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« Working title | Should any 'family' be this tolerant? »
March 6, 2010Posted by Samir Chopra on 03/06/2010 in Samir Chopra
A rare cliché that has remained fresh
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| The Rawalpindi Express chugs into the platform © Getty Images |
That sports-writing is full of clichés is, well, a cliché. And that isn't too surprising when you think about it. There are lots of variations on a theme but the theme never quite goes away. Journalists write for deadlines. And even good writers get lazy sometimes and reach for the favorite (case in point: I loved Dileep Premchandran's use of the word "coruscating" to describe a batting performance from a few years ago. A short while later, I felt he was using it excessively. Sure enough, a google search for "Dileep Premchandran coruscating" shows too many hits for his liking. Just last week, a reader pointed out I tend to overuse the word "tend").
But this post isn't about to complain about clichés. Rather, since I'm feeling pretty self-indulgent today I wanted to focus on a little phrase used in cricket writing, whose frequency of usage I’m not sure about, but which always seemed to me to be marvelously evocative in many different ways.
The phrase I have in mind is "steaming in" or "steams in" when applied to a fast bowler, as in, "Michael Holding steams in from the Vauxhall End" or "He's been steaming in all day from the Paddington End". I don't know where I saw such usage first, but I'm pretty sure it was a long time ago.
So what is so great, you might ask, about a little verbal trickery that analogizes a fast bowler to a steam engine? Many things, for this little verbal flourish brings me face to face with the power, dynamism and sheer irresistible nature of the fast bowler. (It also helps that it conjures up images of those beautiful, majestic, steam locomotives that dominated the railways in India many, many years ago).
I associate a veritable library of images on reading that phrase. I think of a fast bowler running in powerfully off a long run up; the approaching menace as he nears the wicket (perhaps triggered by thoughts of a steam engine's shrieking whistle?); the compressive force generated by the violence of his delivery action. There is also, buried in there somewhere, an associated image, of a fast bowler working patiently through a long spell, unflaggingly putting his body on the line, summoning up all the force he can muster in an attempt to break through the defensive line arrayed against him (oops, slipped into war imagery there).
I do not mean to say the inventor of this phrase meant to summon up all of these but just that this is how I respond to it (or at least think I do when I pay closer attention to why I find it evocative). And shouldn't a good turn of words have this ability to be evocative for different reasons to different readers?
I don't know where I've seen "steaming in" the last time and don't know when I'll see it again, and certainly I'm not sure if it’s used that much these days. But at times when we are used to getting impatient with writing on the game, it's nice to be able to note how someone, somewhere, got it right. Perhaps not for too long for this might get tired too. But it’s sure fun while it continues to work.
Posted by: Vanchy at March 6, 2010 1:47 PM
Well i am reminded of R Mohan writing in "The Hindu"... every indian batting performace then in his opinion was "committing Hara Kiri" .... :)
Posted by: Sid at March 6, 2010 7:00 PM
It's not just an affliction with sports writers, Samir. Commentators and captains suffer from this disease too. When Sehwag isn't sending the ball racing to the boundary "like a tracer bullet", he's hitting it "high and handsome" into the crowd or "belting the cover off the ball". While Laxman at the other end "caresses it through the covers" or "nudges it past mid wicket". And don't ever bowl on Dravid's leg stump, because as Harsha Bhogle will tell you, you could bowl at his pads in the middle of the night, and he'll put you away for four every time. And we all know that even Geoff Boycott's mum can bat better than Monty Panesar. And that our big game plan tomorrow is to "put the ball in the right areas", "play every ball on its merit", and though "we've come here to win every game", we will "never underestimate the opposition". I'm waiting for the day when Graeme Swann and Sehwag team up together on Neo Cricket to cover the World Cup Final. That ought to be interesting.
Posted by: Vivek at March 6, 2010 10:57 PM
Um, about half the top hits I see on Google for "Dileep coruscating" are from Samir Chopra himself :) A Heisenberg principle for Internet search results, eh?
Posted by: Outlaw at March 8, 2010 12:34 AM
Waqar Younis was the classic one for steaming into the crease.
Brett Lee was also awesome how he put the hammer down halfway through his run-up.
Aktar steamed in - you can't deny it.
Ambrose bounded in/Walsh sauntered in.
Lillee charged in...
Posted by: Mick at March 9, 2010 5:14 AM
The phrase "steaming in" for some reason always makes me think og Big Merv Hughes.
Posted by: MarkusB at March 9, 2010 1:34 PM
I love how Michael Holding is described in his profile on this site - "It began intimidatingly far away. He turned, and began the most elegant long-striding run of them all, feet kissing the turf silently, his head turning gently and ever so slightly from side to side, rhythmically, like that of a cobra hypnotising its prey. Good batsmen tended not to watch him all the way lest they became mesmerised."
- Shanaka Amarasinghe
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Shanaka Amarasinghe Possessing the best disguised googly in Sri Lanka (because no one has ever really seen it), Shanaka is the finest legspinner to never have played top-level cricket. He is a popular cricket analyst and host of The Score, the No. 1-rated, if slightly infamous, sports show on radio in Sri Lanka. While in England playing rugby, he earned his LLM at King’s College and is a lawyer by training if not inclination. He is also an actor, a journalist, a writer, and thinks he is a comedian.
- Mike Holmans
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Mike Holmans, a database consultant by profession, has spent thirty summers (and a few winters) going to the cricket. Brought up in one and working in the other, his dearest wish is for a season to end with Yorkshire winning the county championship by beating runners-up Middlesex by one wicket with five minutes to go. If it’s also a summer when England win the Ashes, so much the better.
- Michael Jeh
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Michael Jeh Born in Colombo, educated at Oxford and now living in Brisbane, Michael Jeh (Fox) is a cricket lover with a global perspective on the game. An Oxford Blue who played first-class cricket, he is a Playing Member of the MCC and still plays grade cricket. Michael now works closely with elite athletes, and is passionate about youth intervention programmes. He still chases his boyhood dream of running a wildlife safari operation called Barefoot in Africa.
- Saad Shafqat
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Saad Shafqat takes special pride that his cricket-watching life began during the three-month interval between Javed Miandad's debut Test in Lahore and Imran Khan's 12-wicket haul at Sydney. Although a practicing neurologist based in Karachi, cricket has never been far from his activities. He has co-authored Javed Miandad’s autobiography Cutting Edge and has been a contributor to Cricinfo since 2005. His regular column Reverse Swing appears fortnightly in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily.
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