Daylight versus nicks
Published by Yazad Jal March 18th, 2005 in SportGood cricket writing is a delight to read, especially while you’re follwing a match. Here’s a small vignette from a bulletin by Amit Varma.
Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar had added 98 in 168 balls when Bucknor struck. Tendulkar was beaten by the late swing of a ball from Abdul Razzaq, and the daylight between bat and ball was visible from the press box, at the furthest and highest part of the ground. Bucknor, after his usual deliberation, lifted his finger. Tendulkar shook his head and walked off. India have been hard done by Bucknor before, but they were still in a strong position as the day ended. (Emphasis mine)
BTW, apart from me, has anyone noticed that when bad light stopped play today, India were 133/3 in 33.3 overs? I imagine David Shepherd would be doing a tandav if he was umpiring. (If you’re a cricket doofus and want to know why, click here)
You mean the Taliban is at work?
The article is inaccurate. Nelson had one eye, one arm and one XYZ. Insert whatever, you want for XYZ, since it is urban legend anyway. He always had the use of both his legs.
Darn..I meant the article is accurate. I typed in a sentence that went, “Urban legend also substitues one ball for one leg”, but must’ve erased it inadvertantly. Sheesh.
It might be interesting for Amit to know that NDTV used that exact line about seeing the daylight between bat and ball in its news broadcast tonight. This was at 10 PM.
Amit should feel flattered that he is being imitated by news channels. ;)
Um, “daylight between bat and ball” is actually a cliche, one that inadvertently slipped by my self-censoring mind on a madly busy writing day. Sorry…
Shows you how little I know about cricket. ;)
Hey, Yazad was the one who emphasised it, so I thought he was referring to that phrase as the good writing.
It is ironic, the use of that cliché… because daylight was the one thing, the lack of which was pointed out by Sachin to the umpires, just before he managed to show some of it between his bat and the ball!
Given the light conditions at the time, the apt phrase would have been “twilight between bat and ball”
The whole Sachin affair is being blown right out of proportion. There seems to be no umpire other than Bucknor ready to give him out. In the first test he was out on 4 - not given. Third test, plumb lbw, again not out. So, we can expect a nice umpiring decisions analysis by Woolmer at the end of the tour…what say?