Tag: umpires

A Game Of Their Own

I spent the morning watching the Channel 4 coverage of third day of the current Test Match between India and England in Chenai; and the afternoon watching BBC’s broadcast of the Six Nations rugby match between Wales and Ireland in Cardiff. The Indian weather was hot and humid; the Welsh much cooler. Covid has prevented any spectators except for match officials. In Chenai no-one wore masks; in Cardiff they did.

My photographs were all taken from the TV screen. I cropped all images for two reasons, namely to produce the pictures I wanted and to remove broadcast spoiler score information.

There are now many different forms of international cricket requiring different time spans and consequent paces of the game. Traditional Test Cricket ebbs and flows with changes of fortune over five days.

Bowlers bowl to batsmen; one batter receives the ball, the other stands at the bowler’s end ready to run to the other end, crossing with his partner to score one or more runs. The bowler aims to hit the stumps behind the batsman. The umpire in the white coat and hat is there to make decisions about dismissals.

Wicket keepers are equipped with special protective gloves, pads for their legs, and helmets for their faces. Slip fielders beside him have no such protection.

The essence of spin bowling is that the aim is to make the ball change trajectory after hitting the pitch. Throughout the Indian sub-continent the conditions are conducive to this method. Here Jack Leach has bowled ball seen about to land in the first picture; sends up a reddish dust cloud and takes a path behind the batsman’s front leg in the next; eventually ending up in the wicket keeper’s gloves. Had this hit the bat on the way through the man would have been out.

Batting technique is very important.

There are other ways than being bowled (when the stumps are hit by the ball) of being out or losing your wicket. If the ball is caught by a fielder without first hitting the ground the batsman is out, caught.

This is a quite phenomenally athletic dismissal close to the wicket.

Had this one been held out in the deep field it would have been equally spectacular.

When appealing to the umpire to grant a dismissal, arms are uplifted with a cry of ‘Owzat’, or, as is the modern way shrieks and gesticulations.

We now have a third umpire equipped with the technology to check the on- field umpire’s decision.

Either the fielding captain or the batsman may ask for a review.

This offers the opportunity for waiting in anguish, for adjusting helmets, discussing tactics, or tightening boot studs.

Here are views which aid the third umpire’s deliberations. The second picture tracks the anticipated path of the ball in order to estimate whether it would have hit the stumps.

Batsmens’ team mates watch keenly from the otherwise empty stands.

As the evening gradually draws to a close, long shadows have a game of their own.

I have become so carried away with trying to explain some of the aspects of our summer game that I have no time to do the same for the rugby. This will follow tomorrow.

This evening we dined on thick bacon chunks, flavoursome pork chipolatas, piquant cauliflower cheese, chestnut mushrooms, creamy mashed potatoes, crunchy carrots and tender cabbage. The Culinary Queen finished the Sauvignon Blanc and I finished the Macon.

“Agony And Ecstasy Of The Highest Sporting Quality”

Our friend Pauline, having read yesterday’s post about Wimbledon tennis wondered whether I could repeat the performance with today’s men’s World Cricket Cup final between England and New Zealand. The title is a quotation from one of the commentators of a game which served up the most amazing finish.

I will try to explain the support in general, using this specific match as a vehicle. In the two images above we see the browner stretch of 22 yards between two sets of wickets which the batsmen must protect from the bowlers. In the second picture the batsman has hit the ball into the field. It is the task of fielders to catch or to stop the ball, while the batsmen run between the wickets to score runs. The two men in red shirts are the umpires whose task is to adjudicate on the play and interpret the rules. English players are in blue, while the New Zealanders are wearing black. Most people will understand that the cricket ball is red. In this version of the game it is white.

Around the perimeter is the boundary, which the ball in this image is about to reach, thereby scoring four runs. When the ball is hit over the ropes without bouncing the reward is six runs.

Behind the stumps stands the wicket keeper whose task is to stop the ball after it has passed the stumps. He may also catch the batsman out, or, if he is out of his ground – having crossed the white line in front of him – to stump him by breaking the wicket with the ball.

In this sequence the bowler has sent the ball past both batsman and wicket and the keeper has demonstrated great agility in catching it.

For a bowler the most satisfying dismissal of a batsman is to hit the stumps, or bowl him.

Another method is for the ball to strike the batsman’s pads on its way to certainly hitting the stumps. There are complicated rules about this.

Here are some batsmen in action. With balls often coming at them at 90 m.p.h. they all now wear protective masks,

and often need to take evasive action,

sometimes losing their footing.

Here we have some bowlers in action, their expressions betraying their feelings. The last image in this set demonstrates that some part of the bowler’s front foot must be behind the white line when he delivers the ball.

Fielding has become more important in recent years. Running, diving, catching, throwing to the wicket keeper, are all parts of the art. The last four images show a fielder taking a catch on the boundary. Because his feet touched the ropes the catch was disallowed and the shot counted for six runs.

One unpopular method of being dismissed is the run out. When running between the wickets a batsman must cross the white line. Here, a desperate dash was employed.

Here the batsman failed to ground his bat and was given out;

and this was the run out that, with the last of the extra six balls bowled to decide the otherwise tied match, decided the game, much in the manner of football’s penalty shoot out.

The spectators representing all corners of the globe were transfixed.

This evening Jackie produced a dinner of her own ratatouille, piri-piri chicken, and Lyonnaise potatoes, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Doom Bar.