The only way is up (and over the keeper)
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Ahead of its Time
The scoop, as played by kids in streets all over south Asia
Forget the Marilliers and the Dilshans, here's where the stroke came from
A street in Calcutta. (Though it could be any city in the region.) Late 1980s.
Babu has the bat. Raju has the ball. A run-up of about 12 steps - everyone bowled a shade of fast, like they did elsewhere in the gullies around the city. The "cambis" ball, a hard tennis one, for the uninitiated, was tough to turn, especially on asphalt, so everyone was a fast bowler.
The idea was to keep it short. Pitch it up and the batter could go down the road. Pitch it short and the pull would break a window in the cranky neighbour's house. And so… short it was. Tap and run was the only option. Or back away and hit a double-fisted forehand down the line. Not easy.
But Babu, Raju and Co all knew the trick: the short ball could be played over the wicketkeeper. No one had a name for the shot but everyone knew how to play it. If it was outside off, it was tough to execute, but if it was on the body, just turn yourself to face the bowler straight-on, go over your head. Leg side-ish is easier, sweep-pull it. Six for the taking with the boundary - a line on the road - barely 30 yards out. But it needed power. You see, Raju, or whoever, wouldn't be bowling particularly fast.
Champaner. Late 1890s.
Out walks Guran. The "first India vs England cricket match" is balanced on a knife edge. Guran is all big talk and growls, and more of a machete-wielder than a batter. His best shot involves standing crouched somewhat (which one of the British watchers in the pavilion reacts to with "Looks as if he's riding a horse"), with both feet pointing towards the bowler, somewhat, waiting for the ball, and smashing it over the wicketkeeper, or behind the wicket at any rate.
Topping shot, old chap
Noah Seelam / © AFP/Getty Images
"Very much a shovel, more than anything else. Can't call it a paddle sweep," Sanjay Manjrekar says on commentary. He hadn't seen the like before, even if people who watched the Perth ODI between Australia and Zimbabwe on February 4, 2001, had. Dougie Marillier has just stepped across his stumps, placed his bat low and under the attempted yorker from Zaheer Khan, and with a flick of the wrists, sent it over the wicketkeeper - over first slip, actually, if one had been there. It wasn't the last time Marillier did it that day. He scored 56 not out from 24 balls, after walking out at No. 10 with Zimbabwe 210 for 8 and taking them past the target of 275.
****
Champaner was fictitious, from the film Lagaan. It was released the year before Faridabad, which wasn't fictitious. Nor was Perth. Calcutta certainly wasn't. Where did the makers of the film get the idea from?
Well, that shot was played all around India, and very likely across south Asia, wherever cricket was - and still is - played in the gullies.
Tillakaratne Dilshan might have got the idea from the supposed inventor of the shot, Ryan Campbell, who played it against Nuwan Zoysa for Australia A against the Sri Lankans in Brisbane in December 2002. Likely Dilshan learnt it on the streets of Kalutara growing up. He unveiled it, so to say, only in 2009. "Dilscoop". At the time, a novelty. Now a shot every batter - or non-batter - must have in their armoury.
Marillier is almost forgotten now. Dilshan is synonymous with the shot behind the keeper. But who created it? Who played it before its time had come? It wasn't Guran. Was it invented out of necessity by unnamed, unheralded cricketers on the streets of the subcontinent? Kids who couldn't afford to replace broken windows and needed to find a way to score when the "ground" had little or no off side or leg side?
Absolutely. Who else?
Shamya Dasgupta is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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