Life on the West Island - Six and Out

West Islanders have been agog in the past few days with a furore which threatened the very ties between the Old Dart and their nation, imperial and diplomatic though they might be. It all involved a controversial stumping – or was it a runout? – of a gentleman British batsman by an uncouth colonial wicketkeeper at a crucial stage in the second Ashes Cricket Test. The colonials went on to win the match, amid shrieks of protest from the well-heeled MCC members at the venerable Home of Cricket, Lords.

In short, after making an unsuccessful swipe at the ball, the batsman (a local cult hero by name of Jonny Bairstow) wandered from his crease and wicketkeeper Alex Carey threw down the stumps. Two independent umpires gave him out – as indeed he was under the laws of cricket – but the crowd, including the MCC members, howled in protest that the dismissal was “against the spirit of the game” and that the colonial players should have called him back, apologised for their rash action and quietly allowed the British players to go on to win the match. In fact, the opposite result ensued and rabid media supporters of each side, including the Prime Ministers of the two countries involved, descended into an unseemly war of words about whether the action was blatant cheating or a fair and run-of-the-mill dismissal.

Life on the West Island does not intend to enter into the controversy (although of course we would always respect the umpires’ decision). But one of the West Island commentaries on the situation brought back fond memories. It was a nostalgic item in The New Daily under the headline The backyard-cricket lesson Jonny Bairstow clearly never learned, penned by Patrick Smithers.

This brought to mind memories of practices followed across the nation for decades when family groups gathered for a game of backyard cricket. This usually involved having a “wicket” which was often a crate, cardboard box or rubbish bin at each end of a rough stretch of grass, surrounded by a flock of fielders comprising family members and friends ranging in age from around three to ninety. One participant held the bat, while another hurled a tennis ball (or even a hard cricket ball) at her or him, trying to hit the wicket.

If the batter hit the ball, they were usually compelled to run towards the wicket at the other end if “tippy go run” was in place. Exceptions were when the ball pierced the fielders and struck the surrounding picket fence/hedge, when four runs were awarded; and when the ball was hit over the fence into the neighbours’ chook pen, which was given as “six and out”. Of course, if the ball was hit in the air and caught by a fielder, the batter was out, which could also occur if the “one hand, one bounce” rule was being followed. If the ball was thrown by a fielder and hit the wicket before the batter made their ground, they were given out and the next player in line took up the bat.

As there was often only one batter, they could normally only complete one run, so they would ground their bat behind the imaginary line next to the wicket, call out loudly “crease,” and then could safely walk back to the batting end without risk of being run out.

Mr Smithers has studied this practice, and reports that the call of “crease” was common in the Festival State but not necessarily elsewhere:

Of course, being from the Land of the Pie Floater, where German sausage masquerades as ‘fritz’, this terminology was not universally shared. Just as we have bathers, togs, trunks or cossies depending on where you grew up in the wide brown land, so there were regional variations for the term batters used to seek permission to leave their crease, thereby claiming stumping immunity.

He found that in the Garden State, the call was “wicket leave,” while Banana Benders reversed that to “leave wicket.” Premier State backyarders used “batsman’s leave” or “BL” for short, while Territorians just called “safe” before strolling back to the other end of the pitch. Aristocratic Apple Islanders apparently intoned “wickets release,” but Sandgropers stuck with their eastern cousins and cried “crease.”

So it is clear that a heated international incident could have been avoided if the benighted Mr Bairstow had just grounded his bat, cried out crease or BL or wicket leave or some similar phrase, the law-abiding West Islanders would never have contemplated throwing down his stumps or appealing for his dismissal. Perhaps, though, backyards are less common in the Old Dart, so as a child cricketer he had failed to learn this vital piece of cricketing lore and so was dismayed to be marched off to the Lords pavilion just as he was about to lead his team to a famous victory with a dashing innings.

Mr Smithers summed up the entire situation in a few succinct sentences: …from the moment they picked up a bat, young [colonials] quickly came to understand the importance of staying in their crease until it was understood – by all parties – that the ball was dead. This was codified in a sort of unwritten, backyard common law, along with other bespoke playing conditions such as ‘six and out’, ‘one hand one bounce’, whether ‘last man gets his tucker’, or the consequences of hitting the ball into Miss Pern’s vegetable patch. Break these laws and you were a goner. It was a lesson little Jonny Bairstow obviously never learned.

Could this be the greatest cricketing crisis since Bodyline? Time will tell, but in the meantime it can be confirmed that the umpires (and the laws of backyard cricket) are always right!