Discussion on All Things British

Damian in East Finchley N : « There are several towns of considerable size in England which incorporate "de la" or "le" in their names even today....Ashby de la Zouch (Leicestershire) and Stanford le Hope (Essex) or Chester le Street (Durham). »

Et <Marylebone> ? C'est <Marie la bonne> ou <Mary on the Bourne> ?

Since this is a discussion of everyting British, I thought I'd put in a few questions/comments about a movie/cricket match I was watching last night. I accidentally rented a Bollywood movie about a cricket match in 1860 (yeah, fancy that, turbans, saris, bats and balls, and spontaneously bursting into song). Anyway, I am sports impaired so my brain just was not getting the game and I've never seen it played before and have no idea what the rules are. Could someone help? Here's what I did figure out.

1. The bat is fall and the ball bounces and they play on a roundish field.

2. "No ball" doesn't literally mean there is no ball (ay chaps look at that the bloody ball vanished) its more like a foot-fault in tennis.

3. You wanta keep your wickett up or else you're out. Not really sure why, what does a bunch of sticks have to do with whacking a ball and running lines anyway?

4. The batter (if there's another word for that I've forgotten it over night) hits the ball preferably out of the stadium and then runs back and forth for a while. (Wow, really don't get that one unless this is really basketball practice and he is running lines)

5. You can hit the ball just about anywhere, unlike baseball where it only goes in one dierection. (This one Indian dude kept hitting the ball over his head and I was afraid he would smash his nose in with the bat, although on second thought that may have improved his looks somewhat)

6. And lastly, there is such a thing as dirty cricket. The British soldiers the Indians were playing had their bowlers (hey, I picked up one term) am for their opponents ankles or faces.

Correntions <the bat is flat not fall> <bowlers aim not am>

In cricket the aim is to score more runs than your opponent. Each team has 11 players, and the teams take turns in being the batting team (when they can score runs) and the bowling team (when they aim to "bowl out" the other team). For a team to be able to continue it must have two batsmen (not batters) at any time, so effectively the team can lose ten wickets and then it is "all out". In order to score runs, a team can strike the ball and run between the two wickets; for every time the batsmen run between the wickets they score one run. If the ball is struck and it reaches the boundary then four runs are scored if the ball has struck the floor after being hit, and six if the ball clears the boundary without hitting the floor. In order to get a batsman out, a bowler can "bowl" him (i.e. get the ball to knock at least one of the bails on top of the stumps off), get him caught LBW (leg before wicket... basically if the batsman blocks the ball from going onto his stumps using his legs, although the rule gets a lot more complicated when going in depth), have him caught by a fielder (the batsman hits the ball and is caught by a fielder without the ball hitting the floor). Also, a batsman can be "run out" if the fielding team hits the stumps with the ball when the batsman is out of his crease. There are a few more ways of getting out as well, but they're much rarer.

Also, there are a few different versions of cricket... the gold standard form is the Test match, which at international level lasts five days and has two innings (each team has two goes at batting), although there are also "one-dayers" (each team bats once for 50 six-ball overs maximum) and recently Twenty20 cricket has become popular, where each team has 20 overs to bat (120 balls).

The most famous form of "dirty" cricket, since you mentioned it, is the "bodyline" bowling of the England attack of the 1930s. It almost led to diplomatic measures being taken by Australia :S

Cricket also involves bowling terms like Reverse swing, in-swing, out-swing, off-cutter, doosra..etc .... plus issues like ball-tampering and sledging are also a part of the game.

O.K. i'm still running all this through my head but I have another question if you can bear with me. I noticed that both of the batters were running at the same time. So, if they run twice each (simultaneously of course) does that count as two runs or four. Thanks in advance.

Cricket as a game is seen as boring by most Scots.....a game only the English could devise and enjoy! Some of the weird terms used in the game are interesting though......like silly mid on?..silly mid off?.....caught in the slips?.....bowled a maiden over?.....leg break?.....run for cover? (is that another one?....is that what they do when rain stops play or what? As I say.......only the English...... :-)

Rene

That counts for 2 runs. If they run 4 times each simultaneously, that counts for 4 runs. Search everything regarding "cricket" on wikipedia. You'll get to know all the rules about the game clearly.

I may not agree with damian's assessment regarding cricket as a boring game. everey game has its own taste. I may dislike Golf but there are other people who love playing it or would love to know about it. it is simply a matter of preference.

Thanks to everyone. I always found baseball very boring so I probably would find cricket to be as well, but since I've never played it I have no idea.

The film must be "Lagaan". As for those who disagree with the merits of cricket, let's just say that they lack the intelligence to understand the subtle nuances of such a beautiful sport.

Speaking of cricket, it seems that England can only hope to excel in the Test format. They look to me to be heading for a second consecutive loss in the second Twenty20 match against Pakistan......

By the way, Damian, I wonder if you are aware that the Indian subcontinent is home to cricket fanatics, all 1 billion odd of them. I wonder why 4 million Scots find it an absolute bore whereas a billion other people beg to disagree.

Besides, it'd be an exaggeration to say that all Scots find cricket boring. You've obviously not heard of Douglas Jardine who single-handedly engineered a diplomatic spat between England and Australia over the 'Bodyline Affair'.

Besides, Scotland has qualified to play in the World Cup next summer. Best of luck to them.

"Et <Marylebone> ? C'est <Marie la bonne> ou <Mary on the Bourne> ?"




Marylebone (sometimes written St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone) is an area of west London in the City of Westminster.

Marylebone is roughly defined as the area north of Oxford Street, south of Regent's Park, east of Edgware Road and west of Portland Place (or alternatively Great Portland Street). However the St Marylebone Society includes Regent's Park within its definition as well as the area north of Marylebone Road that includes Marylebone Station, the original site of the Marylebone Cricket Club in Dorset Square and the area known as Lisson Grove.

Today the area is mostly residential. It is notable for the Arab population on its far western border around Edgware Road.

Marylebone gets its name from a church called "St Mary's" (now known as St Marylebone Parish Church) which was built on the bank of a small stream or "bourne", called the Tybourne, in an area named after the stream, Tyburn. The church and the surrounding area later became known as St Mary at the Bourne, which over time became shortened to its present form, Marylebone. It is a common misunderstanding that the name is a corruption of Marie la Bonne.

The Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone was a metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1899 and 1965 after which it was merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington and the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster to form the London Borough of Westminster.

Such place names in the neighborhood as Cavendish Square and Portland Place reflect the Dukes' of Portland landholdings and Georgian-era developments there.

wikipedia.org

"a game only the English could devise and enjoy! "

And the Australians, New Zealanders, Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Lankans, South Africans etc.

Also, the Welsh - the "England" team is actually the England/Wales team.

I also find it tiring trying to explain the rules of cricket to people from countries who don't know the game. The game is so complicated that it'll probably take someone around 3 pages of this forum to describe the rules. Only people from countries where cricket is popular can properly udnerstand the rules.

As well as the famous MCC - Marylebone Cricket Club.

Ben:

Sorry...yes I have heard of Douglas Jardine but have no idea what the "Bodyline" thing was all about. I love sport, passionate about Rugby, but cricket leaves me cold and I still maintain that cricket does not have anything like the same appeal in Scotland that it has in England (and presumably Wales).....any more than the appeal curling has for the English. I've seen them playing cricket on village greens and sports grounds in England but you'd be hard put to see the same enthusiasm in Scotland in spite of the fact that Scotland has qualified for the 2007 ICC World Cup, as you say. Not one of my many mates back home in Scotland gives a toss about cricket really, but there you go. Cricket is seen as an "English" game, pretty much :-)

I was talking in the context of the UK really...you're right, there are many times more cricket enthusiasts around the world (almost all former British colonies) than there are in the UK, where the game was "invented"....on a green open space at Hambledon, in Hampshire in 1770. How appropriate that the village pub closest to that field is still called the Bat and Ball. What else!

Marylebone is another one of those place names which has French connections, as mentioned in another thread. It's a pretty swish district of London, and with a main line train station of the same name, and as Ben says, the MCC (even I have heard of that) stands for Marylebone Cricket Club, with it's HQ at Lords Cricket Ground, in Marylebone.

There seems to be some confusion as to the correct pronunciation of Marylebone. It seems that some people call it <'MARRY-luh-b'n> and others say <MARLY-bone>. Marylebone underground tube station is on the Bakerloo line and I've been through it several times, and the female automated voice making all the announcements for passengers on the train says "The next station stop is <MARLY-bone>", so I reckon that must be the right way to say it.