paulb,
You beat me to it. I hasten to add that the expressions are purportedly those used by Australians living in Antartica - I have never heard any of them being used by us stay-at-homes.
CapK and Max,
Sorry if you wanted to start an animated exchange on The Underarm Bowling Incident, but on this issue I'm batting on your side. However, in view of the board's international flavour and the relative parochialism of cricket a la British Empire, I thought I'd post the background of the controversy/(ies) to which you refer.
The rules of cricket require the bowler NOT to straighten his arm during the delivery action. This is usually achieved by slinging the ball "over-arm" with a straight arm - I imagine you'll all have seen at least a few balls of cricket on TV, even if you haven't had the pleasure
of sitting through an entire five-day Test match (which may have ended in a draw, i.e. was not completed!)
Nothing in the rules requires the ball to be bowled overarm - it's just more effective.
A (comparatively recent) variation on the multi-day cricket match is the limited overs one-day match in which each team has the same number (usually 50) of "overs" (6 balls constitute an over) to score runs, unless all the batsmen are dismissed (well actually 10 of the 11) before then. Team with the most runs win. Pretty straightforward, eh?
The limited overs game has had considerable success in boosting the popularity of cricket, since it results in much more attacking play, more risk-taking, faster scoring rates, more frequent wickets (dismissals), and importantly, exciting finishes. Quite often the game will hinge on whether the team batting second can score, say 15 runs off the last 6 balls, often going right down to the last ball.
In a famous one-day match between Australia and New Zealand way back in 198x (Max or CapK to supply details, I'm not L'ingIU), New Zealand, batting second, required 6 runs (or it may have been 5, but the effect is the same) from the last ball to win the match. The only way to score a six is to hit the ball over the boundary fence on the full. In order to eliminate that possibility, the then captain of the Australian team, Greg Chappell, instructed his bowler, who happened to be his younger brother Trevor, to bowl the ball underarm along the ground. As I recall it, the NZ batsman stopped the ball then threw his bat in disgust, the crowd - at first stunned into silence - booed loudly, followed by a similar reaction from an entire nation. Diplomatic relations were strained.
One NZ newspaper the next day ran the headline "AUSSIES HAVE AN UNDERARM PROBLEM".
What can I say, Max, CapK? I don't presume to speak for all Australians, but I think that there were a lot of us hanging our heads in shame that day, and we still squirm when reminded.
Within the rules? Certainly. But in the spirit of the game? Definitely not! At the time, the expression "it's just not cricket" would have said it all, but as has been noted on this board before, I think, allegations of bribe-taking and match-fixing in international cricket have detracted from the meaning of that expression. Ditto for "the gentleman's game".
Onto a different controversy, Australia has recently suffered accusations that one its fast bowlers, Brett Lee, throws the ball rather than bowls it - i.e. that he straightens his arm as he delivers the ball. Similar accusations have been levelled at other bowlers - most notably by Australian cricket umpire Daryl Hair(sp?) against Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharin - see
http://iesu5.ust.hk/dfaculty/ravi/murali.html. Cricket doesn't appear to have come up with a good way of dealing with this type of complaint.
