Wednesday 27 May 2015

England test selectors back on top form

Here are the names of the current England eleven:

Cook
Lyth(e)
Balance
Bell
Root
Ali
Buttler
Stokes
Broad
Anderson
Wood


For good measure, the ECB chairman is called Graves.

As I pointed out five years ago, nearly all those names are everyday nouns, verbs, adjectives or job descriptions. Which is probably why they got rid of Pietersen. That's not just clearly a 'name' but a foreign one, and Anderson and Ali ought to go next.

(Footballers on the other hand tend to have names which are clearly just names, and more unusual or exotic names at that, even the English ones.)

5 comments:

Steven_L said...

Thought you hated cricket?

Mark Wadsworth said...

SL, what on earth makes you say that?

I grew up with players called "Old" "Young" "Boycott" and "Lever" and so on, the selectors have never ever wavered, and fair play to them for consistency.

Steven_L said...

I had it in my head you weren't into sport and especially not cricket. My first ever blog was a cricket blog, sometimes I wish I'd kept it going rather than get sidetracked by politics and house price bubbles.

Graeme said...

What would you do with Boycott, Edrich, Illingworth, and Parfitt

Mark Wadsworth said...

Boycott is a noun

The others are exceptions that prove the rule