Attending sporting events is a sensory experience. The smell of burgers, beer and skunk can mean only football; the sight of a nun fighting a giraffe is darts in excelsis; and at Wimbledon, unbearable conversation is so intense you can taste it.
Cricket is no different. Skip out for a pint of fizz and the sound of the crowd tells you exactly what you’re missing – mainly very little, but occasionally, rippling applause for a four, throaty hollering for a wicket, cheers and laughter for tailend runs. These days we probably have to call it chaughter.
Sadly, no portmanteau incorporates three words – there’s not even a word for a word that incorporates three words. But add shock into the mix and we get shchaughter, the joyous, particular sound of a part-time bowler snagging a frontline batsman.
A sustaining beauty of elite competition is its legitimisation of humiliation for our delectation – the revenge of the talentless. Cricket, an individual sport masquerading as a team game, makes this as painful as possible.
Whatever their discipline, players are out there on their own: their numbers are their own, their failures are their own, their misery is their own. This is especially rough for batsmen, the finality of dismissal a minor version of death, roughly half the days of their professional lives. When it happens in the morning they can at least wade into lunch, but otherwise they take a long walk out, a long walk back in, then keep walking until their next go. And if they had their pants pulled down by an amateur in front of a disbelievingly exultant crowd, that makes for quite the trek.
In July 1992, Lancashire visited Essex for a NatWest Trophy tie, pitting against one another England team-mates Michael Atherton and Graham Gooch. Batting first, Lancashire set a target of 319, but bowling the first over of Essex’s reply, Phil DeFreitas diddled his groin and Atherton completed it for him. He later returned to the attack and, with Essex 123 for none, Atherton – or “Fec” as he was known, abbreviated from “Future England Captain” – loped a nominal leg-spinner to Gooch – or “Captain” as he was known, abbreviated from “actual England captain”.
Gooch, 49 not out, had already swept his man for four so got down to repeat the shot, only to confuse the one that didn’t turn with the one that went straight on … under-edging behind, where the ball duly lodged between Warren Hegg’s ankles. Down he went to retrieve it, up went the umpire’s finger, the quietened crowd amplifying the profound shchaughter of the away support.
Gooch, famed for his carefree approach to life, then stalked off in disbelief, while Atherton led a bout of gleeful giggling before snaffling his bunny’s job the following summer.
Even better came in 2002, when India toured England. They were thrashed in the first Test at Lord’s and in the second at Trent Bridge posted 357, only for England to retort with 617. So, when they found themselves 11 for two in their second innings, they were in all sorts. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar then built a match-saving partnership.
At the time, Tendulkar boasted 29 Test hundreds and a Test average of 56.96 – he was magical everywhere and against everyone. As Shane Warne memorably surmised, Brian Lara was the third-best batsman in the world – behind Tendulkar and daylight.
Tendulkar rattled along to 85 off 89 balls as the score reached 159, persuading Nasser Hussain to invite a spell of what Vaughan called his “less than magical off-spin”. He reeled through two uneventful overs before tossing up the final delivery of his third, which Tendulkar drove through the covers for four.
So, recalled Vaughan in his autobiography: “I decided to throw one up further and wider the next time”, tempting Tendulkar to chase it … which he only went and did. The ball hit the rough and ragged through his gate as he barely retained balance, bowling him for 92 – 105 fewer than Vaughan made in England’s first innings.
Immediately following the death rattle comes a cry of “YES!” from Alec Stewart behind the stumps as the crowd go momentarily silent, registering, then processing, what they’ve just seen. A shocked Tendulkar regains his footing and turns, gripped by the overwhelming urge to inspect stumps he knows are broken. Meanwhile, Vaughan wheels away ohhhhing as another “Ohhhhhh!” comes from the crowd. And then everyone begins shchaughing – at SR Tendulkar, the greatest batsman in the world. With great power comes greater ignominy.
Ten days and 78.4 overs of stewing later, Tendulkar batted again. He made 193, but it changed nothing because horror, and that moment, are eternal – as Vaughan reminds him whenever they meet. Though he probably doesn’t see Vaughan often, he probably isn’t the butt of a joke all that often either, and the overriding memory of that tour, for evermore, is him getting out-thought and out-skilled by the future politics spokesman of Medical Hair Studios.
More than a decade later, Vaughan could be found on national radio, yukking it up about the “greatest ever” being “in my back pocket”, because who wouldn’t be?
Tendulkar will surely have known what was in store, but signed the offending off-stump and ball for Vaughan. Whether Gooch did similarly for Atherton remains one of the game’s great mysteries.
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