Arm-ball to Zooter: A sideways look at the world of cricket Lawrence Booth 2006
Arm-ball to Zooter is the definitive guide to the A-Z of cricketing peculiarities, with all the answers for anyone who has ever wondered about bowling a yorker, the difference between short and deep midwicket, or what’s so great about the sound of leather on willow. The unexpectedly wicked and often hilarious game of cricket is unravelled with sharp and knowledgeable insights from Lawrence Booth, acclaimed author of the Guardian Unlimited’s cricket column The Spin.
Arm-ball
It’s easy to sneer at the arm-ball, the off-spinner’s delivery that does not turn and, given a favourable breeze, might drift away from the right-handed batsman. The reason for its tendency to elicit a titter is that it has been usurped in the off-spin bowler’s arsenal by the far more dangerous doosra, and is usually associated with English county pros who suddenly find themselves playing a Test match in Ahmedabad or Lahore. And panicking just a little. There are some ungenerous souls who believe in the arm-ball, so called because it travels straight on in the direction of the bowling arm, is simply a polite way of saying that the bowler has failed to actually spin the ball, but this would be to denigrate an entire generation of English off-break bowlers. Then again, these ungenerous souls probably have a point.
Fancy Dress
Post-modern irony has rarely found much expression in cricket, but the relatively recent phenomenon of fancy-dress suggests all is not lost. At every English Test venue other than Lord’s – where the sartorial crimes are committed by members of the MCC – the seats are filled by nuns, Vikings, Elvises, Richie Benauds, and Sylvester the Cats. The relationship between these japesters – often hordes of young men on stag weekends – and the ground authorities has at times been strained. A teacher dressed as a carrot was once manhandled out of his seat during a game at Edgbaston (the fancy-dress aficionado’s mecca), while a stray pantomime horse was rugby-tackled so ferociously by stewards that bones were broken. Fountain-like supplies of alcohol can usually be relied upon to dull the pain, but these days pitch invasions by once-a-summer cross-dressers and two-legged furry animals are frowned upon.
Old Father Time
He’s as old as the stars, wears a long beard, carries a scythe and is about to spoil everyone’s fun by pulling up the stumps. Yes, in days gone by Old Father Time would have made the perfect Lord’s steward, but he missed his vocation and instead perches on top of the weathervane on the Lord’s pavilion, master of all he surveys. Ever since the old fella was presented to the Marylebone Cricket Club by Sir Herbert Baker, who designed the old grandstand which was opened in 1926, he has been a reassuring constant at a venue which has never cared much for change. Some say he is only marginally older than the average MCC member, but that’s being a little unfair on Old Father Time, who is leant a positively youthful air by the 23.5-carat gold leaf which decorates not only his scythe, but also the ball which lies by the soon to be drawn stumps, the vane itself and the four cardinal points. And yet he outlives all cricketers, even though there must occasionally have been some doubt while Geoff Boycott was at the crease. As much as the slope, the bacon-and-eggs ties and the Long Room, Old Father Time quite simply is Lord’s.
Twenty20 If Test cricket is a finger-licking three-course dinner plus coffee, mints, and a post-prandial snooze, and the 50-over game a microwave lasagne with ready-made salad, then what contrived culinary metaphor can we find for Twenty20? A pot noodle? Or a bag of ready salted? In fact, the newest arrival on cricket’s menu has proved far more substantial than that. In April 2002 the English cricket establishment reacted to falling attendances in the county championships by approving the introduction of a new form of the game to attract a new audience. In 2003, Twenty20 took the shires by storm, and provided a gift-wrapped excuse for grateful journalists to make puns about perfect vision. Fans flocked in their thousands, and rumours that women and children were among them could not easily be dismissed. Country cricket was in danger of becoming cool.
The competition’s popularity grew over the next two seasons as the public lapped up the benefits of a game that took place after work and only lasted 2¾ hours. It even spread beyond the domestic arena, although the decision by the New Zealand players to grow comedy facial hair for the inaugural Twenty20 international against Australia in Auckland in February 2005 suggested that not everyone was taking it seriously (New Zealand looked even sillier when they lost by 44 runs).
Critics argued that it wasn’t proper cricket – “hit-and-giggle” was the favourite term of abuse – but the voices of dissent were lost in a sea of praise, and most observers began to cast a critical eye over the 50-over game, with its identikit middle overs when batsmen milked spinners for singles. Since Twenty20 distilled the best bits of the 50-overs game, why not introduce a Twenty20 World Cup? Then along came the 2005 Ashes to remind everyone that five-day cricket could be exciting too. Twenty20? Always said it would be a flash in the pan…
Zooter
In March 2004, Coca-Cola admitted that its trendy new brand of bottled water, the mysteriously christened “Dasani”, came straight from the mains supply of one of its factories in Kent. But Shane Warne went one better. Together with his leg-spinning mentor Terry Jenner he concocted a delivery which became known as the zooter. It sounded exotic, but actually did very little other than go straight on. Still, that was not the point. The zooter – like the slider – existed to place uncertainty in the batsman mind, not to bamboozle him in the air or off the pitch. This didn’t stop people who should have known better from turning to each other every time Warne trapped another poor sap leg before wicket and saying wisely: "That was the zooter.” No it wasn’t. It was the one that didn’t turn.