The second part of the cricketing quirks series has arrived.

Following last week’s washout, which you can read about here, you and your team are ready for the next round and even more cricketing obscurities.

Of course such is the nature of cricket that we don’t even have to wait until the first ball is bowled to immerse ourselves in all that is weird and wonderful; we just have to make it to the warm-up.

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The warm-up

The cricketing warm-up is unique. Considering the multitude of different roles being played by each player in a cricket team, the warm-up needs to cater to those who might be involved from the very first ball to those with no active role to play for the entire day.

An impossible task, cricketers have seemingly unanimously agreed that the best way to go about it is spending a compulsory hour on the ground prior to play, completing a range of physical (and not so physical) tasks to prepare themselves for the day ahead. Importantly, at nearly every stage, the warm-up will be distinctly non-cricket specific.

The jog and stretch

Considering most sports require their athletes to be primed to perform at close to 100 per cent of their physical capability from the outset, their warm-ups necessitate a rigorous program of ‘limbering up’. A dynamic stretching program has been proven to lead to the best results, priming muscles and joints. Cricketers, unable or unwilling to consider something a touch more specific to their performance type, opt for a lacklustre jog to the far side of the ground before rounding out the routine with some leg swings on the pickets and a static stretching circle.

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The warm-up game

This is perhaps the most important part of the cricketer’s warm-up. Usually taking up the majority of the allotted hour, most XIs will try to extend the game as long as possible. Teams that can’t think of their own original game will play a simplified ‘netball cricket’ variation: throwing and catching a cricket ball with the ultimate aim of hitting a stump at either end, the one rule being that players are forbidden from moving when they are holding the ball.

More creative teams, however, put more effort into their warm-up games, as evidenced by the presence of a football, a soccer ball or, in some particularly impressive cases, a miniature NFL ball. Once the XI has been divided into two teams – often based on an arbitrary age line, over or under – the competition reaches fever pitch.

So engaged do cricketers become in the warm-up game that they often precipitate injury. English international Rory Burns missed three Test matches after sustaining an ankle injury and Jonny Bairstow lost his spot as wicketkeeper for the Poms after suffering an injury in the pre-match knockabout.

The cricket specifics

Well into the second half-hour of the warm-up it is time to start engaging in some vague interpretation of cricketing skills. Generally this starts with a throw and a catch – after all, not everyone will bat and bowl but everyone will field. Those without a baseball glove at this point ruin it for everyone else and bring the standard of the drill down even further.



Fortunately for them, however, the heat will soon be taken off them as attention turns to the toss. As the coin goes up the attention of the other 22 players will inevitably turn to the two captains in the middle. Yes, there will be those who feign to continue a warm-up as though they are unaffected and mildly uninterested. These people are liars and ought not be trusted.

Once the captain lets the team know, via either a top hand shadow drive or an unintelligible flick of the wrist, whether they are batting or bowling, the team can in the 22 minutes that remain in the hour begin to hone their skills.

The throwdowns

The pre-match cricket throwdowns are perhaps the most fanciful idea of a specific skill tuning in the history of sport. The lobbed full toss is merely a confidence-boosting myth that top-order batsmen put themselves through before they can justifiably leave the warm-up and head to the change rooms to ‘mentally prepare’ by checking their phone or with hurried trips to the bathroom.

As the batting order gradually rotates through the throwdowns, the bowlers are nowhere to be seen. With no role to play today – or at least for a considerable amount of time – they all disappear to the middle of the ground to mark their run-ups and make pretend jokes with the other team’s bowlers, who are actually preparing to bowl. They will, however, always return for a quick hit just before play begins just in case they are needed for a few lower-order runs in five to seven hours.

The roles to avoid

As discussed, the top-order batsmen have it sweet in the warm-up. They can have a hit and then remove themselves and no-one will bat an eye. It is the middle-order batsmen instead who you should keep an eye on. Keen to get a few throwdowns themselves and then disappear, they are actually required to keep feeding and fielding the throwdowns for the (since returned) lower order. Any premature attempt to retire to the change rooms will be accurately deemed selfish.



So all distinctly underprepared for the role they are to play for the remainder of the day, the cricketers have completed the warm-up. In one final oddity before play gets underway, the umpire will drop into the room of XI half-naked players to let them know that play is about to commence.

Is there any coincidence that Shane Warne, perhaps the greatest ever to play the game, has famously suggested the cricketing warm-up is null and void?