The Golden Age

to walk (verb. 3: term used in cricket) as in, "The cheating batsman clearly hit the ball and he didn't even walk."

'Walking' is an ancient custom in cricket where one is honest enough to save the umpire the need to decide whether you have 'snicked' the ball or not by leaving the playing field, or 'walking'. A snick is when the ball skiffs off the side or 'edge' of the bat. The batsman is obviously in the best position to determine whether they have 'snicked it' or not. Ergo, an honest batsman walks.

Walking is a remnant of the percieved 'golden age' of sport, when sport was a vehicle through which the bizarre values of the Victorians could be imposed on the proletariat without them really realising. Hence kicking someone when they were nowhere near the ball in football, hitherto the entire focus, fun and aim of the game, became a 'foul'. (Incidentally the Scots, never adherents to change, and most certainly not when it originates from South of the border, still play the game as it was meant to be.)

Cricket, of course, was the darling sport of the age, alongside fox hunting. But cricket was both more dangerous and violent, and offered many more opportunities to impose moral and ethical values on the poors.

The batting order itself remains the rank order of these values. The openers will keep a straight bat. They are rewarded for being oppressive. The first thing an opening bat learns is to defend. Only a psychopath or a deviant (or indeed a dark skinned chap) would look to attack first. These rogue individuals must be protected from their natural instincts by the openers... and so on. Anyone showing flamboyance, or individualism, should be kept in 'the hut' for as long as possible.

Honorable draw. Clapping the opposition batsman in. Helping people. It's not a wonder that the game never caught on in Scotland, and even less of a wonder that when it was exported to Australia - rather like a mate going off on a GAP year - what came back was a poor imitation of the original.

Cricket was returned bastardised by our prisoner colony cousins: walking was replaced by sledging, sportsmanship by gamesmanship, public school ties were no longer used as belts. Winning became all important, in fact these felons would stoop to unfathomable depths to win: rolling the ball along the ground, aluminium bats, running fast, intimidation of the umpire, regular training sessions; no price was too much to pay.

And, grudgingly, we have to thank them for evolving the game, for it is somehow more fun the dirtier the game becomes.

But a final word fo good news for the purists. I can tell you that miles from its origins, the gentleman's game still exists in its purists form. 2nd XI cricket at Hurlingham, deep in Latin America, where English is spoken properly, tea served at tea (by the staff), and people still clap in the opposition captain.