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The Bowler's Holding the Batsman's Willey


paddy

Are you aware of what I'm referring to?  

73 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you aware of what I'm referring to?

    • Yes
      61
    • No
      12


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Do you know what I'm talking about when I say the title of this thread?

I've had a couple of conversations recently where this has been brought up and the majority of people in the conversation don't have a clue what's being talked about. I thought it was really famous. So the poll question is do you know what I'm talking about with that thread title.

Apparently there's no audio recording of it, which is a shame, and puts into doubt whether it was ever said. But I really hope it was.

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It's 100% genuine I've certainly heard it played on radio shows over the years and I've also read Johnston's biography which of course mentions the story along with the "getting his leg " over line

It's one of those moments like Dancing Matt that brings a genuine smile to your face and makes you forget your troubles

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BBC commentator Alan Gibson, who ended up getting the sack for being permanently pissed, had this to say about the New Zealand fast-medium bowler Bob Cunis:

"This is Cunis at the Vauxhall End. Cunis, a funny sort of name: neither one thing nor the other."

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BBC commentator Alan Gibson, who ended up getting the sack for being permanently pissed, had this to say about the New Zealand fast-medium bowler Bob Cunis:

"This is Cunis at the Vauxhall End. Cunis, a funny sort of name: neither one thing nor the other."

:-)

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It's 100% genuine I've certainly heard it played on radio shows over the years and I've also read Johnston's biography which of course mentions the story along with the "getting his leg " over line

It's one of those moments like Dancing Matt that brings a genuine smile to your face and makes you forget your troubles

See you say that Tony, I thought I'd heard it too. But the BBC website says:

There is some question as to whether one of cricket's classic howlers was ever spoken on air, and who said it. Cricket commentators Don Mosey and Brian Johnston were in the commentating box for the BBC World Service in a test match between West Indies and England at the Oval. Batsman Peter Willey was at the stumps, bowler Michael Holding was at the crease, but did either Mosey or Johnston really say on air:

We welcome World Service listeners to the Oval, where the bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey.

Let's look at the evidence; neither of them has openly taken the credit for saying it, no recording of the comment has ever been heard, only talked about.

From here, there's some other good ones on there like "Linford Christie's got a habit of pulling it out when it matters most." and "And the line up for the final of the Women's 400 metres hurdles includes three Russians, two East Germans, a Pole, a Swede and a Frenchman." both of those from Colemanballs himself

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There was also one Ashes test match where the dismissal was:

Lillee, caught Willey, bowled Dilley.

Also, not clever per se, but one of the best commentary slips I have heard on the cricket was a simple Freudian slip by Ian Chappell. A batsman had just snicked the ball off the inside of the bat and missed the stumps by a millimetre and Chappell says:

"Ooh, that was a lucky French Cu*t" (insert "n" here).

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It's 100% genuine I've certainly heard it played on radio shows over the years and I've also read Johnston's biography which of course mentions the story along with the "getting his leg " over line

It's one of those moments like Dancing Matt that brings a genuine smile to your face and makes you forget your troubles

Yep its definitely mentioned in the Autobiog

For me Cricket died a little when Johnners left the commentary box for the last time

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Funnily enough I was talking about this last week. Here at Bradford University the Chancellor is Imran Khan, and he was in town to present degrees at the graduation ceremony. One of the honorary graduands was "Look North" (and Yorkshire sports) presenter Harry Gration, and his acceptance speech was basically a series of jokes and sports anecdotes (including a rather good one about Archie McPherson that I'll save for another occasion).

Imran had to follow this, and he's clearly not the most witty speaker in the world - so he rather desperately rolled out the old "Holding/Willey" story - to be met by an embarrassed silence. The older members of the "audience" had heard the story SO many times it was no longer funny... and the younger ones clearly didn't understand it at all, and (I suspect) took it semi-literarally, with some shock!

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One of my favourite cricket anecdotes (maybe apocryphal) is regarding a young fast bowler for Hampshire (shall remain unnamed as I have never heard his name mentioned).

The young fast bowler was making his debut for his county and on a rather quick track was bowling with real fire and venom.

After taking his first wicket, he thought that he'd rough up the next man in.

He duly bowled a very quick bumper next ball and after the ball had whistled past the batsman's nose (the batsman had swayed out of the way of the ball), he approached the batsman and said:

"It's small, round and red."

He turned on his heels and marched smartly back to start of his run up and stormed in again.

The ball was short and quick. The batsman rocked back, swivelled on his back foot and middled the ball out of the ground.

He looked up at the amazed bowler and said, "You know what it looks like. Go, fetch it!"

An hour or so later after the batsman had made a quick 80 and seriously dented the figures of the young bowler, he approached his captain as the dismissed batsman was leaving the pitch.

"Who's that?" said the bowler.

"Viv Richards," replied the skipper.

"Who?"

He never played again. :winkold:

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It's 100% genuine I've certainly heard it played on radio shows over the years and I've also read Johnston's biography which of course mentions the story along with the "getting his leg " over line

It's one of those moments like Dancing Matt that brings a genuine smile to your face and makes you forget your troubles

Yep its definitely mentioned in the Autobiog

For me Cricket died a little when Johnners left the commentary box for the last time

Can you see if you can find it on the internet for me then? As I can't find it anywhere and even the BBC site says it's quite possibly not true and there's no recording of it.

I, like you, was sure I'd heard it, but I'm now beginning to think I can't have done.

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