Gullies and googlies: The weird world of cricket lingo

The ICC Cricket World Cup gets under way in England and Wales soon. What better time to ponder some of the stranger parts of the grand old game’s vocabulary?

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​agricultural shot

A crude swipe of the bat, moving across the line of the ball – possibly taking a chunk out of the pitch in the process, hence the agriculture link.

chin music

A term also used in baseball, meaning a delivery that whistles past the batsman’s head at an alarmingly close distance.

chinaman

A delivery from a left-arm wrist spin bowler that pitches on a right-handed batsman’s off side (that is, to the bowler’s left side) and turns to the leg side; or vice versa for a left-handed batsman. Also known as left-arm unorthodox bowling.

​It’s thought to be named after Ellis ‘Puss’ Achong, a West Indies bowler of Chinese heritage who was an early exponent of it. In a 1933 Test at Old Trafford, as England’s Walter Robins was on his way back to the pavilion after Achong had had him stumped, he reportedly said, ‘Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman.’

​Other reports suggest the term was already in use long before then. It may have been based on the stereotypical view of the Chinese as being devious. Also, the general use of word Chinaman is widely considered derogatory. These factors might explain why the cricketing term isn’t so common in these (slightly) more enlightened times as it once was.

cow corner

The area of the field between midwicket and wide long on – in other words, on the batsman’s leg side but quite some distance ahead. As it’s relatively unusual for shots to be played into this area, it’s been suggested that cows could safely graze there. When someone does manage to slog the ball in that direction, this is known as a cow shot.

death overs

The closing overs of an innings in a limited-overs match. Some bowlers are specialists in this phase of play, when the priority is usually to restrict scoring rather than to take wickets.

dibbly-dobbly

A unflattering term for slow-to-medium-paced bowling that doesn’t cause batsmen many problems.

doosra

A relatively new form of finger spin bowling, in which the ball turns in the opposite direction to what is expected. A doosra from a right-arm bowler pitches on a right-handed batsman’s leg side and turn to their off side, and vice versa for a left-arm bowler. (And, of course, double vice versa for a left-handed batsman.)
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Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq is credited with inventing the doosra in the 1990s. The term comes from a Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu word meaning ‘the second (other) one’.

googly

Yet another type of deceptive spin delivery. Like the chinaman, it’s a wrist spin delivery that pitches on a right-handed batsman’s off side and turns to the leg side, which isn’t what they would usually expect; but it’s produced by a right-arm bowler.

Nobody seems to be sure where the word originated from. One theory is that it came about because the batsman ‘goggles’ in amazement over where the ball has ended up. Googly itself is also an adjective describing unfocused or rolling eyes.

gully

A fielding position just outside the slip cordon, nearly level with the batsman. The name is derived from the narrow channel between the slips and the point position. I’d like to think that someone once caught Sourav Ganguly at gully off a googly, but sadly I can’t prove it.

king pair

A batsman’s unwanted feat of being dismissed for nought on their first ball (that’s a golden duck) in both innings of a match. Also known as a golden pair. A mere pair is when the batsman is out for no runs in both innings (just a duck), regardless of the number of balls faced.

maiden

An over where no runs are scored. The idea is that the bowling is ‘untouched’, like a traditionally virginal maiden (to paraphrase Madonna).

mankading

The controversial act of a bowler running out the batsman at the non-striking end, by stopping the run-up and breaking the wicket while the latter is backing up – that is, straying from the crease in order to get a head-start on a possible run (or through absent-mindedness). It’s named after India all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, who dismissed Australia’s Bill Brown this way in a 1947 Sydney test.

Whether it’s legal or not, mankading provokes heated debate over whether it’s within the all-important ‘​spirit of the game’. Since a law change in 2011, it can only happen if the bowler hasn’t yet started their delivery stride. There have been some recent high-profile mankadings, though, notably when Ravichandran Ashwin of Kings XI Punjab trapped Jos Buttler of Rajasthan Royals in an Indian Premier League match. It’s feared that a spate of them could sour relations in this year’s World Cup.

Nelson

A score of 111 by either a team or a batsman, which is thought to be unlucky. Why Nelson? Well, Admiral Horatio Nelson supposedly ended his days with one arm, one eye and one leg (he didn’t, but let’s not worry about that).

nurdling

Another marvellously evocative piece of lingo (see also dibbly-dobbly), meaning a gentle prodding of the ball by the batsman into a nearby gap in the field. Often preceded by ‘nudging and’.

pie-chucker

A close relative of dibbly-dobbly. It means a purveyor of slowish, innocuous bowling, where the ball’s movement resembles that of a hurled pie. Not intended as a compliment. Just a thought, though: how easily could a batsman hit an actual pie to the boundary?

rabbit

A lower-order batsman who is notoriously easy to dismiss. A rabbit needs to be a specialist bowler (or astounding wicketkeeper) to merit a place in the team. Also known as a bunny or walking wicket.

A batsman who’s even worse than a rabbit might be called a ferret or weasel: out in the wild, a ferret or weasel always goes in after the rabbits (geddit?).
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The term rabbit or bunny is also often used for a batsman who has often been dismissed by a particular bowler – for example, ‘Mike Atherton was Glenn McGrath’s bunny.’

silly mid-off

A fielding position on the batsman’s off side. The silliness lies in the fielder’s close proximity to the batman, putting him in danger of being walloped by a well-hit ball. See also silly mid-on, silly midwicket and silly point (not here, though).

wicket

The slightly strange thing about wicket is that it can mean so many things. Here we go:

1. Each set of stumps and bails at either end of the pitch – that is, the prepared strip of ground in the middle of the field. (To add to the confusion for newcomers, the field itself is often referred to as the pitch. Speaking of which …)

2. The pitch. People tend to call it the wicket when discussing its condition, hence sticky wicket.

3. The taking of a wicket is the dismissal of a batsman: ‘New Zealand soon took another wicket.’

4. The other side of that coin is a batsman losing his wicket (being dismissed), or a team losing wickets.

​See also wicketkeeper, midwicket, wicket maiden, last-wicket stand and so on.

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Have I forgotten any good ones? If you think so, please get in touch ...