Cricinfo Mobile
Email Feedback Print

The carrom-ball

Giving 'em the finger

The newest addition to cricket's lexicon is derived from a non-contact sport

Cricinfo staff

August 26, 2008

Text size: A | A



First and best: Dravid falls to the carrom-ball © AFP
 

What is a carrom-ball?
"Carrom-ball" is the popular term for the middle-finger-flicked delivery bowled by the Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis. While bowling this delivery, he holds the ball along the seam - the seam usually facing gully - between thumb and index finger, and flicks it with the middle finger (much like the striker is flicked in the board game carrom).

How does the carrom-ball behave?
Most times it angles into the right-hand batsman on a low trajectory at high pace and then breaks away. At times it just straightens, as opposed to breaking away. The batsman, in both cases, is forced to try and cover the line, and then finds it too late to recover once the ball turns or straightens, leaving him vulnerable to many forms of dismissal: caught at slip or off the leading edge, bowled, lbw, and stumped.

How effective has the delivery been?
Mendis has been phenomenally successful, with 26 wickets in three Tests and 28 in 11 ODIs to date, and the carrom-ball is an important weapon in his armoury. His first Test wicket (in picture, right) came off one such: a fast legbreak that squared Rahul Dravid up, and took the top of off stump. Notable among his many carrom-ball victims has been VVS Laxman, lbw in the second innings of the second Test, and then stumped in the first innings of the third.

What is the origin of the term?
Mahendra Mapagunaratne, a Sri Lankan lawyer based in Toronto, is believed to have come up with the phrase, which has quickly caught on among commentators and cricket writers.

Sri Lanka, by the way, are the reigning world champions at carrom. Their men's team beat India in the final, played in Cannes earlier this year.

Email Feedback Print
Share
E-mail
Feedback
Print
Cricinfo staffClose
Related Links
Players/Officials: Ajantha Mendis | Rahul Dravid | VVS Laxman
Series/Tournaments: India tour of Sri Lanka
Teams: Sri Lanka

'I never expected to play Test cricket'     

In a little over three years, Brendan Nash has gone from being an Australia substitute fielder to playing a Test against them

'Greed is killing the game'     

Ian Botham hits out at the proliferation of Twenty20, the idiots who booed Ponting, and all the talk of pressure

Why we need a truly global Champions League     

Ian Chappell: Cut Tests down to three days, and use the franchise model effectively to expand the scope of cricket

Pakistan win the World Twenty20     

50 Magic Moments: When it all came together, thrillingly, dangerously, solidly, for a team, a country, that needed it

If the ICC organised a summer Olympics...

The Confectionery Stall returns after a layoff

  • Twenty years of Tendulkar
Sponsored Links

Access your Indian Rupee earnings from anywhere in the world.

Debate now on the new ESPN Soccernet Castrol Rankings Blog

Cricshop.com - leading online cricket store

on www.scrum.com

20 Years of Tendulkar

Cricinfo celebrates two decades of the maestro

Bodyline

Bowl a fast one

Cricinfo Mobile Site

Our brand new mobile site