| 
Posts and words
Loading ...
And God Created Cricket
‘Gentlemanly’ conduct?
By Rich Abbott last year, at the end of November, 2 Comments »
Simon Hughes’s excellent book, And God Created Cricket, recently alerted me to a custom that existed in the game before being banished by the first incarnation of the laws in 1744. Namely, that the striker would be penalised if “he runs out of his Ground to hinder a Catch”.
Apparently, before this was officially clarified, it was not uncommon for a batsman to, in Hughes’s words, “literally assault a fielder as he was attempting to take the ball”. This conjours up images of an intruiging cricket-rugby fusion, as well as making jellybean disputes and that strange sideways point adopted briefly by Stuart Broad against South Africa in the World T20, look decidedly lame as distraction techniques in comparison.
The book is full of such gems, and is a must for any self-respecting Christmas list. And, if the ICC are looking for ways to jazz up World Cup 2011, (all 43 days of it), then the image of Jesse Ryder bearing down on a terrified silly point fielder does have a certain appeal…
2 Comments »