The Cricket World Cup is underway in Australia and New Zealand. But unless you are from Britain, India, South Africa or a few other places, you are very likely so cricket-challenged that you don't know a googly from a doosra.
Fear not. Here is a quick look at a small fraction of the marvelously weird lexicon of cricket:
Beamer - A bean ball, bowled at the batsman's head.
Dibbly-dobbly - A slow, not particularly good bowling effort.
Duck - A score of zero, named thus because a zero is shaped like a duck's egg. A duck on the first ball is a golden duck. Two ducks in the same game by the same batter are a pair. Two golden ducks are a king pair.
Duckworth-Lewis - An insanely complicated method for determining the winner if a match is stopped by rain. Makes the old Bowl Championship Series rankings seem like simple arithmetic.
Four - A ball that is batted out of the playing area, worth four runs. If it goes out on the fly, it is a six.
Googly - OK, pay attention. If a bowler who ordinarily spins the ball toward a right-handed batsman instead spins it away from him (and vice versa for a left-handed batsman), that's called a googly. And if a bowler who normally spins it away from a right-handed batsman spins it toward him, that's a doosra.
Handled Ball - One of the most obscure laws in the cricket rule book. A batsman who deliberately touches the ball with the hand not holding the bat is out. This has happened only nine times in international cricket history, most recently in 2001, when Michael Vaughn of England absent-mindedly brushed a ball that had landed at his feet.
Nelson - A score of 111, possibly named because of the belief that Adm. Horatio Nelson had only one eye, one arm and one leg. (Nelson actually had two legs.) Scoring a Nelson is considered unlucky.
No ball - Sort of like a tennis foot fault, when the bowler steps over the line.
Rabbit - The worst batsman on the team. Quite likely to make a duck.
Silly mid off - A close-in fielding position. Not to be confused with the dozens of other fielding positions, including fine leg, gully, fly slip, extra cover and cow corner. Definitely don't confuse it with silly mid on. That's on the other side.
Sitter - An absolutely easy catch. Don't drop a sitter!
Sledging - Trash talking. Despite cricket's polite reputation, quite a lot of sledging goes on, sometimes picked up by on-field microphones.
Slog sweep - A flamboyant shot in which the batsman goes down to one knee and hammers the ball essentially behind himself in a bid for a six.
Twelfth man - A player whose job is to serve drinks to the starting 11, and substitute in as a fielder when one of them has a minor injury or has to answer the call of nature - not a rare occurrence because games can last eight hours.
Wicket - The equivalent of a baseball out. Also, the low posts that bowlers try to hit with the ball. Also, the area between these posts.
And if that area is wet, they call it ... think for a minute. Yeah, you got it. A sticky wicket.
© 2015 New York Times News Service