Crowds understand the meaning of fielding positions like deep square leg and silly point. They know the difference between a googly and a leg break, and understand the leg-before-wicket law
be any sporting event more quintessentially English than a county cricket match? Your correspondent recently attended the third day of a match between Surrey and Yorkshire, the county of his birth, at the Oval ground in south London. The two teams are the historical giants of England’s oldest county trophy, which dates back to the 19th century. At the start of play they boasted a combined 53 solo, and shared, titles.
The atmosphere was sedate. This was not one of cricket’s newer forms, the Twenty20 or the Hundred, where the ball disappears regularly into the stands and the stadium loudspeakers blare out pop tunes between overs. For this game, the stadium announcer had a plummy voice that would not have been out of place in the royal household. Had he played some music, it might have been a Mozart string quartet or a Chopin étude.
At the Oval, the volume rose eventually, because the home crowd had plenty to cheer. Yorkshire began the day at 89 for the loss of two wickets in their second innings, still 65 runs behind Surrey. They lost more wickets steadily through the morning, and were all out after lunch, with a lead of just 54. There followed an embarrassing period of play in which Yorkshire conceded 20 runs off the first seven balls bowled and Surrey cantered to victory.
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