The Spin | ‘They’re like time machines’: the endless magic of cricket scorecards

What may look like an impenetrable column of unexplained figures can reveal plenty of eccentric talesThere’s a scene in The Matrix when Cypher, the sardonic turncoat played by Joe Pantoliano, sits with Keanu Reeves’s Neo in front of a bank of monitors. To Neo’s eyes it’s an endless waterfall of meaningless green code. To Cypher, and to those who have learned the language, it’s not numbers and symbols but living images: “I don’t even see the code,” he says. “All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead …”A cricket scorecard works in exactly the same way. To the uninitiated, it’s an impenetrable column of initials, abbreviations and unexplained figures. But for those who know, these sheets of names and numbers are alive with incident; the shape of an innings, the rhythm of a bowling spell, the hidden drama of a partnership. Continue reading...

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