V Ramanarayanan is teh elder brother of V Sivaramakrishnan who was TN opener in Ranji tropy for many years. Ram was an offspinner and played cricket along with Prasanna and Venkat and hence did not get a chance to play for India. He wrote a series of articles on Chennai cricket titled “CURD RICE CRICKET” and one of them is reproduced below: ALL SENTENCES IN ITALICS ARE MY INSERTIONS
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Chennai cricket has its own lingo, a laidback approach to it seldom seen elsewhere, and a strong tendency among its players to see the funny side of most situations, cricketing or otherwise, connected with the game. If we want to understand Chennai cricket, we must first learn some of its unique technical terms. Here are some samples:
Danda out: A bad decision by the umpire. This term is usually employed by a batsman who has failed in a match, when a friend asks him how many runs he has scored.
Poi bowling: The hard-to-please Chennaiite’s description of the stuff dished out by most spin bowlers. Poi of course means a lie or falsehood, and this term denotes lack of spin or fictitious spin. A variation is poi bowler.
Classic example of POI Bowling in our group is JK’s spin or better still Mulund Kannan’s bowling!!!
Grease: Archaic local pronunciation of “crease”. Means the crease.
This is what everybody keeps fighting about with Srini claiming his measurement of “greast” is not as per ICC Rules!!!
Sign match: A match at the end of which the losing captain signs in acknowledgement of his team’s defeat. Strictly street corner or neighbourhood cricket formality. A further value addition is provided by the umpire(s) affixing his/ their signatures.
Bye-runner: A runner who runs for an injured batsman, usually refused permission by the fielding captain.
Azhukku batsman: Literally “dirt(y)” batsman; someone your bowlers don’t know how to dismiss; usually a dour, defensive one.
If we go by the averages of our batsmen, Balaji & Natraj are the Azhukku batsmen of our group!!!
Arai kuzhi: A long hop.
Usually bowled by most of our members!!!
Tyte (pronounced tie-thay): A bowler who runs in like Tyson and bowls like Gupte; a bowler who has a long and impressive run-up but doesn’t achieve any appreciable pace.
Gopiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!
Manga: Literally means mango, a colourful term for chucking or throwing by a bowler. “Manga adikkaranda”, is the way a suspect action is described meaning the bowler throws stones to bring down mangoes.
Though we dont have Manga action, we have Manga bowlers – who bowl with the precision of trying to hitting Manga!!!!!! Vasu – Aawwwwww
Set-up: A fixed match.
Gada Munuswami: A slogger or wild hitter.
Title goes to Karthik & Balaji!!!!!
Pazham: A poor fielder, especially a poor catcher.
EVERYBODY OTHER THAN NARAYANAN & PRAKASH ARE PAZHAMS IN OUR TEAM!!!!!!!
Local six: A mistimed skier, which ends in a catch within single-saving distance.
Dhanakoti sixer: Same as above, made famous by a stonewaller called Dhanakoti.
Many Dhanakoti’s in our team most of the time!!!!!
Mookku mele (literally, on top of your nose): Same as above.
Ganapati uruttal: A ball that shoots all along the ground, named after S Ganapati who played for St. Bede’s School and Reserve Bank of India.
Gaji: Hogging the strike.
GAJI was prevelant even in professional cricket long time ago!!!!!!!
KPP or kuri pathu podu or kala pathu podu: Bowl a sandshoe crusher
Though we dont have KPP, we have Manga bowlers to Vasu!!!!!!
Paper score: Getting enough runs or wickets to have your name published in the newspaper (Used to be 25 runs or three wickets, now 40 runs in The Hindu)
Kanna – from next time, include Paper Score in our analysis; let us define our own PAPER SCORE
Goal: To misfield and let the ball go between your legs.
Namma teamla ellarum neraya Goal Pottachu! Kanna – from next time include Goal statistics as well. FIRST CRICKETERS in WORLD TO put GOAL in Cricket Match (ha ha ha ha)
Katthi (knife): A crossbatted shot.
Kathi illatti namma crickete velayada mudiyadu pa!
Rude bowling: Fast bowling.
Feed bowling: Same as above.(Feed is a mispronunciation of speed).
Nats / Prakash / Balaji – Feeda Manga bowling podadeenga pa; potta engalala Kathi velayada mudiyadu!
OUR OWN DIPRO11 WORD DEFINITIONS:
Last man gaji – very unique in street cricket only which we have adopted; we get Last Man Gaji even if we have 12 members in a team and invariably last men to get Gaji or either Balaji or Narayan
Both sides run out – another unique one which we have adopted in the event of Last Man Gaji – you hit either of the stumps and the poor guy is run out!!!
1G (1 granted) – when the ball nicks the bat and goes beyond the barrier behind the keeper or when a beautiful hook shot is played which just before crossing the boundary goes beyond the barrier thereby robbing the batsman of the deserved boundary (batsman to suffer most is Bhaskar!!!) – you should see the glee in fielding team players’ eyes when such event occurs and loud shouts of machi 1G emanate!
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JK - copyright V Ramanarayanan originally in ChennaiOnline.com
Nice One JK.
JK gud 1.
Paper score ,we can fix to 25 runs / 3 wickets / 3 catches / 5 goals !!!
Azhuku cricket – cant understand your logic of including me – Its defined by you as someone your bowlers don’t know how to dismiss; usually a dour, defensive one. I am definetly not defensive neither is Balaji. If you take out the defensive side of Azhuku cricket then its fine, but if you take out the dismissal side of it, its actually Prabhu or Gopi where they always look for single.. “thottu vitu odarthu” in tamil.. Right??
Machi.. more definitions to add..
Last man gaji – very unique in only street cricket
Both sides run out – another unique one..
How can we forget 1G (1 granted) – may be we should change the rules to have 2G or 3G as well in our scoring. more controversies.
Nats – my explanation was very clear; based on averages (which means people who dont get out!) it is you and Balaji as both of you always hog Gaji and dont get out. Others give Gaji to others or get out!!!!! Adunala dan neenga rendu perum Azhukku pasanga!!!!! Hi Hi Hi Hi
Dont speak stats to me – Let me give you the list of people who dont get out and then you rank yourselves
Ram – Matches – 11 Played 11 Out – 5 time and so Out % is 46
Vasu – M 12 P 12 Out 6 and Out % 50
Balaji – M 11 P 11 Out 6 and Out% 55
Bhasker – M 11 P 10 Out 6 Out% 60
Karthik – M 11 P 11 Out 7 OUt % 64
JK/ Sampath – M 9 P 9 Out 6 Out % 67
Srinivasan – M 12 P 12 Out 8 Out % 67
Narayanan – M 11 P 9 Out 7 Out % 78
Sesha M 9 P 9 Out 7 Out % 78
Natraj M 12 P 10 Out 8 Out % 80
I come around 11th in the list of people who dont get out. You qualify more than me for Azhuku cricket as you are way above in 6th position.
Hogging Gaji list as follows:
For calculating Hogging of gaji you need the stats of number of balls faced, which I dont have. We can however calculate who has been in the crease (grease) more and how long he took time to reach there. For this the first one is who were in the crease more – average runs scored is a good indicator and how long he took to reach the avg – the number of runs scored in non boundries (1s and 2s) gives a good indicator. The more % of 1s and 2s you take more time to reach average and so you hog more gaji.
I have the Average score Runs scored div by no of outs and the list is as follows for people who have scored above 50 runs overall.
Balaji – 37.2
Karthik – 32.9
Bhasker – 25
JK – 23
Natraj – 22
Here again you beat me.
The third list how quickly people score and how long they stick on to the wicket so that you can proove that they are hogging gaji. The only option for me to find out is the % of runs you score by 1s/2s/3s. If you score most of your runs in boundries you reach the avg fast and you dont stick on for more time – which is the thought process here… Here is again the list of people who scored above 50 overall and the % of runs in 1s/2s/3s.
Bhasker leads this list of no of 1s/2/3s scored as a % of total runs at 81% due to he being a leftie but a lot of those should have been 4s.
Leaving him aside here are the others:
Jeyaraj – 71% in 1s/2s/3s
Narayanan – 66%
Ramesh – 62%
Prakash 62%
Basheer 58%
Sampath 58%
Sesha / Gopi – 54%
Srini / Sudharsan – 50%
JK – 48%
Vasu 45%
Karthik – 41%
Balaji 37%
Natraj 36%
I am right at the end and here again you beat me in scoring more runs in 1s/2s/3s.
You beat me in all the three counts and so you should more include your name in azhuku cricket than me.
Let us call it Podcast Score instead of Paper Score. Moreover 25 runs is too much; everybody wont get change to get on to PODCAST! Make it 10 runs machi.