ROOM 111: Get that blasted word 'maximum' out of cricket

In this series, our writers and guests break down their own, very particular cricketing bugbears, starting with CARLY ODELL and an attack on the technically incorrect vocabulary creeping into T20

Cricket might be the world’s greatest sport but there are still elements of the game which rankle us all.

In this series, our writers and guests break down their own, very particular bugbears. Here's CARLY ODELL, who is not a fan of the word "maximum".

The Americanisation of cricket in the IPL via the use of baseball terminology very promptly needs to be added to Room 111, before we all give up on the great sport and become baseball fans.

T20 cricket and specifically the IPL infatuates nations across the globe with high-priced players, vocal crowds and a quick, high-pressure format.

There’s little better than watching the likes of Chris Gayle and Shreyas Iyer smashing fours and sixes as if it is the easiest thing since learning to count. But do we really need to use Stateside terminology to describe these impressive batting displays?

The word ‘maximum’ when a six is hit, and the phrase ‘grand home run’ now being applied to particularly lusty blows, suggests that IPL bosses are trying to mimic a sport that they view as more popular in order to improve their product's reach. It just does not seem necessary to do this to a tournament that has historically led the way for T20 cricket.

The league already boasts an average matchday attendance of 26,000 - some 500 higher than its Big Bash rival and considerably higher than the average of 7,500 for group stages of the T20 Blast. With the development of the IPL and more big-name players wanting to be involved, these figures are set to continue to soar.

The IPL is already hugely popular and does not need to be modelled on any other sport.

Understandably, organisers still want to increase the IPL's popularity further and are attempting to attract a broader audience, as well as improving crowd participation. But grasping the concept of a six (which will sometimes be described as a boundary) is not really a difficult rule to understand.

One would assume that a cricket novice would struggle more with the concept of lbw or the rules of powerplays. Instead, the IPL seem to have simplified the one area of the game that most people would understand perfectly well.

In which case, they will not have greatly improved popularity, just infuriated avid cricket followers, like myself, who do not want to see the sport changed in unnecessary ways.

Crowds will already be aware of the six, given many of them will be dashing to take the much-craved crowd catch, and celebrating it. What point, then, the appearance of a flashing ‘maximum’ on the giant screen? It seems completely useless.

And then there's the really irritating part of it all. Technically, the use of ‘maximum’ is not even correct.

Six runs is not the maximum amount of runs that can be scored from one ball. Just yesterday, Royal Challengers Bangalore managed seven, courtesy of their Kiwi import Colin de Grandhomme against Mumbai Indians.

Surely showing the ‘maximum’ sign but then adding seven runs onto the score would confuse cricket novices?

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