Cricket Glossary

A nightwatchman is cricket’s most polite way of admitting fear while pretending it’s strategy. The idea is simple and faintly absurd: with only a few overs left in the day, instead of risking a proper batter, a team sacrifices a bowler, someone who has spent all afternoon sprinting uphill into the wind, and asks him to wander out, face hostile fast bowling, and ideally not perish before sunset.

Bazball is England’s belief that the best way to win a Test is to remove the handbrake, the seatbelt, and possibly the steering wheel. Under Brendon “Baz” McCullum and Ben Stokes, it treats momentum as a higher power and accepts collapses as the occasional price of spiritual clarity.

Silly Mid On sits somewhere between courage and questionable life choices. It’s the fielder positioned just a few paces in front of the batter on the leg side — close enough to smell linseed oil and regret.

In cricketing cartography, cow corner is that wide, sun-baked patch of turf between deep midwicket and long-on — a region simultaneously despised by purists and adored by power-hitters.