One way cricket proves it is not an old-fashioned game is to keep updating its vocabulary.
For those of you just waking up after a pleasant ten-year doze, here are explanations of phrases that may be new to you:
’10 needed from 40’ = another commercial break ‘Back of a length’ = short of a length
‘Boundary riders’ = deep fielders ‘Commentator’s curse’ = silence is golden
‘Gun bowler’ = leading bowler
‘Helm-cam’ = the quickest way to feel seasick
‘Miked up’ = fielder distracted from the game and asked all manner of trivial questions to which the audience already knows the answers. ‘Whoops, you’ve just missed another catch! Sorry.’
‘Pod’ = Commentary box
‘Put on the afterburners’ = run faster
‘Ramp’, ‘Switch-hit’, ‘Scoop’, ‘Paddle’, ‘Slog-sweep’, ‘Reverse-sweep’ = all shots that Sir Donald Bradman didn’t play. But he averaged only 99.94 in tests
‘Right on the money’ = accurate
‘Shape’ = lateral movement
‘She’s one of the best fielders around = she’s just dropped a dolly
‘Strategic time out’ = yet another commercial break, but longer
‘Sweeper’ = deep point, or deep mid-wicket or deep extra-cover, or deep backward square-leg
‘The ground is filling up nicely’ = the men’s game follows the women’s game
‘Third’ = third man
“Toblerone” = triangular boundary marker
No need to learn them all by heart; they’ll have changed by next year.
