Silly Point: a rather foolish fielding position in cricket where the fielder is placed right under the batter’s nose on the off-side. The position is usually handed to rookies on the team, for - as you can see in the illustration fashioned by my gifted hand below - with it comes the inherent danger of being whacked by a full-blooded drive.
This is just one of the many quirky terms cricket is replete with, and just one of the contenders for the name of this publication. Thank you for asking - the others (loosely in order of preference) were: Googly, Inside Edge, Third Man, Sticky Wicket and Pinch Hitting. As you can imagine, none held a candle to Silly Point, for it is a term that belongs exclusively to cricket, and also one that encapsulates a winsome (if plain) wordplay which will make an apt descriptor for some of the more humourous or rant-y pieces that will find their way here.
I have held forth elsewhere about how I worry that cricket seems ever-smaller and how it seems to have become almost unfashionable to obsess over the game the way I do. No doubt, there is an exhausting amount of cricket being played these days, and player and viewer fatigue are very real problems. This is also perhaps the only sport out there with a puzzling number of formats which are competing with each other for prominence, relevance, and survival. Yet, the essential beauty and delicacy of the game remain second to none, and its constant developments sometimes (or often) merit a deeper look, a comment, some ranting/fawning over, or just a laugh.
And so, Silly Point is my attempt to add to the cricketing discourse and at the risk of sounding rather romantic, my contribution to growing - or at least sustaining - the fandom of the game.
A quick note on what to expect:
Well-crafted pieces on, about, and around cricket, typically between 1,000-2,000 words, but sometimes (if the subject merits) much longer.
General commentary/analysis, tracking developments, recaps/reviews, simping over stuff, or simply musings on this great game.
Multiple pieces, and I mean multiple - don’t say I didn’t warn you - on India v. Pakistan.
No fixed frequency. I will write when I believe I have something important to say. Never so much as to spam, and never so little as to be forgotten.
For some of my earlier pieces, which will give you a good indication of what to expect here at Silly Point, see : The Breathless Ashes (about the 2023 series); Rally, and Remember (on the Windies’ rousing win at the Gabba earlier this year); and You Deserved Better, Rishabh Pant (dedicated to a scarcely believable comeback by one of my favourite cricketers).
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Thank you very much for stopping by, and I do hope you stay.