The ECB has recently drawn ire for suggesting changes to essential cricketing terminology in The Hundred. As a (satirical) spokesperson for the organisation, TFT’s Abhijato Sensarma was drafted in to defend their decision-making.
Let me begin by saying … I don’t get it. “Wickets” isn’t that hard to pronounce. Sure, it’s no “over”, but neither is it the tongue-twister our misguided focus groups are making it out to be. But then, most of the criticism about this matter has been coming from cricket fans. As a matter of fact, ALL of the criticism has been coming from cricket fans.
So, let me respectfully ask – who asked you guys anyway? We’re in this to attract the mothers and kids. And with neither a woman nor a kid on our decision-making panels, we’ve decided that being condescending to their intelligence is the best way to reach out to them. They’re too dumb to understand what the hell we’re talking about if we say, “The opposition have scored 130 runs for the loss of four wickets”. If we replace it with “The opposition have scored 130 runs for four outs,” doesn’t that simplify things so much more?
Cricket’s a simple game, lads. And ladies – and the small laddies. And the small ladies as well. That came out all wrong. What I mean to say is that we’re here, looking out for all the non-cricket fans. This is the best we could do in terms of diversifying our horizons.
Introducing affirmative action or special budgetary commitments to the women’s game is too much to ask from the patriarchs of our sport, so we’ve roped the women in for a Hundred of their own – that should be enough to get them on an equal footing with their counterparts.
At the same time, we hope our negligence of the white male demographic during this tournament doesn’t make them shift their loyalties to football instead … wait, you’re saying it already has?
Well, I’m here for a specific reason. Not to beat around the bush, but to deliver some additional points to our latest amendment of the game’s terminology. Yes, that’s right, we aren’t done tinkering with the irrelevant words in the cricket dictionary. For one thing, this isn’t even cricket anymore.
Following is an unabridged list of the terms we’ve decided to change after the initial, umm, success with regards to our announcement –
- Cricket will now be referred to as ‘swingy-baty-hitty-outy’ for the younger members of our new audience.
- The Hundred will also be referred to as Da 100 henceforth. ‘Da’ is something the youth says. And ‘100’ is more concise than spelling out ‘hundred”.
- Leg byes will now be called ‘leg farewells’, and the umpire will wave at the audience instead of tapping his raised leg like a semi-paralysed acrobat.
- Byes will be called ‘farewells’ and the umpire will wave his previous gesture for this extra from left to right, then from right to left, and then again … you get the idea, right?
- Boundaries will now be known as ‘Wowzas’. The graphics will be more fun that way. And again, it’ll fall right into the intellectual breadbasket of all those infants we’re targeting.
- The Indian Premier League will be mentioned in hushed tones within the confines of our commentary box, with dramatic bells tolling in the background. It will be known only as ‘The League That Should Not Be Named’.
- All the batsmen will now be known as ‘batters’ to bring gender-neutrality to the game. Wait … that’s actually a great directive!
- Batting averages will now be considered in our graphics only if they’ve been acquired while playing in The League That Shall Not Be Named.
- Same with the bowling averages, in case anyone was wondering. I know all of you must be super invested in our gimmickry.
- Wait a second. I’ve also been informed that our team logos will now officially be known as ‘amateur crap’. But then, everyone’s been call them that since the beginning.
And no, before you ask, we didn’t get Virat Kohli for this. Wait … where are you going? I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m sure the London mayor can arrange something if he gets re-elected. NO, DON’T REPORT THAT AS A POLITICAL ENDORS—
Tell you what, I think we need to put in more work before taking this out to the public. Luckily for us, this initial transcript’s never going to make its way onto the Internet …
Abhijato Sensarma
Good effort by Abhijato – satirising the ECB is almost impossible these days!!
Totally agree there David. Satirising the ECB is indeed a toughie at the mo. It’s almost impossible to predict their next gimmick, as apart from the pursuit of the cash cow, there’s no logic attached. It’s the best of marketing ideology of if its new it must be better.
No coincidence in my view that “outs” is the terminology in baseball. Breaking into the US market is what those running the game dream of.
Another word the ECB are re-defiining:
Fans – milch cows; cardboard cut-outs; malcontents; obsessives; the wrong kind of demographic; icky germ carriers.
So will LBW (leg before wicket) be now renamed to LBO (leg before outs? That doesn’t make any sense)? What about hitwicket? The wicketkeeper? What kind of idiotic focus groups did these morons get their findings from?
The real terminology change needs to be in the name of the activity itself. How about crapket?