In short
The debut of Cricket Clichés, a spin-off about cricket language and vernacular. The episode focuses on why Australians get annoyed by England’s “Bazball,” the confusion around “moral victories” (linked to “Creasegate”), and how cricket commentary invents shot/ball terms (e.g., “caress,” “lashing,” “strapple,” “greeble,” “cow corner,” “short-hand jab”).
Guests and backgrounds
Nick Miller (Australian, “continuity candidate,” former football cliches continuity role; in Perth for two days). Dan Gallon (South African author; wrote a Guardian piece on cricket hitting/doing-with-the-ball language). Dave Tickner (cricket commentator/arbiter of cricket nonsense; known as “Tickers”).
Key claims
“Bazball” is more than hitting hard—it’s an aggressive, cult-like team approach requiring total buy-in. “Moral victory” originally meant “better of the situation,” not winning “morally,” and the modern misuse is blamed on “Creasegate” headlines. Australians are portrayed as hypocritically “whinging” too, and England/Australia both chase narratives.
Notable examples
Old Trafford field-setting vs Bazball vibe; “England’s cocky captain complainer…” Perth headlines; Johnny Bairstow dismissal labeled “Creasegate”; Ben Stokes/Archer/Liam Dawson field adjustments; Kevin Pietersen “strapple” vs Brett Lee (Oval Test 2005); Cameron Bancroft’s “seed/pill/cherry” ball terminology; “greeble” as a non-boundary miscue; “short-hand jab” (Richie Benno).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Concept of Bazball
2:28 to 6:12
Discussion on the Bazball approach and its impact on Australian cricket sentiment.
“We'll aim to do what our footballing big brother does, but in the genteel world of cricket.”
Cultural Battle in Cricket
6:12 to 13:12
Exploration of the cultural differences between Australian and English cricket styles.
“So I'm going to kick us off with the thing that's been driving them completely nuts.”
Cricket Rivalries and Australian Insecurities
14:01 to 16:28
Explores the cricketing rivalry between South Africa and England, emphasizing Australian insecurities.
“We help them not bottle it by putting it in a neutral venue and then really support them.”
The Concept of Bazball
16:29 to 17:11
Discusses the unconventional approach known as Bazball in cricket and its perceptions.
“or buying furniture but missing the tools to build it.”
Australian Media and Ashes Narratives
17:19 to 27:35
Analyzes the sensationalist headlines of Australian newspapers during the Ashes series.
“Disney and Pixar's Hoppers is now available on Disney+.”
Historical Context of Australian Aggression
27:36 to 28:00
Investigates the history of Australian cricket aggression and the perception of English whining.
“The Aussies used fast bowlers for the first time.”
The Whinging Debate: Australia vs England
28:00 to 29:59
Explore the contrasting attitudes of Australia and England regarding complaints in cricket.
“Somebody might bowl a little quick, but you can see in the record, he's bowled 26 overs.”
Moral Victories and Ashes Absurdities
30:00 to 31:32
Discuss the concept of moral victories in cricket and significant Ashes series moments.
“of the game and on they go, don't whinge about it like the crying English do.”
Australian Cricket Scoreboard Traditions
31:33 to 33:35
Investigate the reasoning behind unique Australian cricket scoreboard practices.
“He says, I know they're down under, and the joke is often about things being upside down or the wrong way around, but what kind of nonsense is putting the wickets first in the score?”
The Language of Cricket: Terminology Differences
33:36 to 36:19
Examine quirky language differences in cricket commentary, especially in Australia.
“I've got to get on to Australian weirdnesses in language.”
Show all 18 chapters
The Cricket Shot Vocabulary: A New Perspective
40:10 to 42:03
Delve into the vocabulary of cricket shots and their meanings with creative interpretations.
“but we have got six more episodes to put more worlds to right.”
The Language of Cricket: Shots and Shorthands
42:03 to 43:19
Discover the unique terminology and shorthand used in cricket writing.
“Yeah, I just sort of made, put two and two together.”
Exploring Cricket Shots: Greebles and Strappels
43:20 to 45:56
Learn about various cricket shots and their creative names, including greebles and strappels.
“Greeble, remind me, greeble is when you sort of like...”
The Emotional Weight of Cricket Terminology
45:57 to 48:24
Discuss the emotional significance behind cricket terms like 'caress' and their impact on players and fans.
“I use the strapple loads, but the problem with the strapple is that I've tried to get everybody to understand it, but I have to explain it every time I do it.”
Unique Descriptions in Cricket Commentary
48:25 to 51:00
Delve into the evolution of cricket commentary and the playful language used by commentators.
“Damien Martin, Ian Bell, it's these guys, isn't it?”
Defining the Heavy Ball in Cricket
51:01 to 55:46
Understand the concept of a 'heavy ball' and the characteristics of bowlers who deliver it.
“But most people would find other ways of saying that now.”
Cricket Physics: Momentum and Kinetic Energy
55:47 to 56:00
Explore the physics behind bowling a heavy ball and its effects on the game.
“ball we've got some physics here does anybody want to try it it just came in in the whatsapp We need some boffins.”
Exploring Cricket Physics
56:00 to 1:01:30
Understand the physics behind cricket ball momentum and velocity.
“Unfortunately, we don't have access to all the boffins.”
Transcript
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1:35that is very good a team hat trick he's off he didn't try and hit it too hard just caressed it through the field. Spent time at the wicket, play bread and butter shots, keep it safe, took it off his hip and his legs, he's done that. Got him! Why did he do that? Unbelievable! What about that? It wasn't just one of those where it may stick or it may not. Remember the name! There's so much elegance about it, and yet it was quite brutal. Oh, he's up and over! What a rubber, what a good visual! Hello and welcome to Cricket Clichés. I'm Daniel Norcross. This is the very first episode of a spin-off that will hopefully be more Frasier than Baywatch Knights.
2:28We'll aim to do what our footballing big brother does, but in the genteel world of cricket. It'll be an audio celebration and an interrogation of the language of a sport whose jargon and vernacular is every bit as rich, eccentric and downright frustrating as the beautiful game. And of course the Ashes are just around the corner. We'll be with you throughout the series, whatever happens. After that, well, who knows? Coming up on this maiden episode of Cricket Clichés. How exactly does one bowl a heavy ball? Is it better to smoke, stroke or poke it through the covers? And what is it about Australians?
3:06Why can they not understand the very simple concept of a moral victory? but who you might well be wondering have we recruited to answer those questions let me introduce you to our crack team of cricketing commentators he's the conduit the link to our forebears he's the first reserve on football cliches and he knows more about cricket than adam dave and charlie so here he is the continuity candidate nick miller g'day nick i've turned into australian i've only been in perth for two days i'm saying g'day i'm so sorry you've gone native already this is dreadful scenes Daniel. Hello I'm delighted to be here as the I think of me as like the whenever they whenever a team changes completely changes coaching stuff I'm the sort of masseuse that everyone keeps on to just just to kind of keep things sticking over a little bit.
3:53Well do you know I've got quite a stiff neck from the 18 hour flight and a masseuse is exactly what I'm after Nick and I can see with your bear-like hand digging into the knots in my neck that that could be exactly what I'm after. You've sent me off on a reverie. Next up is the author of the article that convinced our shadowy overlords that a cricket cliches podcast might just be viable. This piece was about the curious and almost endless language that can be used for the ostensibly basic act of either hitting, throwing, or, you know, doing whatever you want with a cricket ball. He is South African, you can forgive him for that, but he is Dan Gallon.
4:30Hey guys, hey Daniel, yeah, I'm very excited to be here and play the Jonathan Trott role in this team. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a hell of a role, you're basically going to play absolutely brilliantly for about four years, and then disappear and coach Afghanistan. Well, fingers crossed. Curious role to play, but good for you. And finally, the spiritual keeper of the cricket language flame, the arbiter of nonsense about this very silly but glorious game, and the man about whom one prospective listener said, if you've not got Dave Tickner doing cricket cliches, you're doing it wrong. It's Dave Tickner.
5:03Hello. Dave, now the thing about you being called Dave Tickner is that we all know you as Tickers, right? Yes. So we are going to be calling you Tickers throughout, but it occurs to me that if you say something absolutely brilliant, then I think we're going to call you by your full name, which is David Robert Derek Tickner. David Robert Derek Tickner. It's what happens when Brian Charles Lara smokes the ball through the offside, right? Brian Charles Lara becomes Brian Charles Lara if he does something absolutely brilliant. So I'm going to suggest right now that while you will exist for the most part in this program as Tickers, if you knock one out of the park, you're going to be David Robert Derek Tickner.
5:45Early pressure. Let's hope that gets wheeled out. So our first episode lands on the eve of the ashes. The talking has been going on since, well, pretty much the end of the last ashes. And this is a sporting event where the talking is almost half the contest. But the actual cricket is nearly here. As such, we thought the very best place to start this show would be Down Under and an examination of the very particular way that Australians approach and talk about cricket. So I'm going to kick us off with the thing that's been driving them completely nuts. There's no doubt about it. They've got the fear.
6:20I don't quite know exactly why. I've got my own theories, but I really want to hear it from you three. I'm going to start with you, Nick. It's Baz Ball. What is it about Baz Ball that has sent Australians so hot under the collar? Normally, England arrive and we're just a bunch of limp-wristed, wet-eyed lambs to the slaughter. Now, turning up with Baz Ball embladened on our faces, it's like we've invaded the country and broken the Glen Eagles Agreement, various UN resolutions, not to mention the spirit of cricket. What is wrong with Basbal? There are probably several things. As you kind of suggested there, there is an element of England being kind of not the oh, we're just going to show up and play the game kind of thing.
7:03There is an aggression that is historically un-English, which has probably thrown people a bit. And there is obviously the piety that has come along with elements of Basbal that is inevitably going to wind anyone up, really, never mind just Australians. So there is some of that, but the kind of... And there's also an element of, which I think we might hear in a clip very shortly, of the, well, we were hitting the cricket ball hard years ago, so, you know, surely we invented this. So there is an element of that as well, that they are kind of irritated that this seems to be presented as a new thing that they claim that they have been doing for quite some time.
7:52Well, you mentioned the clip. Let's get on to the clip. This was a recent press launch. The great cricketer asked some former Test greats, Dave Warner, Adam Gilchrist, among them Pat Cummins, if they got wound up by Bazball. Does Bazball wind you up? Not really. I feel like most cricket, if bad is the score it runs, that winds me up. As a general rule, I'd say not too much. Does Bazball wind you up? No, because I just think it's a cop-out. So if they win or they lose, they just say this is the way that we play and we're entertaining. Does basketball wind you up? No. No. I thoroughly enjoy it. I love it.
8:25We were doing it 20 years before them, and it's just the way you play cricket. See the ball hit it? No, it doesn't wind me up. Now, tickers, there's a couple of things here. David Ward is saying I'm not wound up in the most wound up way a man has ever said anything. Adam Gilchrist, what do you mean, basketball? we've been playing it for years do they just not know what Baz Ball is what do you think they think Baz Ball is? I think this is it and I think England are as guilty of this at times is I don't think what Baz Ball is is what Australia think Baz Ball is because they think it's just whacking it and not caring and trying to score quickly but it is much more sort of ethereal than that it's more of an idea it and the the fast scoring and the whacking it and you know not caring if you get out supposedly is a symptom if you want to have a go or but it's an outcome of basball basball is the approach to the game it's not about the batting you can see basball in the in the field arguably more than you can when they're batting because england's batters are actually that's that is the way they play to use another cricket cliche the bowling attack becoming aggressive not always as demonstrably or as successfully as the batters but England basball in the field they don't just basball with the bat it is a whole approach to the game and it does require this sort of absolute buy-in this cult-like this is how we do it because as soon as you let any doubt creep in the whole thing falls apart.
10:09It has to be this cult-like obsession with it. And I think that does wind people up because there is a sort of hero, main character energy to it that I think is quite infuriating. You can see that in the film. I'm so glad you mentioned being in the field. The Old Trafford Test, Joffre Archer and Liam Dawson, the Old Trafford Test this last summer. They were both being captained by Ben Stokes and in some cases for either the second time or the first time, you could tell they didn't understand that when they said that they wanted their field to be set in a certain way, Ben Stokes had to come around and say, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.
10:49I'm perfectly happy for you to be pumped for six over here. I don't give a damn if your leaking runs through there, Nick. This is basketball, isn't it? Basketball is whatever Ben Stokes has the vibe, the feeling, that needs to be done in the moment and everybody just has to go along with it. That is one really crucial element of Bazball. And maybe one of the reasons that people get annoyed with it is because they kind of recognise that they don't quite understand it. They recognise that there is a... or that their version of it is not quite what they see on the field. That it is this kind of, as Dave said, this kind of ethereal thing that they can't quite get a grasp on.
11:32I want to throw in just something else. I'm going to throw it into Dan because Dan can arbitrate this. Essentially, when the English turn up in Australia, you have this cultural battle, which is that Australia is a land that's new and full of great ideas. They're not like the sad milk toasts back in the home country who never showed any kind of get-up-and-go, who just sit there tending sheep and then going off to war and being slaughtered. No, no, no, no. We Australians went for a bright new future. and we do things differently. We're larrikins. We're crazy. We reinvent the rules. Now, for this particular series, you've got a team of senescent pensioners, a 39-year-old opening the batty.
12:18When they lost Josh Hazelwood, they went for a 35-year-old in Michael Nyssa as the replacement. They like to go at about 2.8 and over. And England have turned up, and they've turned the tables on them and said, look, we're all young, we're all funky, we're all crazy. and this is like going right at the very heart of how Australians feel about themselves and how they feel about themselves is defined by how they feel about the English is that is that a reasonable thing to suggest yeah absolutely I mean and talking about cliches it's so funny as an outsider seeing how the two teams are doubling down on the others cliche it seems to be making the the Aussies more uncomfortable and yeah what is basball I mean basball is whatever you want it's a vibe it's it's the water that you place in whatever vessel you decide it is we don't care if we go out but we're going to war as the england mental skills coach says so it's the most important thing in the world and it's the least important thing in the world and the aussies it is quite fun seeing this out the the alphas of the cricket world kind of chase their tails and try and act all prim and proper so as a south african i'm finding it hilarious how how wet the aussies are behaving it's it's uh brilliant bring it on i still want them to win but it is funny watching them just melt oh wow I dropped a bomb there.
13:32Sorry, is that too early? Should I have been saving that for the third episode? No, absolutely not. No, because I mean, the assumption always, if you're English, is that everybody wants you to lose and for perfectly decent righteous reasons because jealousy is an ugly trait and it's what happens to almost everybody else around the world. They're not English. They wish they were. They want the English to lose. I totally get that. But why in this instance? Because it doesn't really make any sense, you know. I mean, South Africans were welcomed with open arms to lords where they could finally win a trophy.
14:03We help them not bottle it by putting it in a neutral venue and then really support them. What is it about the Australians that you would rather that even they win? It's two reasons, I think. Obviously speaking for every single South African cricket fan in the world. The one is Mike Marcus sees anyone but England and that sort of old colonial hang-up and that insecurity. But the other one is I share Australia's insecurities. I don't like England not being English. I don't like England being captained by a guy with a six-pack and tattooed forearms and they're all wearing bucket hats and playing rock music.
14:36You should have grey hair, yeah? Yeah, I want Mike Atherton and his erudite language to go to the toss and lose and return to England proud but defeated. That's the role you're supposed to play. I don't like that you're behaving in a way that you shouldn't be behaving. So, yeah, I want order restored to the world. in the age of Trump and Musk and the threat of everything, I want at least cricket to behave itself. Okay, I get that. I mean, can we just, we're going to finish on basketball because so much time is spent working out what basketball is. And I think we agree, it's essentially a vibe.
15:09It's almost like homeopathy, isn't it? Well, it is. You like go to Tom Hartley, you say he's bowled nine overs, he's gone none for 63. And every other captain in the world is going, oh God, they've sent me this completely inexperienced no-hoper. When I need a gun spinner, And Stokes goes, no, you're going to bowl another 30 overs. And eventually he gets him over the line. It's like faith healing. You know, it's like putting the tiny drop of something in his orange juice. And now we've given you a magic potion. It's asterisk. It's all this kind of crap. An ex-girlfriend who was into Reiki healing said, look, if you don't really believe in it, then it's not going to work, is it?
15:45That is basble. Yeah. It only works if you believe in it. But we can believe in the right spelling of it, can't we? because the Australians have been trolling us by spelling it wrong. Okay. And to me, I'm actually genuinely offended by that. And normally I'm only offended by people who take offence at anything. But this is actually getting on my nerves now. Right. It's not Baz Spaceball. There are no hyphens involved either. There aren't two capital letters. Can we all agree it's Baz Ball? It's all one word and that's it? They're doing it on purpose. They know how to spell it. They knew Stuart Broad's name when they wouldn't write that.
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18:08Let's come on to the next thing that happens when you're in Australia. And you guys have been really hot on this. It's what newspapers do. and normally the first test match takes place in Brisbane and their newspaper, they've been used to this for years so I reckon they've got an eve of ashes writer that actually spends most of his time talking about wind farms but they drag him out from his day job and go can you write those really insane headlines because the English are coming to town what's called the Courier Mail or something but now they're doing it in Western Australia and I think this is the chance for these guys absolutely to flex their muscles They've been waiting in Perth to write really ridiculous headlines, and they've pulled off a couple of absolute crackers.
18:50Here is one of my favourites. England's cocky captain complainer, still smarting from crease gate. Whatever the hell that is, I think we all know, but it was never... No one called it that. No one. So Australian. I'll give it to you again. England's cocky captain complainer, that's all in capitals, still smarting from crease gate, lands in Perth, the usual classic picture of an English person arriving with a lot of bags on a trolley. He lands there early, thinking dopey Bears Ball, with a capital B twice, can take the Eshers. That's one of the longest headlines of all time. The big headline is Bears Ball, B-A-W-L.
19:32I'm going to start with you, Dan, because again, you are the arbitrator here. Stokes, cocky, captain case a captain i mean he's i suppose quite confident what's he ever complained about what is crease gate and what is he crying about because i don't see any crying going on i see england turning up and actually doing the opposite of crying well to be fair to the paper he did land in perth so they got they got that right at least um yeah the western australia god they've been great they're like the the person who stumbled you know they're like a new money they've stumbled on a lot of wealth having a first test and they've bought a marble statue for their for their garden and a gaudy staircase that they're building and the kitchen is some mauve horrible color so yeah good on them i mean you know they let him let him enjoy it what are they complaining about well they is is the absence of complaining complaining if you've if you've built a cliche and a narrative in your head you know is he is he cocky because he's you know he's got a good rig and he and he looks good and he's got an angular jaw i don't know um i mean long may it continue i i hope i hope before now and and the start of the test which is only a day away i hope we get five more headlines from the western australia because they've been fantastic i've absolutely loved it i couldn't agree with you more are we sure that maybe there is not there is there's like a national person that's a uh like um responsible for this in australia like a sort of poet laureate kind of thing it's not it's not the responsibility of the individual newspapers they just roll that they just kind of call up this person whenever england land anywhere i'm almost sure it is the same guy from the courier mail that might be wrong but i think it is the same guy who writes this nonsense do you reckon he's on like an annual stipend of like four jars of Vegemite and a leg of kangaroo.
21:23Like in the Jason Bourne films when someone says, activate the asset. Someone presses a button and the little light goes on in this guy's head. They find him in a cabin in the Outback and he wouldn't do it again and this is just going to be one last test series. Big beard, short shorts. It also works because they brought him out of retirement for one last job and he's not been paying attention, which is why he doesn't understand anything that's happened in the last three years. They probably called it Creasegate. Because we've touched on Creasegate, we need to touch on the other thing that Australians do, which is get everything wrong.
22:05So they're totally right to be infuriated by the English. I don't have a problem with that at all. But they get infuriated the wrong way. So they got infuriated. Creasegate is our jumping off point here. I kind of know for a fact that pretty much everybody in the England team knew that Johnny Berstow was being a dopey bugger walking out of his crease and it was perfectly within the laws of the game for him to be given out and he was the fact that it made Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad briefly mad with rage simply gave England a better chance of winning I mean the worst thing that could have happened to England in that situation would have been if Pat Cummins had called him back because suddenly Australians would have had the moral high ground for the next 250 years, right?
22:50But this crease gate nonsense is what's created the wrongness about the moral victory, isn't it? And let's just dive into that a little bit here because the moral victory, Dave, or tickers, I should say, the moral victory, as Lawrence Booth has pointed out, was an answer to a question that was posed by a journalist to Harry Brook before the fifth test. It had absolutely nothing to do with Alex Carey within the laws of the game, perfectly justifiably stumping Johnny Birstow. First of all, I like that we are now calling it Creasegate, by the way. That's happened. That's the thing. Another thing there that you correctly said stumping, because one of my favourite things about that dismissal is that there's three things Australians like to say about it.
23:41one perfectly fair mate learn the laws and you wrote the laws but loads of them call it a run out it's like wasn't a run out learn the laws my only issue with that dismissal is when people call it a run out then i get rattled but the dismissal itself was absolutely fine but it was not a run out but the the moral victory yet had nothing to do with that it was a just a question asked Harry Brooke and he gave a very sort of standard answer that yeah if England were to win that final test and get a two-all draw in which they'd had the best of a game ruined by rain that yeah that could be considered a moral victory and that is the definition of a moral victory that has existed in cricket as far as I can tell forever.
24:33Batsman nicks one through the slips for four and the commentator says oh that's a moral victory for the bowler there. everyone understands what that means or understood what that meant because now nobody understands what that was because the word moral in there has now tied this to the spirit of cricket and that's where the cocky captain complainer comes from you know england do have this thing of we're the arbiters with you know that's not the spirit of cricket but of course australia getting annoyed about that that's just more hypocrisy because they always had the line that they would push right up against the line but never crossed the line but they decided where the line was so it's all it's always it always comes back to with england and australia that they're both going yeah but when i do it it's cute yeah they're both as bad as each other for this sort of stuff but suddenly everyone now thinks a moral victory is winning in a moral way so that our england can't win a game unless they've also won it morally and that's never what it meant it never ever meant that it just meant you didn't win but you know you you in some way had the better of that situation a bowler gets a you know draws a false shot out of a batter but the batter gets four runs for it that's a moral victory for bollet everyone knew what that meant like there was like um ian botham was asked about it some event or other and he said oh i don't know anything about that I didn't play for morals now there's no way that Ian Botham hasn't said that's a moral victory for the bowler probably after complaining that there should have been seven slips instead of six but there's no way he hasn't used and understood that phrase and now no I don't know what that means it's an entire sport has apparently decided to pretend it didn't use and understand that phrase for decades and now it's all about crease gate which it was never about anyway Personally I want to campaign for us getting rid of the moral victory generally in all parts of cricket because one of the wonderful things about cricket is that it doesn't have to be like other sports and it doesn't have to become obsessed with moral philosophy I'm all for that The game is essentially unfair You start with a toss for heaven's sake It's the most unfair game that there is You might get to bowl first in cloudy conditions, bowl a side out.
26:57I mean, let's face it, England did that when they won the Ashes in 2010. But the MCG, the ball hooped around all over the place. It was grey. They bowled out Australia for under 100 and there were 140-odd for done when the sun came out at the end of the day. I don't think the Australians could claim a moral victory there. There were no morals going on at all. There was just the cruel, hard reality that cricket is the most unfair game in the world. so I personally want to be done with the whole notion of morality it's just that the Australians insist on keeping it going right let's move on it's the greatest trick I've been asked here the greatest trick the devil ever pulled getting Australians to be convinced that the English are the whingers and I think this is a really good question because the first people to hurl bombs at people's heads were MacDonald and Gregory I'm telling you I'm going to get really historical here with you.
27:501920, 21, 1921, and 1924, 25. The Aussies used fast bowlers for the first time. It's hard to believe, but before the war, a spinner would open the bowling. Somebody might bowl a little quick, but you can see in the record, he's bowled 26 overs. So what's he bowling? 70 miles an hour, absolute tops. Suddenly, they got these big quicks come along. Then in 1932, and they're doing this, by the way, at a bunch of emaciated war veterans who haven't eaten properly for six years, while the Aussies, like Don Bradman, later on complained that they got sore foot so they never had to go to war and just sit there consuming kangaroo steak by the absolute bucket load and wait for us off the boat, each of them three times bigger than all of our poor sad lads.
28:361932-3, Douglas Jardine goes over there, takes a look at the laws of cricket, realises that you are actually allowed to hit Donald Bradman around the chest area in England, win comfortably. Ever since which time the Australians have somehow accused us, the English, of whining. How have they pulled that trick, Dave? It's the annoyingly simple answer is because they win more, isn't it? That you don't whinge after you win, you whinge after you lose. Pound for pound, Australia are bigger whingers than England. I will go to my grave on that hill. but England whinge more because Australia win more often than England do and especially in the Ashes but the last series in that final test the series that they have come to define as England claiming moral victories and whinging about Creasegate non-stop that test ended with Australia crying their eyes out because Chris Wokes and Stuart Broad were getting the ball to move in English conditions.
29:46They whinge after every game they have ever lost. England whinge. I'm not saying England don't whinge. But the idea that Australia just accepts defeat as part and parcel of the game and on they go, don't whinge about it like the crying English do. They whinge all the time. Well, they've been whinging since 1956. 100 years. When Jim Laker took 19 wickets at Headingley, apparently it was because the pitch unfairly took spin, even though England scored 420 in the first innings. I mean, there's a toss. If you had won the toss, they could have batted first. They didn't. Whose fault's that? They probably called tails because they, you know, don't like to see the monarch's head on a coin and yet consistently vote to keep it there for reasons that only they know.
30:32It's a land of contrast. It really is. Can I just say, as a South African, this whole conversation and all this moral victory and the whinging. I'm just reminded of that Spider-Man meme where the three Spider-Men are just pointing at each other. It's also that office meme where they hold up the two pictures and it's the same thing. You are the same. The rest of the world likes you just as much as each other, which is not very much, and you're the same. Can you both lose? Can both teams lose in Ashes now? They're both bad winners and bad winners. I would argue, Dan, that actually the last Ashes in England, both sides lost.
31:05because England lost the opportunity for an amazing come-from-behind-3-2 win because of the rain at Old Trafford. And Australia has still not won a series in England since 2001. So actually, it was supposed to be one of the greatest Ashes series of all time. And both sides really don't want to talk about it anymore because they didn't actually achieve what they were trying to do, which is one of the essential absurdities of playing a sport in which a draw is acceptable. Now, let's get on to a couple of things. Listen to Neil. A little bit of housekeeping here. and it's a very reasonable question.
31:37He says, I know they're down under, and the joke is often about things being upside down or the wrong way around, but what kind of nonsense is putting the wickets first in the score? This is a really good question. They don't do it in New Zealand. They don't do it in South Africa, do they? No. They don't do it anywhere. Does anybody, I think I do know the reason, but does anybody else have a theory? Because mine is mostly a theory. I've heard a theory. it doesn't really explain it but the one I heard it sounds like bollocks is that when they built the scoreboard at Sydney they built it with the wickets first and everyone else just copied it but that really just begs the question why did they do that it doesn't answer the question but that's that's the theory that someone told me once I think they were having me on well I've got one that is obviously described by an Australian and therefore comes freighted with probably deviousness and lying because we know what they're like.
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32:37By the way, we can only say this because we're going to have Aussies on soon. Got to get it all out now, haven't we? Get it out of our system. Get it out of our system. I was told that it's because, well, look, mate, you can't win a game without taking 20 wickets. It's how many wickets have you got? Who gives a damn about the runs? Yeah. It's kind of plausible, isn't it? Do you know what that sounds? That sounds to me like the way Americans try to rationalize Fahrenheit as being more logical than Celsius. If you want to do the score the wrong way around, do the score the wrong way around. It doesn't matter.
33:09It doesn't really matter, does it? But don't pretend it makes more sense. Just own it. Someone once told me that the only reason was because it wasn't what the English weren't doing. Like it was just a point of being different. I mean, which sounds ridiculous, but you can kind of believe it. If that is the reason, I'd have to grudgingly admire it. I can respect that as a reason. Look, we've called a crease gate. Should we just say that is the reason? We're solving stuff here, aren't we? I've got to get on to Australian weirdnesses in language. We've touched on this, but the basic question, it comes down to this.
33:42Why can't Australians call a ball a delivery, a ripper? Why can't they do that? Rock is another one. Here, though, is perhaps the most extreme example. Here's Cameron Bancroft talking to the broadcast team after a BBL game. When I was playing county cricket for Gloucestershire, I was at Declaration Bowl, I'm with the new stonker, and I picked up a wicked Delray Rawlins, a young left-hander who plays for Sussex, so poor young man. Stonker means something very different from where I'm from. It means something that's smelly, isn't it? That's what I thought. Can be. Can be, yeah. Can be, I suppose, yeah.
34:26Stonker to me is, you know, you've got to stonk on, you know. That's what I know it as. Nick, where are you from? The sort of leafy midlands of England. Maybe we do things differently there. So is this what you call a roll of bread a cob? A cob, yes, very much so, yeah, yeah, yeah. So could a really good cob give you a stonker? it would have to be really good but yes in theory could a cob be another name for a cricket ball you're not going to get a bounce with a cob but yeah I suppose it could be some of these drive me absolutely nuts to the extent that I don't do it anymore but I took to Twitter at the end of the last decade because I'd heard so many Australian commentators using the words cherry, pill and seed, these are three that I absolutely despise.
35:21Who started these three? And I don't want to lead you down the obvious path of Warney, but I feel like he was there when it happened. But there was a group thing that happened. And I never heard Richie Benno talking about a seed. No. I never heard Richie Benno talking about a cherry. When we had proper commentators from Australia, when did this nonsense start? Like in my day, man. Proper. I was going straight to Warne. I don't know if he started it. He definitely is the one in my head who popularised it. He seems to be the one. I can just easily hear him now talking about a cherry or a pill. Pill.
36:01Taking polls. I have a slightly different opinion on seed. I don't like it, but I think with cherry or pill, they're just bad second mentions of ball. and ball is such a fundamental thing to a game. You can just say ball. Say ball as many times as you need to say ball. I like nut. Nut. Yeah. It's close to a seed, that, as a nut. Bigger, though. Heavier. But often it's the same thing, isn't it? You can't ball a heavy seed, can you? Well, no. You can ball a heavy nut. You can't ball a heavy seed. No. But I think a seed has some connotations of being a good delivery. yeah oh that's an absolute c i don't know i even hearing it come out of my mouth i don't like it but i think that you couldn't say that's an absolute cherry yeah where's the end point you know that's an apple oh that's an orange you know like these these all these i mean these have you seen a cedar or not they don't even shape like balls but an apple is you know oh that's a that's a cracking watermelon that that's a heavy ball yeah watermelon's a heavy ball an apple makes way more sense.
37:12You're absolutely right. Yeah, always. What a kumquat that was. I mean, it's just... Cherries are minuscule. Yeah. A good red apple looks a lot like a ball. I mean, it's just... Gold and delicious. What a ball that is, by the way. One last thing to say about that. I hate it more. You see, because look, it may have been warned. He may have started it. He may have invaded Poland. I don't know. But what I do know, What I do know is that there is something somehow that gets a little bit sick in the back of my throat when somebody who's not Australian or is Australian and isn't an ex-player does it.
37:53Do you know what I mean? There's something kind of like trying to gain approval that doesn't work for me. And it's similar if I hear an English commentator do it when they've got an Aussie with them. Because it's like, we've lost the war then. Like, basketball's never going to work. You can take your basketball and stick it up your arse. if you're actually falling for their seed cherry pill nonsense, we might as well give up now and go home. It's definitely that sort of bully's little snivelling mate thing, isn't it? Yeah. Just like, oh, yeah, that pill. No, it is very Hamster Hammond. That was a beautiful Stuart Lee moment.
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40:09So look, we've put a few worlds to right, but we have got six more episodes to put more worlds to right. And the reason why these worlds are being put to right is actually, in a way, our founding father, the man who's made all of this possible. He sits there now without his beanie on, with his internet connection now finally working, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. But he came up with an idea. I remember him ringing me, and we had a very gentle conversation. I had no idea it would turn into this. Dan Gallen, writing in The Guardian, compiled a dictionary of all the words we use to describe the very simple and straightforward act of hitting a ball with a bat, or at least a first draft.
40:51As it feels, this is something that could run and run. It could grow and grow. This is what this programme, hopefully, is going to tease out. I mean, you've even gone so far because you are, if you don't mind me saying so, like everybody involved in cricket, just a little bit weird. You've put together a wagon wheel. I've got it right in front of me. Where you've divided the wagon wheel of the ground into eight different quadrants and then put words as to what kind of a shot might send the ball there. So you take it away, Dan. What was the inspiration? and I guess, well, just talk us through it.
41:34What happened when you did this, when you had this voyage of discovery? Did you discover anything new? Did you discover any meaning in life? Did it transform the way you thought about all this or did you just think, there's 300 quid I can extract from The Guardian? If you ask my wife, it's probably some undiagnosed autism or ADD that I've got that compelled me to even care about this. But it was actually Joe Root who kept dabbing and steering and angling the ball down to third man and i just thought oh that's that's quite fun wonder what happens if he would prod it or scythe it or lash it because he's definitely not lashing it or scything it it's just hitting a moving seed nut rock pill into different parts of the ground with a a blade wood willow whatever it might be stick as the aussies like to refer to it so yeah and and i love how cricket when you're on the guardian blog you need shorthands because you have to go so quickly especially when you've got like two spinners working at both ends so you can't just say hit every single time so you so instead of saying oh with an angled bat he came down and with a flick of his wrist i can just say he tucked off his pads and people know exactly what that means and i mean clearly i'm showing how how nerdy i am but i think that's one of the coolest things about cricket that you've got these little languages and i'm Also, you know, I'm such a fan of the Football Clichés pod.
42:54Shout out to the bosses. Please keep me on the roster. Yeah, I just sort of made, put two and two together. And I'm pretty sure Dan, over like our third bottle of wine, we'd probably had this conversation at some point. So I just rung you up and I thought, hey, let's get that Guardian money with the peas. Yeah, well, I mean, I didn't see any of it, I've got to say. And nor have you brought me that drink off the back of introducing you to the word Grebel, which you had never heard before. Grebel was a good one. I'd never heard Grebel. Greeble, remind me, greeble is when you sort of like... Let's ask the other two.
43:24What do you think a greeble is, Dickers? Sort of like a little miscue that sort of dribbles away. Yeah. Maybe like into the offside, I feel, more than leg side for a greeble. Yeah. It's spot on. It's behind square on the offside. So it's often a tail ender, a quick bowl of bowls, and it gets an edge that goes into the ground without any great pace, and it never makes it to the boundary. A greeble will never go for four, but it might go for two through sort of backward point. Like they've got three slips in place, but it's somehow greebled its way down towards the boundary. You've got some beautiful ones on here.
44:04I mean, we've got a rundown, we've got an angle, we've got a dab and a guide and a caress. Those are all possible down to third. And for point, which I think is the place of the richest language, Nick, I'm going to ask you about this. He's got, you can have a steer, you can just about have a squirt through there and a prod and a poke. but it's the lashing, the scything, the flailing, the slapping, the drilling, the thrashing, the spearing, and the slashing. That is an area, isn't it, of maximum verbal excitement. It's basically that little bit between point and backward point. Yeah, and I think it's because that kind of shot, or particularly the more aggressive versions of that shot, requires a lot more physicality.
44:48because you have to kind of, obviously if you have a right hander doing that, you have to kind of open your body out a little bit so there's movement there and then draw the back back and really kind of go through with it. So the more kind of moving parts there are to a shot, it feels like there's more kind of richness to the number of words that you have to describe it. One of the ones from that piece that I think it was, I think it might have been your suggestion, Daniel, was Strapple. Can you talk us to what Strapple is? Well, Strappel was introduced to me by Ian O 'Brien, the New Zealand fast bowler.
45:23And no one strappled until the very early part of the 21st century. And then Kevin Peterson made it famous with the most famous strappel of all time. It's the shot that's larrapped past Brett Lee, isn't it? Right. In the Oval Test of 2005. You know, that moment when English people genuinely believed that they were going to get out of it because KP stood tall and he hit a widest short ball straight back past the bowler for four. It was a pull, but it was a straight pull. So it became a strapple. And I just thought that was absolutely delicious. I use the strapple loads, but the problem with the strapple is that I've tried to get everybody to understand it, but I have to explain it every time I do it.
46:10Do you think there comes a point? Do I have to be more famous to make a word actually stay forever? Because, I mean, just try to think about a commentator, guys, now. Just think of a commentator who's made a word their own. And I don't mean KP, who's made the word great his own. That's a great shot. That's a really great shot. That's a really, really great shot. Other than that, is there anybody out there who's got a kind of like word that they've got in and made it work? no the strapple one's interesting i see for me i know this is it doesn't sound nice and i don't like saying it but for me the first thought is baseballed like can that be a word he baseballed that down the ground because it's sort of like you know you can say what it does on the tin whereas i wonder if these words are kind of like a bit of a bell curve where strapple might be just kind of veering down into the other side of the bell curve a little bit and kp's great is on the is on all the way on this side of the bell curve yeah not to put you in the same breath as as kp uh daniel well i'd be i'd be honored genuinely honored i mean we've we've found the best of kp and the worst of kp in the last three minutes and that's really what cricket cliches is going to be all about we give with the one hand and we take with the other next right about the about back backward point and cover the one i also really liked was was cow corner because that's where you mow and you smear and you tonk um two very different kind of areas of the pitch where you know one is very graceful and forceful and deliberate another one is like i mean no one we call a cow corner because the ball shouldn't even go there so if you are mowing or smearing or hoiking something's kind of not gone very well so i do like how certain you know this is the whole runji playing it off his pads we even in 2025 we like to think that there are proper cricket shots and the ball should move in a particular direction and i yeah i really like that so what's the ultimate i mean for me when i hear caressed i mean that just gives me feels goosebumps in a way that if i hear marmalized or larrapped i kind of know what's happened there but it's been an act of violence but it's the the caress that is the thing that really reminds me of my late teens.
48:25Mark Waugh through the covers. Damien Martin, Ian Bell, it's these guys, isn't it? The kind of stroke that would make Mark Nicholas say, oh yeah. That is Ian Bell.
48:39Is it different to a ping? Because you ping through the covers as well, but that's not as nice as a caress, but it's not far off, is it? I think ping probably involves a little bit more, like, not violence, but a little bit more follow-through. a caress is you just sort of you can sort of present the bat and it just straight goes straight daniel i think i think you once said someone had compelled it through the covers which i really like it's almost like he insisted it went down there which i really enjoyed yes part of the reason for that may have well you may have caught me in an act of ipl coverage there come times especially if you're commentating a game with the chinaswami in bengaluru where the pitch is so good when you've seen A.B.
49:24de Villiers play that shot over and over and over and over again into the crowd you've got to find words and some of them just stick but then you get like the metaphors that stick so this doesn't work quite for what you were saying but like the tracer bullet for example like a lot of people got a downer on the tracer bullet they say well the thing about the tracer bullet is it goes more slowly well in fairness when you hit a cricket ball if it went as fast as off a bullet then there would be health and safety concerns yeah when you were like writing your piece did you like have commentators in your mind when you were thinking about a particular word tracer bullet definitely because uh Ravi Shastri sort of made that his own hasn't he I mean that the Ravi's tracer bullet has become a meme of it's you know in and of itself and I I wasn't a fan of the tracer bullet until uh Henry Henry Moran who also spoke on the piece pointed out yeah but you can see a tracer bullet and all of a sudden light bulb moment and I you know things that clicked no I didn't I didn't really because when I'm thinking of of the of the shots you know I say these words when I'm when I'm bowling in fact I was bowling in my very average club game and someone mowed me I even told him oh that's just a mow you know like it's just they just come to me straight away so I don't I'm not thinking of commentators but it's just so automatic some of them are derogatory I mean like you know if someone's mowing me i'm on that's a moral victory for me if they're mowing me if they're smearing me but if they um if they're bludgeoning me oh well that's just proving that i'm i'm not bowling a heavy enough ball as it were i'm going to leave this subject with one example of i think one shot that has only ever really been described by one man and that is the short hand jab the short hand jab is completely richie benno you might know it as the bunt but he meant something a little bit more forceful than that it was something a little it was somewhere between a bunt and a thwack but he was the only man you ever heard just a little no more than no more than he'd say a short arm jab as if trying to let young people know that you don't have to go completely hell for leather well does a short arm jab go to the boundary but a bunt is just in the gap for one or two is that the difference yeah it tends to tends to tends to i would i would say that definitely would be part of it.
51:41But most people would find other ways of saying that now. But the short-hand jab was always his. Look, now there are lots of variations, because this is an offshoot of football cliches, on the cricketing version of Mesut Harland Dix. So some of them roll off the tongue a little better than others. We've had a few contributions here. Matt C has gone for Desmond Boland-Hicks. I quite like Desmond Boland-Hicks. Rob has got Mustard Hayden Dilshan. Eddie has the initials well why not yeah yeah yeah Desmond Boland Hick I tell you Desmond and Boland and Hick are coming up big time and suddenly Mark Islet makes a mention and the moment Mark Islet gets a mention we're all on the edge of our seats Desmond Islet Gibbs best I can do settling a baby at 2am so I like that he's come up with actually quite a good one but then said don't don't at me because I'm dealing with a baby at 2 Alex again, my god so after he'd done the 2am he'd thought better of it, he thought hang on I want to change it, it's Fraser Islet Gibbs have it without Nick or you know you're the arbiter of these things the best I came up with was it was kind of a variant on these which was Herbert Boland Hicks which is kind of it was a little bit, I wasn't entirely happy with it, I think of those my favourite is Desmond Boland Hicks because it has the it has the kind of Des Des Desi Haynes wouldn't he does Desi bowl and Hicks oh Desi it's got a nicer rhythm for anyone who doesn't know this is something that happens in football cliches it's a play on Desert Island Discs a thousand abundantly clear and there isn't a perfect fit Hicks kind of feels like it has to go in even though that actually isn't the name of the famous character it's the name of the snooker player Andy Hicks It's the name of it.
53:37Yeah, exactly. We all remember him. A workaround, I thought, getting into that is you could put an apostrophe in there, which is not perfect. I think it's fine because in Desert Island Discs, Discs is a plural. Yeah. Hicks is a plural. That's fine. Tickers, what is your favourite? I've warmed to the idea of Desi. I like Desi in there. Desi Islet Gibbs. Desi Islet Gibbs. That's strong, isn't it? That's strong. If so, I think we're giving it to Alex after he's settling his baby at 2M. Yeah.
54:14right then have we actually mentioned the uh the heavy ball yet it's it's been kind of obliquely referenced but yeah right uh well we're running out of time so we're going to well the heavy ball is the thing that everyone's like you know obsessed by jordan send us a message the concept of bowling a heavy ball it's just a tall bowler isn't it i i personally i'm going to kick this off by saying i don't think they're just tall i think they've got quite a large ass i think they've got a slightly outsized head and i think they bowl back of a length as their stock ball yeah i think a heavy man needs to bowl a heavy ball first of all so so morning morkel even though he was long and tall joffre archer quick uh markwood quickest they don't bowl heavy balls they have to have broad chest the sort of man who if he wasn't a professional cricketer would immediately develop a a bare belly yeah big ass someone who leaves thick track marks in his run-up back of a length is important and basically what a heavy ball for me is just someone who looks like he should be bowling slightly slower than he does actually bowl someone who rushes the batter it's it's not just about pace and it's not just about the the intent and the aggression although obviously aggression is part of it you know if you can bowl a heavy ball and force the batter backwards and give them a little stare because oh that rushed them a little bit i think that's that's what we're looking at a heavy a heavy man bowls a heavy ball with heavy intent flintoff bowls a heavy ball ector bished did not bowl a heavy ball titch freeman did not bowl a heavy ball ian austin might bowl a heavy ball we've got some physics here does anybody want to try it it just came in in the whatsapp We need some boffins.
56:00Well, I was going to leave it to a boffin. Unfortunately, we don't have access to all the boffins. But there is some physics that's been sent through. And I didn't understand it at all. So this is how it goes, right? Momentum P equals M with a dot slightly higher up than you might expect, V, dot where you'd expect it. for a given mass m bracket standard cricket ball not quite equals it's a wavy equals i don't even know what that means roughly equals 0.156 kilograms higher speed versus gives higher momentum so the ball carries greater capacity to decide if you haven't killed yourself by now listening to this i mean this is this i couldn't do archimedes principle let alone this it carries greater capacity disturb the bat or hit the stumps.
56:54Kinetic energy, here we go, KE equals half m dot v squared. So small increases in speed raise kinetic energy more than linear, so a slightly faster delivery feels more punchy. I'm happy to stick with the big arse thing, actually. Jason Holder could not bowl a heavy ball, and my reason for that is that his head's too small for the size of his body. It just seems like a lot of complicated stuff to say Tim Bresnan hits the gloves hard. Hits the gloves hard? But see, even that doesn't quite, because I mean, Archer hits the gloves harder, surely. But he's not burning a heavy ball. I think it's the unexpected element, isn't it?
57:32No matter how many times you face Tim Bresnan or Jack Callis or Andrew Flintoff and their big arses and big chests and heavy, heavy everything, is that you still are somehow surprised that that ball is hitting the splice of your back a bit harder than you expect it to. It's hitting the keeper's gloves a bit harder than he expects it to, having kept to them a million times. Does Colin de Gronholm bowl a heavy ball? Oh. I feel like New Zealand all-rounders, they tend to bowl heavy balls, don't they? Because they're not bowling quick balls. Jimmy Neeson. They're all just heavy. He feels like a heavy ball bowler.
58:13I'm not going to tell you who said this to me, because you mentioned Colin de Gronholm. I asked a very good friend of mine after Colin de Gronholm had got out to a particularly poor shot in a World Cup match in 2019. I turned to him and said, You know Colin pretty well. You've interviewed him many times. Can you give us an insight into what he's like? And he took a deep breath and he said, Well, Dan, Colin is not a man overly encumbered by the heavy weight of intellect. As a result, he has a tremendous clarity of thought if you can call it that. It's a really good job you didn't give us the person's name.
58:54Yeah. I'm really bad at accents. I'm really bad at accents. I'm just surprised Kevin Peterson said something so thoughtful.
59:05Right. We've got loads more of these to get through, but we're not going to get through them today. We're going to get through them over the course of the next six weeks. It's been absolutely fantastic bringing you this episode of Cricket Clichés. And please keep your questions coming. If we haven't answered them all this week, It is really because we've been quite self-indulgent and needed to set the tone of what the programme's about. And there was an awful lot of concern over whether or not Dan Gallen would be able to join us before he was spirited away by the Vardavine Hoff gang and taken to an underground Erie, never to be seen again.
59:34I've been Daniel Norcross. If you don't know who I am, that's probably best left that way. Tickers has been Tickers. He hasn't quite reached today, but it will happen. David, Robert, Derek, Tickner status. Nick Miller thank you so much for guiding through the runes and reasons for why it is that we are here and to you Dan our founding star almost like one of those you know like the sort of the caramac coloured philosophy apes from Planet of the Apes the original with Roddy McDowell you're like even wearing the right coloured jumper if it weren't for you we wouldn't be here today I want to thank you especially for making it all work and I know how much agony it caused you we'll be back throughout the ashes we have got five stonking matches to come look it's also been really lovely having two english people in the south african here it's not always going to be this friendly it's not always going to be this much fun i'm going to coerce some australians on and we're going to get their view and that then means that well the whole spirit of the thing changes and we become really english and go oh no that's fine no it was it was a good seed.
1:00:44No, I really enjoyed that cherry. But for now, for today, we've all been allowed to be the very best versions of ourselves. Thank you so much for listening. Keep your reader suggestions coming in. We will read out many more of them over the coming weeks. Apart from anything else, we're going to need them. We've used up most of our material in the first episode. But to Tickers, to Nick and to Dan Gallon and from me, Daniel Norcross, it's a very warm goodbye.
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From the publisher
This, is Cricket Cliches, the all-new, slightly strange cousin of your favourite football podcast hosted by commentator Daniel Norcross with cricket journalists Dan Gallan and Dave Tickner, and the soothingly familiar presence of FC regular Nick Miller.
In our very first episode, on the eve of The Ashes, we dive headlong into the Bazball debate… why does it wind Australians up so much? And while we’re at it, just call the ball a ball.
We try to escape the “moral victory” maze and there’s a look back at the article which inspired the show, Dan G’s dictionary of batting vernacular.
And we spend too much time trying to come up with names for a cricketing equivalent of Mesut/Haaland/Dicks before answering our first listener question: what exactly is a ‘heavy ball’?
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