Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Silly bowling tricks

Nice anecdote from Charles Randall's cricket site:

John Barclay mentioned to a taxi driver in India during the England Schools tour of 1970 that the umpires never gave anything out. “Ah, that’s easy,” said the driver. “What you must shout loudly, instead of ‘howzat’, is ‘where’s Allah?’ and then the umpire will instantly point his finger to the sky and say ‘up there’.” Didn’t work, but Barclay tried it again for Sussex at Ilford in the 1981 season. “Not out,” said umpire Shakoor Rana. “Not that silly trick again,” he whispered later.