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(Ha - I knew THAT subject title would grab your attention Hev!!)
I've been watching the mighty Aussies give yet another international team a flogging over the past week or two. Noted that the commentators regularly refer to a full length delivery on the on side (a couple of cricketing terms thrown in just to bamboozle the non-cricketers!) as being, "Right in the block hole!"
What's a block hole / blockhole?
stales
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Whoa - I'm happy for you to kill this thread Faldage - it is a worthy sacrifice for THE best cricket site I've ever seen. Ta muchly!
(Certainly a better site than the one that stated "BLOCK HOLE" could be "Cured with a good Sri Lankan curry".)
stales
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Dear Faldage: Is Fanny Bush pseudonym for Pubic O'Hare?
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Is Fanny Bush pseudonym for Pubic O'Hare?
No.
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Pooh-Bah
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Stalesy, could have told you about the block hole if I'd seen this earlier, but my time on the Board is now extremely limited. The entry alluded to by Uncle Bill and (indirectly) by Faldo the Great is for Bush, Frances Jemima and is a bit of a laff.
There was a period in the sixties (when I wer't a lad) when umpires disliked yorkers so much that they would get the groundsman to do something about the block hole during the lunch break. That seems to have died the death during the intervening years. Even worse is wear on the pitch from fast bowlers' feet. If you get a left-arm fast bowler who goes around the wicket, you get footstep depressions for a few feet beyond the crease. These are just made for medium-pace and slow bowlers and spinners who put up a good length. Half the time the ball will shy away from the batsman, but the other half of the time the ball can cut back in towards the wicket at a truly wicked and unpredictable angle, especially for a well-delivered seamer ...
- Pfranz
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THE best cricket site I've ever seen.
I went from knowing nothing of cricket worth talking about to being able to explain baseball reasonably well to Rhuby using compare and contrast with cricket by having read The Don's Farewell to Cricket with Aunt Fanny's little dictionary at hand. Farewell to Cricket would have been totally incomprehesible without Aunt Fanny.
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There was a period in the sixties (when I wer't a lad) when umpires disliked yorkers so much that they would get the groundsman to do something about the block hole during the lunch break. That seems to have died the death during the intervening years. Even worse is wear on the pitch from fast bowlers' feet.
This explains why our home matches are nearly always played on the artficial wicket. I and a few other bowling team members enjoy pitching yorkers. Pitching them into the block hole dents a real wicket and the batsmans parry does much the same damage rendering the wicket unusable for several weeks after the game. So we part-timers get the astroturf - which just can't get the bounce or the spin.
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Pooh-Bah
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I shouldn't be responding to this - bed beckons - but Rubrick's comment put me in mind of Ewan Chatfield, who bowled slow/medium pace for NZ for many years. In a test match he'd bowl over after over at the batsmen using exactly the same line and length, which were such that if the batsman failed to at least block the ball it would take the middle stump out every time. Frustrating for the batsmen and neophyte cricket watchers, because it required absolute concentration from the one and looked as dull as dishwater to the second. But if there was one lapse in concentration ... Every so often, however, Ewan would bowl up a yorker, i.e. he simply changed the length. I won't say it got the batsman out every time, but after being mesmerised by Ewan's consistency for a few overs, it often completely bamboozled the batsman, who would be on his way back to the clubhouse saying "What happened? What happened?" before he even realised he was out!  - Pfranz
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(Ha - I knew THAT subject title would grab your attention Hev!!)
Well I declare, I'm a bit slow off the mark. Guess I'll have to duck in here a little more regularly, so I don't have to miss out on all these extras.
It's onto the front foot for me then... Time to go put the TV on to watch a few overs.  It's been a while since there's been a good cricket thread around here. Thanks stales!
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...Well I declare, I'm a bit slow off the mark. Guess I'll have to duck in here a little more regularly, so I don't have to miss out on all these extras...It's onto the front foot for me then...
Working it beautifully Hev! No back foot play from you. Only when it was over did I realise your game plan. Initially went wide of the mark and straight through to the keeper.
(And....as for full lengths and bowling maiden overs - well, I'm just not going there!)
stales
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"...they would get the groundsman to do something about the block hole during the lunch break
I don't think this is a lost art - went to an interstate game at the WACA last year and noted that the bucket of sand/cement, pail of whitewash and broom were all trotted out during the lunch break. Lot of activity around the creases at both ends. (I guess anything that interferes with the surface of the fastest and truest wicket in the world causes heartburn for the curator!)
stales
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it's conversations such as these that make me wish cricket had caught on in the US.
formerly known as etaoin...
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stranger
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I still love the legendary wordplay that went on in the commentary box. No other sport commentators come anywhere close.
A bowler named Mann knocked off the stumps of a batsman named Mann in an England - South Africa Test. Arlott's comment: "Mann's inhumanity to Mann."
John Arlott's description of a Pakistani bowler's runup (was it Salim Altaf?) in the 60's: "Funny run up that. Reminds me of Groucho Marx chasing a waitress"
How about the poor commentator during an Australian tour of India referring to Alan Conolly as "Anal Colony"?
A Correspondant from the Telegraph on Bob Cunis, the NZ bowler "His bowling, like his name, is neither one thing nor the other." ("On the edge of my seat" by Henry Blofeld)
Sunil Gavaskar in Sharjah to Charles Colville (TWI commentator), "Why do wicket keepers make good lovers?" Colville, "No Idea"
Gavaskar, " Because they get up at the slightest opportunity."
Fred Trueman of Bomber Wells, " When he shouts "yes" for a run, it is merely the basis for further negotiations!"
(quoted in Dickie Bird's collection of anecdotes)
Harsha Bhogle on Narendra Hirwani, " If you make a team of all the number eleven batsmen in the world, Hirwani would still bat at number eleven!"
Brian Johnston on the Beeb "We welcome listeners with the news that Warr's declared" This made an old lady call up the BBC and ask "Against whom?"
Glen Turner getting hit in the fuse box on the 5th ball.
BJ :"Looks like he will carry on. One ball left."
England vs WI Trent Bridge 1950. Major partnership in progress
BJ : " I wonder what Norman Yardley is going to do to end this partnership."
Camera pans to Yardley who is scratching an embarassing place.
BJ :" Obviously, a very ticklish problem!"
BJ once meant to say," Henry Horton has got a funny sort of stance - it looks as if he's sitting on a shooting stick." He said it the other way around!
BJ : "Goodbye to Northampton and over to Edgbaston for some more balls from Rex Alston."
BJ : " Ken Barrington was dropped when two." He got a letter from a lady talking about the carelessness of mothers.
BJ's legendary gaffe immediately after proceedings began a break with Michael Holding (WI) bowling to Peter Willey (England). "Welcome back. The bowler's Holding the batsman's Willey".
Rex Alston : " Over now to *Old* John Arlott at *Trafford*."
England vs Australia, Headingly 1961
BJ : " There's Neil Harvey standing at leg slip, legs spread wide apart waiting for a tickle."
Rex Alston : " No runs from that over by Jack Young which means that he has now had four maidens on the trot."
Camera pans to John Warr sitting with his fiancee' Valerie
BJ : " Ah, Warr and piece."
Gatting to Gower during the 84-85 Eng Vs India series
Gatt:" Should I get wider at cover, David?"
Chris Cowdrey: "No mate, if you get any wider, you'll burst"
(quoted in Gower - An autobiography and in
Leading from the Front - by Mike Gatting.)
The following gems are from Fred Truman quoted in ,"FRED, Potrait of a fast bowler." by John Arlott (1971),
Hodder and Stoughton.Great Britain. I had posted them on the usenet newsgroup rec.sport.cricket in 1992 :-)
Pg 83
Tyson, coming back in the afternoon bowled Illingworth, which let in Wardle who was, in the words of Jim Sims 'not frightened, but somewhat apprehensive' When Tyson eventually managed to get at him he gave him the Trueman treatment, first a bouncer and then a straight half-volley which bowled him on the retreat. Trueman was the next batsman, and as he passed Wardle on the way to the wicket he remarked acidly,"What a bloody stroke". Within a minute he was on his way back - bowled Tyson 0 - and when he reached the dressing room, Wardle was waiting with 'What a bloody stroke". "Ay" he said,"I slipped on that heap of shit you dropped in the crease." This piece of repartee was
admired in the dressing-rooms for months.
---
Pg 92
.....when, after a batsman who had already twice unconciously deflected him between pad and leg stump, made an on-side push and scored four to third man off the outside. Fred finished his follow through, stood hands
on hips and said in a tone of loathing and contempt, "You got more bloody edges than a broken pisspot."
---
Pg 96
May went to Trueman soon after taking him off and asked him to bowl another flat-out spell while there was still time to win. As his bedraggled and sweating fast bowler wearily put out his hand for the ball he said cheerfully
"Come on, Fred - England expects, you know". "Oh, does she, skipper,is that why they call her the mother country?"
----
pg 128
...and Fred to a delight he could not conceal, was appointed senior professional. It is convincingly related that when he was informed of this elevation, his first comment was, "Then t'first thing these buggers'll have
to do is cut out t'bloody swearing."
---
pg99
..That did not prevent Trueman from cracking three of Evans' ribs with a beamer and apologising with, "Sorry about your ribs Godders- really I meant to skull you - anyway, why didn't you put your bloody bat there?"
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Pg150-151
Three remarks from this tour have gone down in the Trueman annals. In the two days while the party flown out to Aden, waited for their boat to Australia - the Canberra - they were generously entertained. At one party a local Sheikh ws present and one of the hosts pointed him out and said,
"He's got a hundred and ninety six wives". "Has he?" said Fred."Does he know that with another four he could have a new ball?"
David Sheppard who had interrupted a clerical career to make the tour, scored an important century at Melbourne but otherwise did not distinguish himself and after, a long absence from the first class game, he not unexpectedly dropped a number of catches. After one such miss Fred, the
injured bowler, said, "Kid yourself it's Sunday, Rev., and keep your hands together".
------
Pg 155
As time grew short, Peter Sainsbury tossed his slow left-arm higher and higher in an attempt to persuade him (Trueman) into an injudicious stroke. Fred, resolutely abjuring his big swing, pushed forward with puritanical
rectitude. Sainsbury raised the curve even more alluringly; Trueman continued with his defensive prod. Eventually he turned to Leo Harrison, the wicket
keeper, with "My word he chucks it up, this cock, doesn't he? I'm all right when his bloody arm comes over, but I'm out of form by the time the bloody ball gets here". Later Sainsbury, unsuccessful, went off for Shackleton and
Ingleby-Mackenzie pushed the close fieldsmen up around the bat. Fred surveyed them with asperity and the words, "Stand back, go on, stand back - or I'll appeal against the light".
Cheers
Arun
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A minor cross-thread:
Dorothy Sayers is mentioned in the "Need-Book-Recommendation" thread on this forum. In "Murder Must Advertise" there is a teasing (for USns) episode involving a cricket match, Lord Peter apparently having been quite a player in his youth.
Would any of our fans out there like to comment on that scene? Is it utter fancy? A germ of truth? Spot on? Captures the flavor or exaggerated and silly?
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Probably an urban legend but Richie Benaud was once claimed to have commented during his morning introduction that "Steve Waugh is out injured with a badly swollen foot. But I saw him in the dressing room this morning and it didn't look like a foot to me. More like seven or eight inches."
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Pooh-Bah
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Yus Stalesey, it's always good to have a maiden over ... provokes comment in the Blowers vein, what?
- Pfranz
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Pooh-Bah
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Glen Turner getting hit in the fuse box on the 5th ball.
BJ :"Looks like he will carry on. One ball left."
Quizfan, I know Glenn Turner quite well - we're contemporaries from the same town. He never had even one, so the commentator got it completely wrong!
Loved your quotes. Put some more up!
- Pfranz
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>Quizfan, I know Glenn Turner quite well - we're contemporaries from the same town. He never had even one,
Are you trying to say he's really just a sooky?
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Thanks for that Quizfan - can you help me here....
There's some legendary quote (from Blowers?) when Botham tripped over the wicket or summat. It won't come through the mists between my ears. I think it was the pregnant pause immediately after it was said that made it all the more funny.
I've always loved the alliteration of "Lillee, caught Dilley, bowled Willie".
stales
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