The Hindu Business Line : Cricket lingo in courtrooms

IT comes as great relief that for the next few days it may not be necessary for viewers to keep switching channels to check for the latest court news. Because at one point, people were even prepared for an over-at-a-time telecast, punctuated by arguments before the judges. Mood is more relaxed now, as the group photo of our team with Pervez would show. So, Harish Salve talks of "slog-over batting" though Kapil Sibal has not responded with some `bodyline bowling.' To restore order, however, the Chief Justice had to say, "This is the last ball."

For those who keep score, law and cricket are no strangers. Take, for instance, `appeal' that in law offers a remedy route for the aggrieved to ask a higher court for a reversal of a lower court's judgment.

A litigious society floods courts with appeals, we know; so do cricketers who are fond of making appeals in their `howzzat' fashion. Since umpires will not signal some `outs' unless appealed to by the appropriate player, a fielding team has the incentive to overdo appeals, and that may add to the noise level on the pitch.

If you are familiar with Test Matches that don't contribute much to palpitation, the team that has posted a big total may have the luxury to consider `declaration' as an option to stop batting and ask the other side to bat.

For the law-loving, a declaration is any statement made, particularly in writing. And as www.law.com puts it, it is "the modern substitute for the more cumbersome affidavit, which requires swearing to its truth before a notary public." In Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Portia says, "Clerk, draw a deed of gift," using the legal term `draw' to mean document preparation. So, even when we print a cheque, it is still "a bill of exchange drawn on a specified banker and not expressed to be payable otherwise than on demand," as the Negotiable Instruments Act would define.

In cricket, draw is when neither side wins, a common occurrence in test matches, when the game goes on and on and is unfinished within allotted days, or bad weather plays spoilsport.

When a batsman is "on strike," he is not holding a placard and squatting on the sidewalk, but is facing the bowler.

`Strike' in law, apart from meaning organised refusal to work, signifies removal of a statement from court records. `Three strikes, you're out' is not a cricket rule but a recent phenomenon to tackle repeat-offenders by slapping them with a life-term. Yet, you find many of our tail-enders adopting the rule, `one or two strikes, and then I'm out.'

Browsing through a cricket dictionary, one would find many terms that can be put to good use in courtrooms. Thus, an irrelevant argument is either `wide' or `no ball'; a well-reasoned presentation is a `good-length delivery'; and a statement that seems to cut both ways could be a `googly.'

A lawyer who keeps talking but to no end can be said to `stonewalling,' and if a case is labelled ODI everybody would know that a decision would be out by the end of the day.

One wonders if terms from a game of gentlemen in white would fit in rooms that are dominated by black-coats. A moot point, if not a silly one, shall we say?

ExParte@thehindu.co.in

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Cricket lingo in courtrooms

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