A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U

Unsure about your “corridor of uncertainty”? Worried that your “good areas” might not be up to snuff? Confused about exactly when you ought to “put your hand up”? Fret not: over the next 20 odd weeks, the Wisden Cricketer Online will bring you the Alternative Cricket Dictionary, edited by Alan Tyers, and we would very much like your contributions and suggestions. Please send your definitions to cricdic@gmail.com, or put them on twitter#cricdic or the comments below, and we will publish them.

V Type of cricket bat as made by Slazenger. Young kids wondered if the V on the bat stood for Vivian. Bowlers just wished he wouldn’t keep swinging it.

V, Playing Through The As in hitting it through mid-off to mid-on area; sign of all quality players, the exception being Tillakaratne Dilshan, who plays in the V between third slip and fine leg.

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Kevin Pietersen may not see it this way right now, but he may one day be thankful the selectors put him out of his misery. And that day may come very soon – as early, perhaps, as November 25 and the first day of the Ashes.

Being dropped may feel like a slap in the face, especially – as Pietersen tweeted, accidentally or otherwise – when you were recently named the best player of a global tournament. But reputations in international sport can be compromised more easily than they are made. And Pietersen’s form since he made merry in the Caribbean has not merely threatened brand KP: it has proved a luxury in England’s middle order.

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Kevin Pietersen rarely conceals his emotions.

It was his impulsive decision making that first brought him to the UK, and those adrenalized assaults on South African and Australian attacks that earned him his reputation.

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Take the positives out of this one. It’s like going for a picnic in a field full of dog turds and identifying the least offensive turd to lay your blanket next to.

The best I can do is say that currently the worst parts of the whole affair rely on the word of Mazhar Majeed. Arranging for the odd no-ball is bad enough, but actual match-fixing is a good few steps beyond that. I’d like to think that the arranged elements of matches didn’t stretch much beyond what appears to have happened in the Lord’s Test, but Majeed claimed he had fixed entire Test matches.

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I picked up a voicemail message from Sky News at about 9.45 last night. “Big cricket-related story,” the message said but they couldn’t tell me what it was until after 10pm. Returning to my Thai curry I wondered what it might be.

First thought – something relating to KP. Maybe he’s not going to the Ashes. Second thought, match-fixing.

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A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T

Unsure about your “corridor of uncertainty”? Worried that your “good areas” might not be up to snuff? Confused about exactly when you ought to “put your hand up”? Fret not: over the next 20 odd weeks, the Wisden Cricketer Online will bring you the Alternative Cricket Dictionary, edited by Alan Tyers, and we would very much like your contributions and suggestions. Please send your definitions to cricdic@gmail.com, or put them on twitter#cricdic or the comments below, and we will publish them.

U Young person / idiot transliteration of the second person pronoun, rumoured to soon be banned in England dressing room along with all other Twitterese.

UAE Sometime home of cricketing administration; chosen because of the country’s strong heritage in sport. Albeit the sport of golf, as evidenced by the number of excellent courses.

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The fourth Test starting at Lord’s tomorrow has become the grandstand finale this strange summer hardly deserves. A week ago the talk was of a whitewash, accompanied by the complacent lament that this was no sort of preparation for the Ashes. Now, England feel like an hour of doosras and reverse-swing away from surrendering a 2-0 lead against the side ranked a distant sixth in the world. It’s precisely the kind of frisson Andy Flower may reflect he could have done without.

Because make no mistake: the situation has changed. Not only are England suddenly fighting for their pre-Brisbane credibility (and they really are: 233 and 222 on a decent Brit Oval track hinted at frailties we all hoped had disappeared), but they are still scratching their heads over how best to fit seven batsmen into six.

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This might not seem worthy of comment, but finding fault with insignificant elements of the world around you is what life’s all about. These carrots aren’t sliced in the right way; there’s too much milk in my tea; the TV picture’s the wrong ratio so that everything seems slightly stretched (although actually I’m not sure, but that isn’t going to stop me fiddling with the remote for the next 20 minutes).

Worse than all of these is: ‘They’ve lumped the first and second division averages in the same table’. I hate that one. I saw it on teletext this morning. It implies performance in the second division of the County Championship is worth as much as performance in the first division, which is flat-out wrong.

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What a difference one player makes. Suddenly, with a batting line up that has some experience and some true, proven Test class, Pakistan look formidable.

Mohammad Yousuf is a craftsman and artist, so calm, so deliberate yet has stacks of flair. His best moment yesterday was first a drive from a slightly over-pitched delivery from Steven Finn then a beautiful late cut from a slightly shorter ball. The balls were not that bad – the batting was just brilliant.

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Tailender, Genuine Sadly endangered species in these days of “multi-dimensional cricketers”. There were few greater sights in sport than Sir Courtney Walsh’s leave-alone or Chris Martin’s trudge. The Coldplay one could hardly have been worse at batting. England, famously, fielded Andy Caddick, Alan Mullally, Phil Tufnell and Ed Giddins in one match v New Zealand in 1999. The team was booed on The Oval balcony.

Tait, Shaun Aussie who can bowl it at 100mph, but only for two overs at a time. Seems like a sensitive soul, for an Aussie fast bowler.

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