27 Dec 2020

Life in Australian summer has a few ‘normals’ that are very familiar to a lot of us. There’s flies, there’s heat, ……. and there’s cricket commentary.

I know there are some families who have never associated Boxing Day with a cricket game. They probably did all sorts of active and interesting things…. maybe going to the beach, maybe going shopping, maybe going to the movies.

Growing up, we lounged around the house, eating leftovers, reading books we may have been given as gifts the day before, and watching or listening to the cricket.

Don’t get me wrong, listening to or watching the cricket was not restricted to the test match that is played the day after Christmas. It was something that was enjoyed throughout summer. Growing up it was my favourite sport (and yes I played cricket, back in the days when girls playing cricket was a totally foreign activity!)

But unless you’ve grown up with cricket, the acronyms used are a little confusing. I found this the same when watching American sports – terms that are familiar to people growing up with the sport mean absolutely nothing to those who hadn’t.

And that relies on the commentators getting the terminology correctly.

In the car this morning, the radio commentator of the test match stumbled a little while relating that there had been an appeal for lbw (leg before wicket, for those not in the know). He said they had appealed for a LBBW.

So of course, instead of just passing this off as a mental break in commentary, I started to immediately assign a meaning to this new method of dismissal.

Left ball before wicket – the player would obviously be quite happy to leave the ground anyway. It would be a very specific method of dismissal, because quite frankly I’m not sure how they could differentiate between RBBW and LBBW, unless they used specific heat seeking camera technology of some sort.

Large buttock before wicket – two things in this one. Firstly – how rude to be specific about what’s a large buttock as opposed to a more regular sized buttock. And then, the batsman would have to be quite low to the ground to have his buttock protecting his wickets from being struck by the ball. So we are talking someone under maybe 4 foot tall, with large buttocks. But it could happen, I guess.

Left brain beside watercooler – this could refer to any brain fade moment from the batsman.

Last boundary before Wednesday – this is a very low scoring game, and the umpire figures that this batsman isn’t going to do anything interesting for a long time, and can just give them out on that basis. Games would be of much shorter duration.

Ok people – over to you. What can a batsman be given out for LBBW?