16 cricket terms you must know

In T20 matches, each side has only one go at bat, or “innings”. But this week we’ll have a second innings of cricket terminology for the uninitiated!

ALL-ROUNDER: A batsman who is capable of both batting and bowling well enough to be picked for either skill.

BALL-TAMPERING: Illegally altering the condition of the ball; this is sometimes done by the fielding side scratching one side of the ball to get it to swing more. It’s against the rules since such a premature alteration in the ball gives the bowling side an unfair advantage.

BEATEN: When a batsman attempts to play but misses the ball, he is said to have been ‘beaten’ by the bowler’s skilful delivery. It doesn’t mean he’s out or has lost the match; a batsman can be beaten several times, survive, and then go on to make a good score.

CHINAMAN: A left-handed spin bowler’s leg-break delivery. Normally, a left-arm spinner turns the ball from leg to off, but a Chinaman turns the other way. It’s a left-arm spinner’s GOOGLY.

CALL: A shout during playing action. It could be a batsman communicating to a batting partner whether to run, usually by shouting “yes”, “no”, or “wait”. It could be a fielder shouting “mine!” to alert other fielders that he is going to attempt a catch; failure to do so could result in a collision between converging fielders. When an on-field disaster occurs, commentators usually shout out despairingly, “call!”

DOOSRA: When a right-handed off-spinner bowls a delivery that turns the “other way”, from off to leg side; the mirror image of a CHINAMAN.

DRS: Decision Review System. Introduced just a few years ago, this allows the players to challenge an umpiring decision, which is then reviewed using television replays and technology to establish whether the ball struck the bat, whether a catch was taken cleanly, or whether the predictive pattern of the delivery (“ball tracking”) suggests that it would have struck the stumps. In T20 matches, each team is allowed only two unsuccessful reviews.

EDGE, SNICK, NICK: When the ball touches the edge of a batsman’s bat and travels behind the stumps — sometimes to the boundary, sometimes to be caught by the wicket-keeper or the slips, sometimes to be dropped.

EXTRAS: Runs added to a team’s total but not scored off the bat. These include runs credited for byes (balls missed by the batsman but not collected by the wicket-keeper), leg-byes (ditto but going off the batsman’s pads), no-ball (usually when the bowler oversteps), and wides (deliveries beyond a batsman’s reach).

GOOGLY: When a leg-spinner bowls to a right-arm batsman, the ball normally spins from leg or middle to the off side, but a googly spins from off to leg to deceive the batsman.