The No Ball Cricket Glossary is our ongoing attempt to make sense of cricket’s sprawling vocabulary — from the straightforward to the downright unreasonable. Check back often — new terms are added each week as we work through the chaos; someone has to catalogue this nonsense, and apparently it’s us.
B
Bazball
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.
C
Cow Corner
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.
D
DRS (Decision Review System)
The Decision Review System is cricket’s official technological séance: a team’s right to ask the universe (and a large television) whether the umpire might, just might, have been wrong.
N
Nightwatchman
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.
No Ball
A no ball is cricket’s original sin — the umpire’s small declaration that something, somewhere, has gone fractionally wrong with civilisation.
O
Off Side
The off side in cricket refers to an area of the field — not to be confused with offside, that joyless rule from other ball sports, nor officide, the wilful murdering of business equipment after a printer jam in the third consecutive over of a Monday.
S
Silly Mid On
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.
