Hello! This cricket blog started some years ago on David Greagg’s Facebook page. I am not entirely sure who David is, but I believe he is the man who earns the money to maintain the metaphysical superstructure that is Wizard Dafydd. He was an undistinguished park cricketer who bowled leg-spin (216 wickets – and yes, of course he counted them all – for Footscray United Cricket Club) and made a few thousand runs as an annoying batsman who despite a manifest lack of technique was very unwilling to go out and frequently ruined people’s entire day by batting, and batting, and batting. Usually in his motor-bike helmet: a source of considerable merriment for the fielding side. He specialised in match-winning catches in grand finals, but was otherwise not terribly good. He only gave up because he really wanted his weekends back.
However, you don’t have to have been a top-class cricketer to write competently about it. He thinks he knows a fair bit about the game, having been watching it ever since John Small first set foot on Broadhalfpenny Down for the immortal Hambledon cricket club. These bulletins were written down after each day’s play and put onto Facebook. No retrospective editing has occurred because that would be cheating. In the future this will be immediately apparent.
What we cover: Test matches involving Australia. (Men’s and women’s. Naturally.) World Cups, up to a point. (ditto) Many intelligent readers have asked for a separate blog for these reports, which have been pronounced thoroughly acceptable by cricket-lovers. So here it is.
Just one small point. There has been a curious decision made of late to include the word ‘batter’ in people’s cricket commentary. While I am happy to embrace modernity in all else regarding the Summer Game, I cannot bring myself to use this vile word. It has an honourable place as a garnish in fish and chips and other culinary delights. Let it remain there. I am given to understand that it is a term borrowed from a game called baseball, which appears to be a version of rounders: a pastime for young children. Cricket is a serious game, and there is no place for this neologism in my lexicography.
The word is batsman. Man as in Mankind, the Ascent of Man, ‘man’ and Mensch in German, ‘on’ in French and many other gender-neutral uses. And yes, I apply it also to women, whose continual improvement in this greatest of all games I applaud with enthusiasm. For women cricketers it is an honourable description, and the other term ought to be discarded along with those ridiculous short skirty things women were forced to inhabit until they demanded long trousers and got them. And huzzah for that. So bear with me on my single act of heresy. I believe I am right, and that cricket will eventually come to its senses and revert to what is proper. And historical.