From IT Botham to Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, the stories behind players’ names adds to cricket’s mythology and richness
In particularly desperate times, the Spin’s parents wondered whether, had they called their son something “less naughty than Daniel,” they would have enjoyed a more ruly son. Which is to say that names are strange, at once arbitrary and definitive; we’re allocated them as babies, then grow to inhabit them so completely that they become inseparable from everything that we are.
No sport is as bound up with nomenclature as cricket, its vernacular enshrined into process and mythology. Naturally, that relationship encompasses players, shown on the scoreboard by their initials and surnames in public school-boarding school-Oxbridge style, pedigree and class prioritised over individuality and affection in the glorious British tradition.
Written by Daniel Harris
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/nov/03/whats-in-a-name-cricket-the-spin under the title “
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