Cricketing terms

Recently, Liam Herringshaw wrote an excellent piece on the root of  the cricketing term, the yorker. This made me think of other cricket terms which have interesting histories.

Silly-point/mid-on: Silly in OED meant pitiable, weak, insignificant, ignorant, lowly, feeble-minded, foolish and also defenceless.

Third Man: Before the advent of overarm bowling, the slip and the point were the two main fielding positions on the off-side. With over-arm bowling and the off theory attack towards the end of 19th century, another field position was added to buttress the already existing two field position and it was called the third man.

Chinaman: Eliss Edgar Achong, the first test cricketer of Chinese origin used to bowl left arm spin for the West-Indies in the 1930s. He was primarily a left arm orthodox spin bowler with his stock delivery oving away from the right hander but he developed a googly and had the Englishman Walter Roberts beaten and stumped of it. Legend has it that Roberts muttered bitterly to the umpire, "Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman."

Slip: As the name suggest, it denotes the field position for the balls which slipped away from the batsmen.

Gully: The little corridor/gully between slips and point