I don’t think I’m giving away anything that the clues don’t spell out when I say that Punk celebrates a sport today.
Today is the opening day of the cricket Test Match series between England and South Africa and Punk bowls us a strongly cricket themed puzzle.
If you like cricket you’ll almost certainly enjoy this puzzle. If you don’t enjoy cricket I think you can still deduce most of the answers without a good knowledge of the game. There are though one or two clues and / or entries that require some knowledge of the game and the awareness of the names of individual players.
The clues that took me the longest time to parse were 11 across, CRICKET TEAM and 24 across SNICKOMETER. I wonder if I was the only solver to bang in SEISMOMETER at 24 across without studying the anagram fodder properly.
Putting the specialised knowledge to one side I though the clue for BATTING ORDER was very good to include the names of two test captains.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 6 | Such a shame duck heard barking! (2,4) |
O (zero, duck score in cricket) + an anagram of (barking) HEARD OH DEAR* |
OH DEAR (expression of surprise, sorrow, pity or dismay; such a shame) |
| 7 | Leg hit – out! (2,6) |
ON (the ON side in cricket is the half of the field on the side on which the batsman stands when waiting to receive the ball, also known as the leg side) + STRIKE (hit) ON STRIKE |
ON STRIKE (not working; out) |
| 10 | Openers of Durham unfortunately out for a pair (3) |
DUO (first letters of [openers of] each of DURHAM UNFORTUNATELY and OUT) DUO |
DUO (pair) |
| 11 | Knock builders for this clue? (7,4) |
CRICKET TEAM (There are 11 players in a cricket team. This is clue number 11)
CRICKET TEAM |
CRICKET TEAM (When a batsman scores a lot of runs during an innings or knock at cricket he is said to be building his score. A CRICKET TEAM could therefore be described as a set of potential ‘knock builders’) |
| 12 | New series about university in supply again (7) |
Anagram of (new) SERIES containing (about) U (university) REISS (U) E* |
REISSUE (supply again) |
| 13 | Drool as daughter takes flower (7) |
D (daughter) + RIBBLE (river in northern England) D RIBBLE |
DRIBBLE (drool) |
| 15 | Expression of surprise at anything happening initially (3) |
AAH (first letters of [initially] each of AT ANYTHING and HAPPENING) AAH |
AAH (an expression of surprise) |
| 16 / 6D | When players come in, Australian captain catches England captain, first to be dismissed (7,5) |
BORDER (reference Alan BORDER, captain of the Australian cricket team from 1984 to 1994) containing (catches) GATTING [reference Mike GATTING, captain of the England cricket team from 1986 to 1988] excluding the first letter [first to be dismissed] G) B (ATTING) ORDER |
BATTING ORDER (the ORDER in which players come in to BAT) |
| 18 | Miss a big blow? Not quite (3) |
GALE (a big blow) excluding the final letter (not quite) E GAL |
GAL (girl; miss) |
| 19 | Throw after shot that’s only just feathered? (7) |
GO (shot) + SLING (throw) GO SLING |
GOSLING (young goose only just growing its feathers) |
| 21 | Relish channel screening new documentary, finally (7) |
(CHUTE [ a passage or sloping trough for sending down goods, water, logs, coal, rubbish, etc; channel] containing [screening] N [new]) + Y (last letter of [finally] DOCUMENTARY) CHUT (N) E Y |
CHUTNEY (relish) |
| 24 | Sensitive machine picking up little mark in merest o’ jolts? (11) |
NICK (little mark) contained in (in) an anagram of (jolts) MEREST O S (NICK) OMETER* |
SNICKOMETER (sensitive machine for detecting whether a batsman has hit the ball or not) |
| 26 | Returning in dream, similar doctrine (3) |
ISM (hidden word reversed in [returning in] DREAM SIMILAR ISM< |
ISM (any distinctive doctrine, theory or practice.) |
| 27 | Spinning ball, player’s best wishes realised? (3,5) |
BREAK a LEG is a slang phrase used in theatrical circles to wish good luck to actors LEG BREAK |
LEG BREAK (type of delivery bowled by a spinner in a game of cricket)
|
| 28 | Wrong’un somewhat like online searcher? (6) |
GOOGLY (a word that could possible be used to describe someone using the GOOGLe online search engine) GOOGLY |
GOOGLY (an off break bowled with an apparent leg-break action by a right-arm bowler to a right-handed batsman, or conversely for a left-arm bowler; a deceptive delivery; wrong’un) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Interrupting series, silly mid-on issues a reprimand (10) |
Anagram of (silly) MID-ON contained in (interrupts) ASHES (term used to describe a series of cricket Test Matches between England and Australia) A (DMONI*) SHES |
ADMONISHES (issues a reprimand)
|
| 2 | Europeans embracing a hundred trips (6) |
DANES (example of Europeans) containing (embracing) C (Roman numeral for 100) DAN (C) ES |
DANCES (trips, as in the DANCEr ‘trips the light fantastic’)
|
| 3 | Surface for a spinner exposed, that’s turned this way and that (6) |
S (first letter of [surface of] SPINNER + NAKED (exposed) S NAKED |
SNAKED (moved sinuously or followed a winding course; turned this way and that)
|
| 4 | Extra wicket is decisive, elevating leaders (4) |
WIDE (first letters of [leaders] each of WICKET IS DECISIVE and ELEVATING) WIDE |
WIDE (a ball bowled that is deemed by the umpire as out of reach of the batsman generating an extra run)
|
| 5 | Type of lettuce about right, little room for egg, perhaps? (4,4) |
GEM (reference the lettuce type ‘Little GEM‘) containing (about) R (right) + CELL (a little room) GE (R) M CELL |
GERM CELL (a gamete, a sperm or ovum, or a cell from which it springs; egg perhaps) |
| 6 | See 16 across | ||
| 8 | All together, no good expressing disdain (7) |
TUTTI (all together) + NG (no good) TUTTI NG |
TUTTING (expressing disdain)
|
| 9 | Awful getting caught, completely gutted to be frank (6) |
DIRE (awful) + CT (letters remaining in CAUGHT when all the central letters AUGH are removed [gutted]) DIRE CT |
DIRECT (frank)
|
| 14 | Century? English forcing one out for starters (10) |
In cricket, a score of 100 (century) would be a BIG INNINGS. Replace (force out) the first I and replace it with E (English) to get BEGINNINGS BEGINNINGS |
BEGINNINGS (starters)
|
| 15 | One and a half months of summer with majesty (8) |
AUGUST (one of the summer months) + JULY (another summer month) excluding two of the four letters JU to leave half the letters) AUGUST LY |
AUGUSTLY (with majesty) |
| 16 | One indicating for batter? (7) |
BLINKER (one who BATS an eyelid) BLINKER |
BLINKER (one who indicates) |
| 17 | Fuel visible, we hear? (6) |
INCITE (sounds like [we hear] IN SIGHT [visible]) INCITE |
INCITE (provoke to action; incite) |
| 20 | Chat about a male couple, Greek characters (6) |
GAS (gossip; chat) containing (A + M [male] + M [male] to give a male couple) G (A M M) AS |
GAMMAS (two characters of the Greek alphabet) |
| 22 | Winning, batsman to take out (6) |
UP (winning) + ROOT (reference Joe ROOT, newly installed as captain of the England Test team) UP ROOT |
UPROOT (take out)
|
| 23 | Solver with nothing to lose heading for McDonald’s – wow, that’s tasty! (5) |
YOU (descriptive of the crossword solve excluding (to lose) O (zero; nothing) + M (first letter of [heading for] MCDONALDS) + MY (wow!) YU M MY |
YUMMY (tasty)
|
| 25 | Oddly, I sang for villain (4) |
IAGO (letters 1, 3, 5 and 7 [oddly] of I SANG FOR) IAGO |
IAGO (villain in Shakespeare’s Othello)
|
Thanks to Punk and Duncan for the blog.
I just thought I’d pop in to say, no, you weren’t the only solver to bung in SEISMOMETER!
On the easier side of the Punk spectrum I thought, although I must admit that I too am a member of the ‘bung in SEISMOMETER’ club
Thanks to Punk and Duncan
It was a good thing there were some easy ones in the NW because the moment I spotted the theme I wanted to run for the hills. I decided to carry on for a bit and actually found that I got quite far – and enjoyed it too.
Now I know why I couldn’t parse seismometer! …
Thanks to Punk and to Duncan for some much needed explanations.
I put seismometer cos it was the lazy way to go-what fits in, never mind the parsing oR any theme-a deserved slap on the wrist.
I loved it, naturally, because I love cricket. However, I can understand that if you are not going to be glued to the telly, or at the ground, for the next five days then you might have been less enamoured, since there were quite a number of clues where a specialist knowledge of the game was required (GATTING, BORDER, SNICKOMETER (yes, I did too), GOOGLY, ROOT). Can you imagine the chunter I would have had if this had been golf? My contribution to the blog would have been longer than one of Harry’s.
Anyway, off to watch said Test match now. Thanks to Punk for the puzzle and to Duncan for blogging.
Thanks Punk and DS
For 24 I had SWINGOMETER on the basis that if you wing someone you give the a minor injury. That made 16D a little tricky! Ah well.
Thanks Punk & Duncan.
Re 16 ac. I took blinker to refer to a car indicator, rather than a person.
Loved the cricket theme. I made hard work of the last 6-7, including the two mentioned by Duncan (though I didn’t bung in ‘seismometer’) and GERM CELL, which was my last in. Couldn’t parse BEGINNINGS so thanks for the explanation.
I thought BATTING ORDER was a beauty. I know it’s not fair, but whenever I hear the name of the ‘English captain’, especially if associated with that of the ‘Australian captain’ the first thought that comes to mind is of a certain LEG BREAK that the ‘English captain’ faced at Lord’s in 1993. Happy memories.
Thank you to Duncan and Punk.
Another recruit to the Seismometer team. Even when we realised it was wrong, having deduced BLINKER for 16dn, we thought of ‘stickometer’ until Google came back with ‘did you mean SNICKOMETER?’
But for the rest, a mixture of write-ins (OH DEAR, REISSUE, DRIBBLE)and real head-scratchers (SNICKOMETER, BLINKER). And our LOI was GERM CELL, only got from Chambers Word Wizard.
Enjoyable, none the less. Thank you to Punk and Duncan.
Bit late to the party today as have been clearing the decks for Macclesfield this weekend (looking forward to seeing folks there). Enjoyed this and found it a medium level puzzle (it beat me by 3 in the SE) – though I did avoid the seismometer trap as I use an anagram solver. Honours today go to the theming and the def of 19a so thanks to Punk for the puzz and to DS for the enlightenment on the ones that clean bowled me.
@ justtalkingaloud: Hmmmmm, golf and a chance to make KD chunter, eh?
Another seismometer here. I put it down to the fact I’m reading a book involving earthquakes.
@Hoskins
It is tempting, isn’t it?
Would setters really set a puzzle with a certain blogger in mind? 🙂
Would an editor really choose a puzzle with a certain blogger in mind? 🙂
Would a setter really have set, or will an editor really at some point choose, a puzzle with a certain nationality of solvers in mind? 🙂
Does that mean Antipodean birds and stuff in tomorrow’s Phi?
The definition OUT in 7 across, given the cricket theme, is dodgy: If you are ON STRIKE you are OUT in the middle but definitely NOT OUT.
Was it done deliberately? See http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/page/429550.html
We’re not really that keen on cricket despite Joyce being in her school cricket team – it was a long time ago and tastes do change!
We were too tired last night to finish the puzzle and when we returned to the page this morning, all the answers we had solved last night were missing. It took us a while to sort out the answers which we had already completed – what does that say about our mental capacity?
We were also in the ‘seisemometer’ camp and struggled with snickometer too.
Coming here for the blog actually turned out to be more fun than the solve!
Thanks Duncan and Punk.
Heckler @ 17
That’s part of the misdirection: “All out” used to be a call for workers to go ON STRIKE.
hth