The BBC reports that South Africa close in on victory. Here's an excerpt from the article,Nazir was dropped by Pollock before the break off the luckless Ntini and could have been run out twice before thrashing the seamer over mid-wicket for six and seeing his stumps re-arranged attempting a repeat.Hmmm ... it looks like English but .....
Naved, who survived a strong caught behind appeal off Pollock in the first over after tea, and Kaneria took over to launch a succession of meaty blows.
Three fours came in one over from Ntini and a startled Pollock was thrashed over long-off and mid-wicket for huge maximums.
Harris saw off Kaneria to bring the carnage to an end but the momentum had shifted back towards Pakistan.
Does anyone want to explain to this ignorant Canadian what's happening?
lol.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what it means, but Dawkins used similar vaquely English sounding words in a review of Gould's "Full House":
Gould’s modest and uncontroversial statistical point is simply this. An apparent trend in some measurement may signify nothing more than a change in variance, often coupled with a ceiling or floor effect. Modern baseball players no longer hit a 0.400 (whatever that might be – evidently it is something pretty good). But this doesn’t mean they are getting worse. Actually everything about the game is getting better and the variance is getting less. The extremes are being squeezed and 0.400 hitting, being an extreme, is a casualty. The apparent decrease in batting success is a statistical artefact, and similar artefacts dog generalisations in less frivolous fields.
That didn’t take long to explain, but baseball occupies 55 jargon-ridden pages of this otherwise lucid book and I must enter a mild protest on behalf of those readers who live in that obscure and little known region called the rest of the world. I invite Americans to imagine that I spun out a whole chapter in the following vein:
"The home keeper was on a pair, vulnerable to anything from a yorker to a chinaman, when he fell to a googly given plenty of air. Silly mid on appealed for leg before, Dicky Bird’s finger shot up and the tail collapsed. Not surprisingly, the skipper took the light. Next morning the night watchman, defiantly out of his popping crease, snicked a cover drive off a no ball straight through the gullies and on a fast outfield third man failed to stop the boundary . . ." etc. etc.
Readers in England, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and anglophone Africa would understand every word, but Americans, after enduring a page or two, would rightly protest.
lol...they're playing cricket, and winning but they're scraping through, luck's on SA"s side and they were taking advantage of that.
ReplyDeleteCricket rocks, just has a lingo of it's own that's all. Kinda ingrained in us, so we get it i guess, on the other hand, the baseball comment ^^there is gibberish to us :P
Three fours came in one over:
ReplyDelete1 over is 6 balls, there are usually 50 overs in one day cricket.
Four runs are given in one ball... when the ball crosses the boundry.
so, there were 3 such 4s in that Group of 6 balls(1 over).
hope that helps a bit.
Larry now you know why creationists can't understand evolutionary biology. What the hell does this mean anyway
ReplyDelete'In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.'
I'm on a mailing list with Barry Williams, president of the Australian Skeptics Society, and half his posts read like that.
ReplyDeleteHe's been insufferable since Australia won back the Ashes in three games. :)
I have been accused of being insufferable because of my mission to bring civilisation to the North American continent, a charge I strenuously deny. What reasonable human could possibly misunderstand or detect vainglory in the following report that I recently furnished (gratis) to the poor benighted denizens of that unhappy land mass?
ReplyDelete"After the coldest Melbourne Xmas Day in living memory (it reached a tropical 14.5 degrees in mid-afternoon - and this is Summer) a near-record 90 000 turned out for the first day of the traditional Boxing Day Test under lowering skies at the vast amphitheatre of the MCG. It might seem strange to lesser mortals that so many people, with the series already decided and with the sacred urn back where it belongs (actually the sacred urn belongs at Lords in London, whoever holds The Ashes, but this is no time to compromise with symbolism) would risk the weather on such a day, but this reckons without the religious fervour of the average Oz cricket fan, particularly the Melbourne cricket fan. Besides, local hero, Shane Warne was just one wicket away from an unprecedented 700 wickets and where better to achieve this milestone than on his beloved home turf?
England captain, Andrew Flintoff, won the toss and elected to bat, on a pitch that was showing a more-than-usual green tinge and held the promise of "doing something" early for the pace attack. And indeed that was the case, as the impeccable Australian seamers made the ball move around. The morning session suffered a couple of interruptions from rain and England went to lunch, lucky to be only a couple of wickets down for around 40. After lunch, Strauss, the opener for whom such high hopes had been held, reached 50 for the first time in the series and the total climbed to 101 without further loss. The crowd, who had been getting increasingly vocal as their hero had not yet bowled, let out a concerted roar as Ricky Ponting tossed the ball to the Worlds Greatest Ever Slow Bowler. It was the first day on a Melbourne greentop, with the pace battery performing well — not the ideal conditions for a spinner — but the public was not to be denied. Warne immediately struck a length, weaving his magic in the minds of the batsmen, but it was not until the second ball of his fourth over that he struck gold. He tossed up a well flighted leg break, which drifted to leg, dropped precipitously, struck the pitch and spun wickedly. Strauss didn't do too much wrong, he played forward, but the ball passed between his bat and pad (an impossible seeming gap) to leave the bails performing parabolas through the air and the middle stump leaning drunkenly back in its socket.
The roar that erupted from the arena could have been heard on Mars — he was there — 700 wickets and on his home ground. Then he went on to notch up 701, 702, 703 and 704 to achieve his 37th five wicket haul, as the Poms crumbled to be all out for 159. Australia started well until, just before stumps, opener Langer and night watchman Lee were dismissed in consecutive balls, to leave them an uncomfortable night ahead .
Day 2 dawned fine and it didn't take long before English hearts started to fill with some pride as form Australian bats, Ponting, Hussey and Clarke were dismissed for 7, 6 and 5 — five for 84 and a possible (though improbable) first innings lead seemed imminent. The next batsman to the crease was, after all, Andrew Symonds, the dazzling all-rounder star of Australia's One Day side, but who had disappointed in his sparse test appearances hitherto. At the other end was the imposing figure of Matthew Hayden, widely regarded as the most punishing opener of recent times, until a reversal of form in the past two seasons had put his position under something of a cloud. The two burly Queenslanders, best mates in private life, put their heads down and decided to retrieve the situation, and 279 runs later (the second highest sixth wicket partnership by Australians) when Hayden went for 153, the issue was no longer in doubt. Andrew Symonds [is] a bloke who refuses to take life too seriously, and such is his reputation among his team mates. He bowls a nagging and accurate medium pace, as well as off breaks, and is one of the best fielders in the modern game, but it is his bat that has made him a fixture in the shorter (One Day) game. Too often, when he had had a chance in tests, he has thrown away his wicket in a chase for quick runs.
But here we saw a different Andy Symonds. Supported by his senior mate, he played himself in with judicious shot selection until the English total had been passed, then he began to flower. At 96, and with a well-deserved maiden test century in his sights, he strode down the wicket to a ball from Collingwood and lifted it straight back over the bowler's head into the tenth row of spectators - a massive six. The roar from the crowd, if not quite Warne-like, was not far short. At stumps the home side was 7/365 (or thereabout) and the game had been saved.
Day 3 and Andy added only two more to his overnight score to be out for 156. Warne added 40 runs to his tally of wickets and Australia was all out for 419, a lead on the first innings of 260.
The rest degenerated into farce as England struggled to be all out for 161 shortly before stumps were due to be drawn on Day 3. Australia had won by an innings and 99 runs. The England team, in two completed innings, had managed only 11 more runs than the two brawny Queenslanders had scored off their own bats. 245 000 people had attended this fourth stanza of a dead rubber and were royally rewarded for their dedication.
Onwards to Sydney on Jan 2 and a whitewash in prospect."
(Incidentally, that whitewash was duly performed before lunch on Day 4 of the Sydney Test.)
Barry Williams
CEO
Australian Skeptics
What did I tell you? :)
ReplyDeleteTry this, it should help (perhaps) ....
ReplyDeleteTHE RULES OF CRICKET
You have two sides in the field, one out and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs, that's the end of the game. .... Howzat! (?)