mean more than one thing: the wicket is not only those three sticks, but also the dismissal of a batter (as in ‘I took his wicket’) and the strip of short-cut grass in the middle of the field (which is also called the pitch). So, it is possible for you to be playing on an uneven ‘wicket’ (pitch) which means that the ball keeps low and hits your ‘wicket’ (stumps) thus resulting in the loss of another ‘wicket’ (player out) for your team. Like any terminology that is new to you, you will probably find all this baffling at first. You might also find it amusing or just plain ridiculous. But you will get used to it remarkably quickly. Remember, cricket is a richly funny game, and its language is part of the great joke.

Finally, if at any time you find yourself asking the question, ‘Yes, but why do they do that?’ remember that cricket and logic don’t always go hand in hand: cricketers talk about fair play, but as you will see, in many cases cricket can be as cruel and unfair as it is possible to be.

Cricket is a beautiful and fascinating game. All I have to do now is prove it.

Illustration

2

WHERE DID CRICKET COME FROM?

Illustration

Before we get on to the subject of what cricket is, it’s probably worth your while knowing a bit about where it came from, because commentators and others do refer an awful lot to cricket in the old days. Where exactly cricket came from is one of its great mysteries. Perhaps it was first played in a windswept field by a couple of bored English shepherds in the fourteenth century. One of the shepherds held a crook,

Reviews for What is a Googly?

[ardh_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you read this book, you will understand cricket. Really. I'm serious. Even the bits about silly mid-off and googlies.

[ginsbourg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a pure treasure, even though i have never played cricketi could not let go of this book, very funny but very real explanations.