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Forty years later, sports fanatic Rich-
ard Nixon spent part of a day absorbing the
English national pastime. A er an hour, this
was howthe former U.S. president described
the action: “You’re standing in themiddle of a
busy freeway, and cars are coming at you at
80miles per hour. Some of the cars swerve at
youat the last second fromthe outside lanes.
Every now and then one comes at you doing
only 20miles anhour, but thenext one isback
to full speed. Your job is to stay alive.”
One doesn’t need to have logged time in
theOval Office, however, to see that cricket is
a hard game. It’s a sportwhose essential feud
is between one man armed with a wooden
club and another man who interacts with
himonly a er a 20-yard sprint, at the climax
of which he hurls a cherry-red leather ball
designed to bounce off the ground toward
his opponent’s face. As Imran Khan, the
Pakistani cricket star of the ’70s and ’80s,
said to me once, “It’s the most beautifully
tense and skillful sport known to man. And
it’s not for sissies.”
All the more reason to include it in that
great pantheonof sport, theOlympicGames.
The International Cricket Council ismaking
a bid, encouraged by International Olympic
Committee president Jacques Rogge, to
admit cricket into the games. It’s an honor
well overdue. Personally, what I love about
cricket—a sport that began 500 years ago
as a gentle form of exercise for the English
aristocracy—is that at its heart is a balance
between aggression and decorum. Or as
Khanput it, “It’s all about politely assault-
ing the enemy.” There’s the spectacle
of adrenaline-fueled hulks trying to
knock each other’s heads off amid
the gladiatorial atmosphere that
pervades most international games
… and then there’s the elaborate
etique e that, among other things,
sees the teams periodically troop
off the field for a tea break, or
generously applaud a successful
opponent even intheheat of ba le.
It’s the gloriously eccentric
nature of cricket that explains its
appeal. There was a fashion in the
19thcentury, for example, for contests
between one-armed and one-legged
men. “Smokers versus non-smokers”
was also a popular pairing, while the
annual “gentlemen versus players” face-
off—which made the distinction between
those who played for money and those who
shunnedanything sobase—remainedon the
English sporting calendar until 1963. In 1823,
a full-scale cricket match was played on the
culture
||
THE FAN
ings,
n
Anchor
►
A batsman capable of batting slowly for a
long time, to the distress of the bowling team
and often the spectators.
Cherry
►
The cricket ball, which is traditionally red (except
on those occasions when it’s white). Not to be
confused with
fruit salad
, which describes a bowler’s
delivery of a different type of ball every time, or
peach
, a well-aimed ball, often fast.
Corridor of uncertainty
►
A good area in which to bowl, often tempting
the batsman to go
fishing
or
flashing
.
Donkey-drop
►
A ball bowled high into the air that falls
to earth in the general area of the
batsman’s head.
Fishing
►
When a batsman attempts to hit a ball
he might be better advised to avoid.
In its more aggressive form, this
is called
flashing
.
PEACHES,
GULLIESAND
CORRIDORSOF
UNCERTAINTY
A cricket glossary
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