Guardian Cryptic 28085 Boatman

by

Thanks to Boatman for a could-hardly-be-missed theme crossword.  Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

7 Does run-out cause a lot of noise? (7)

RESOUND : Anagram of(…-out) DOES RUN.

8 Facing the bowler this time, always or not at all (2,2,3)

IN NO WAY : IN(batting, in cricket/facing the bowler) + NOW(this time/presently) + AY(always/ever, poetically).

9 Report of Boatman will get to Sri Lanka, perhaps (4)

ISLE : Homophone of(Report of) “I’ll”(contraction of “I will”/Boatman, the setter, will, using the self-referential pronoun).

Defn: Of which Sri Lanka is an example/perhaps.

10 Upset, or excite, a run down severely (9)

EXCORIATE : Anagram of(Upset) OR EXCITE, A.

Defn: …/criticise strongly.

12 Fielding position in the news? (5)

POINT : One in “N,E,W,S”(abbrev. for north, east, west, south, respectively/compass points).

13 Double curve saw one out with a maiden at midwicket (4,4)

SWAN NECK : “saw” minus(… out) “a”(article for one/a single) plus(with) ANNE(a maiden’s name, say) plus(at) 2 middle letters of(mid …) “wicket“.

15 According to the law, short leg is a supporter (4)

ALLY : “legally”(according to/within the law) minus(short) “leg“.

16 Thorpe’s boundaries risked losing all, even being abrupt (5)

TERSE : 1st and last letters of(…’s boundaries) “Thorpe” + “risked” minus its 2nd, 4th and 6th letters(losing all, even).

17 Cover with solid pace, injecting velocity to avert century (4)

PAVE : “pace” containing(injecting) V(abbrev. for “velocity”, in physics) minus(to avert) “c”(abbrev. for “century”/100 years).

Defn: …, as with, well, a pavement.

18 Forgot to run? Lent a googly (8)

UNLEARNT : Anagram of(… googly) RUN? LENT A.

20 Extra: a run made without referring to the score (2,3)

BY EAR : BYE(an extra/a run awarded in cricket, but not scored by the batsman) + A + R(abbrev. for “run”, in our theme sport).

Defn: Playing … or music sheet

21 Clue for the l-last to bat (4-5)

TAIL-ENDER : “l” = solution to the clue: last letter of(-ENDER) “TAIL“.

Defn: Last member in a cricket team to go in to bat.

22 Boatman’s place: long stop (4)

SEAL : SEA(boatman’s place/where one working onboard a boat should be at) + L(abbrev. for “long”).

Defn: … an escape by closing an opening.

24 Rescue part of wicket before being dismissed (7)

BAILOUT : BAIL(a part of a cricket wicket, viz. either of the two crosspieces bridging the stumps) plus(before) OUT(in cricket, of a batsman being dismissed).

25 Bat in centre of Oval, Dickie Bird once blowing his top (7)

VAMPIRE : 2 middle letters of(centre of) “Oval” + “umpire”(what Harold Dennis “Dickie” Bird once was in international cricket) minus its 1st letter(blowing his top).

Down

1 Clears area for cricket practice (4)

NETS : Double defn: 1st: Gets after deductions for, say, taxes and other expenses.

2 Sermon about English losing initially in a familiar way (8)

HOMELILY : HOMILY(a sermon) containing(about) 1st letters, respectively, of(… initially) “English losing“.

3 Perhaps cricket is popular cult (6)

INSECT : IN(popular/in fashion) + SECT(a cult/a group with religious beliefs or practices different from the majority).

Defn: What a cricket is an example of/perhaps.

4 Go up and face bowler here (8)

INCREASE : [IN CREASE](where a batsman facing a bowler would be, in the marked area in front of a wicket).

5 Field one inside silly mid-on (6)

DOMAIN : A(grammatical article for “one”/a single) contained in(inside) anagram of(silly) MID-ON.

6 Hostility from bowler (perhaps Ellison) initially (4)

HATE : HAT(an example of which/perhaps, is a bowler) + 1st letter of(… initially) “Ellison“.

11 Players scored with no-balls (9)

CASTRATED : CAST(collectively, the players/actors in a play or film) + RATED(scored/assigned a value according to a scale for a particular quality).

Defn: With one’s testes removed.

12 Starts to play yorkers later on: now this holds things up (5)

PYLON : 1st letters, respectively, of(Starts to) “play yorkers later on: now“.

The shape of things to come:

14 Fielder caught several balls in a row (5)

COVER : C(abbrev. for “caught” in cricket scores) + OVER(6 or more/several consecutive balls/a bowler’s deliveries in a row, before a change in bowler).

D0 … in a particular position, in cricket.

16 Renovated pitch put back to accommodate English date (6,2)

TARTED UP : TAR(pitch/a dark thick liquid of a mixture of hydrocarbons) + reversal of(… back) PUT containing(to accommodate) [E(abbrev. for “English”) + D(abbrev. for “date”)].

17 Guardian etc in revolt over introduction of spinning as part of training (5-3)

PRESS-UPS : PRESS(the media comprised of publications like the Guardian newspaper/etc.) + UP(in revolt/in an uprising) placed above(over, in a down clue) 1st letter of(introduction of) “spinning“.

Aka push-ups:

19 Wickedly excited yell about boundary (6)

EVILLY : Anagram of(excited) YELL containing(about) VI(Roman numeral for “six”, short for a boundary scored in cricket, worth that number of runs).

20 Review of batsman’s role losing most fans in the north (6)

BOREAL : Anagram of(Review) “of batsman’s role” minus(losing) “most fans“.

21 Unlawfully, get Sri Lanka’s opener out for a duck (4)

TEAL : “steal”(to get unlawfully) minus 1st letter of(…’s opener out) “Sri Lanka“.

23 Caught in time — setback in an area (4)

ACRE : C(abbrev. for “caught” in cricket scores) contained in(in) reversal of(… — setback) ERA(a long period of time).

59 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28085 Boatman”

  1. Thanks Boatman and scchua

    Very clever! Apart from the SE it went in quite quickly, though I didn’t parse SWAN NECK (I tried to get Graeme Swann into it), and failed on TARTED UP (I had TURNED).

    Favourites were ALLY and VAMPIRE, though the latter might have needed Google for non-cricket followers.

    “Ellison” in (FOI) 6d was Richard of that ilk, an English opening bowler in the 80s.

  2. I liked the clever use of the theme, and that many of the theme clues really had nothing to do with the theme. I didn’t get BOREAL and never knew it meant in the north, although aurora borealis is well known.
    My favourites were SEAL INSECT (although it’s probably been done before) HATE and CASTRATED.
    Thanks to Boatman for a fun test and scchua for the colourful blog as always.

  3. I enjoyed this more than most of Boatman’s puzzles, but I don’t think that I shall be using the word at 2d any time soon.

  4. By the way if anyone is looking for another challenge I strongly recommend Eccles in yesterday’s Independent. It’s the first time I’ve done one of their puzzles and it is excellent – and endorsed as such by many of the respected commenters – well worth a look.

  5. Stumped by BOREAL too. And HOMELILY I wasn’t familiar with, though it had to be that from the crossers. We now have a long time to wait for further “flannelled foolishness”. Thanks Boatman for providing some meanwhile.

  6. I thought this was great.  One of Boatman’s trademark surface themes, as opposed to a ghost theme like the Qaos yesterday.  Very clever to get all the surfaces apparently relating to cricket while most of the answers didn’t.  My favourite was 25a VAMPIRE.  Also good to see the traditional double use of “Boatman” at 9a and 22a – one meaning I/me and the other an actual boatman.

    My one quibble would be that the surface of 10a doesn’t seem to make much sense to me.

    Many thanks Boatman and scchua.

  7. A fairly gentle but diverting test. Good to find some cricket still going on.
    Particularly enjoyed 20ac and 11d.
    “Homelily” and “Boreal” were new to me but very fairly clued.
    Many thanks to Boatman and sccuha

  8. I have often said that I am not a fan of themes in crosswords, but if there has to be a theme then as a cricket addict this was right up my street.  I enjoyed the crossword enormously although I should imagine our friends from the US will have found it a bit impenetrable.  Many ticks along the way but my favourites were VAMPIRE for its reference to dear old Dickie Bird,  TAIL-ENDER which I thought was very clever and brought a smile, when I finally got it, and BY EAR, which helps with my poor sight reading skills.  Many thanks to Boatman for an ingenious puzzle and scchua for confirming a number of parsings I was not certain of.

  9. Generally I don’t much care about themes, but in this case my casual knowledge of cricket lore was definitely useful, and someone with ignorant of the game might struggle. I particularly liked BOREAL (because the clue was a bit complicated, in a good way) and CASTRATED (witty and concise). But I really don’t like answers like HOMELILY in an everyday crossword – yes, it’s a valid word, but ugly, and would anyone use it in real life?

    Thanks Boatman and scchua.

  10. [BOREAL reminded me of a story of a woman moving in to a large house, with a garden that had a resident gardener. She was puzzled in autumn that he made no attempt to clear up the falled leaves, and asked why. She was told “Boris will do that”

    Further inquiry established that he was referring to Boreas, the north wind!

    I tried to find a reference, but a Google search for Boris+wind turned up too many unrelated hits….]

  13. muffin @ 1: as Kent season ticket holders my wife and I much enjoyed watching Richard Ellison bowl at the St Lawrence Ground in the late ’80s.

  14. Thanks to Boatman for a sniff of summer sat with the crew at fine leg at Chelmsford watching England’s (plus SA & Oz) finest. Scchua’s delightful press-up picture also brightens up a dull self isolated morning.

    Favourites already mentioned but spent too long thinking Dickie was an anagrind for oval and running through various volcano solutions.

  16. Thanks, Scchua and all – glad you’d having fun today.

    Cricket fans will have realised that this was supposed to be the first day of England’s mini-test series against Sri Lanka – hence the references to that particular cricketing foe. As Lord Jim says, most of the clues don’t really need any knowledge of cricket to solve them, so it’ll be interesting to see how US nationals or other non-cricketing people manage. The whole tradition of using cricket terms in clues feels quite odd now, but I’ve been accumulating ideas for cricket gags for ages, and it seemed like a good idea to get them all off my chest at once.

    George C (and probably everyone else, if we’re honest) – I quite agree that 2 Dn is a very odd word, ugly even. It’s a shame that we don’t have a convention to say “I know this isn’t really a word that you’re going to use in everyday life, and you won’t like it much: sorry about that, but there’s a good reason why it’s in the grid, and trust me that you will be able to solve it if you take the clue logically” – a particular piece of punctuation at the end of the clue, perhaps, in the same way that we’d use an exclamation or question mark. What could we use? A double question mark?? Ximenes’ conventions of “!” for outrage and “?” for whimsy have shown their value by their longevity, and I can’t immediately think of anything as elegant as that – any ideas?

  17. I’m not surprised so many had difficulty with 20d, as BOREAL is nothing like an anagram of “batsman’s role” losing “most fans” as the letters that would have to be removed are TSMANS – how does the clue actually work?

  19. … and – BlueCanary – I really like your self-directed wild goose chase. I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m doing a Dickie Bird clue … Oh dear, I suppose that means there are going to be more of them, then …

  22. muffin@1 not me then!

    I’m sorry but I still can’t understand the clue for BOREAL: if I  take “boreal” out of “batsman’s role” I am left with “tsmans”. Then, “ans” is most of “fans”? What about the “tsm”; is that most of “most”? Or am I missing something obvious?

     

    Thanks Boatman and scchua.

  23. Excellent crossword.
    Don’t understand 20dn. “batsman’s role”  taking out letters for “boreal” leaves “tsmans”.

  24. Stared at loi 20d for at least as long as the rest took before the p finally d’ed. Good workout, always happy for cricket clues, it’s what you grow up with I spose. Forgot the ‘news’ trick despite its being an occasional regular, so point was unparsed, d’oh. 2d earned an ‘Erk!’ in the margin, and both press-ups and teal were ‘slow’. Quirky to find one baseball (I think!) position, long stop, among the cricket jargon. All fun, thanks Boatman and thanks Scchua, including for the beaut pics as ever.

  28. I came here expecting to find a real “marmite” of opinions. As a(nother) cricket fan I found this just fine but thought it a little too heavy on cricket GK for anyone not familiar with the sport. Maybe those who felt so have stayed away, or not solved it yet?

    I think if I knew less of the theme I’d be crying foul but instead I have to sit back and admire the variety and number of cricket (and misleading) clues here. Bravo Boatman!

    “Homelily” will sit alongside “honorificabilitudinitatibus” in utility and pronounceability. Indeed, i think I’d rather have a go at some Xhosa tongue-twister than say it out loud!

    Wiggers @18 – good spot, a pity the second part of that line is “CMT” and not “CMJ”!

    Thanks scchua for blogging it so nicely.

  30. A lot of people complain about heavily themed crosswords, but I quite like them.

    Some clues can be a bit overwrought and obtuse, but CASTRATED and BY EAR were great bits of misdirection.

    Bizarrely, PYLON was my LOI despite being one of the easiest clues. I was overthinking after a barren first pass.

  31. I enjoyed the theme. My favourites were VAMPIRE, EVILLY, ALLY, SWAN NECK.

    New for me was homelily which seems to be a very ungainly word!

    Thanks, B+S

  32. Connected straight away to this as i am also a cricket fan. Particularly liked Boatman’s inclusion of cricket related words that had nothing to do with cricket as in duck/teal and bat/ vampire. Dnf though as i couldn’t get boreal despite being familiar with aurora borealis. Thanks scchua for the blog.

  33. I have never been a cricket fan, but I have picked up so many terms from Guardian puzzles over the years that I had no problems with this!

  34. I don’t see any of the other American commenters on here so far, so let me say that the theme was far less of an impediment than I thought it would be. Once I accepted that I would need an occasional reference to Wikipedia articles to clarify terminology, it was (relatively) smooth sailing and quite entertaining. Thanks to Boatman and scchua.

  35. I’m not a cricket fan, but the references were mostly in the clues not the solutions so no problem. Only “point” gave me difficulty due to lack of cricket knowledge and it was one of several I couldn’t parse either.

    Thanks Boatman for the crossword and your acknowledgement that homelily is indeed rather homely.

  37. Thanks S & B. I enjoyed this, though I did fail on 22a. Anyone else have STAY? I saw it as a DD, referring to possible positions on a boat (forestay, backstay, etc) and to a protracted stop. D’Oh!

  38. Thanks to Boatman and sschua (always love the illustrations)(and in particular for the parsing of SWAN NECK).

    Some days it just works and these are good days – by which I mean I just looked at some of the clues and a word/construct popped into the internal ether which after some wrassling turned out to be correct: an experience of the inner self informing the surface self. Felt very much on Boatman’s frequency which is also a nice feeling – interesting that he refers to “gags”, giving an indication of a very welcome intention.

    Interesting that there is a part of me which is better at crosswords than I am.  Just as well……..

     

  40. BillB @36

    It’s a fairly recent phenomenon that cricket commentators distinguish between “boundary” (4) and “maximum” (6). When I played, anything that crossed the rope was a “boundary”.

  41. Great insights Alphalpha@38/39 – we know much more than we know we know! It’s why real conversation (which involves listening as opposed to trying to persuade you to hear me) is what we need in the world.

  43. Thanks to sschua and Boatman

    In 13a is the intended solving process: maiden = female = name one, or could Anne be Sir Walter Scott’s “Maiden of the Mist” or some such?

  44. Starting to complete the Guardian on the day now.

    HOMELILY is hard to say, but obvious in its meaning. Didn’t parse SWAN NECK as I was left with NNE as the maiden. Nor did I parse ALLY, but it was obviously the answer. I got BOREAL by a wordsearch on the crossing letters and parsed it as the batsman’s role to lose most fans as BOREAL(l) – BORE ALL.

  45. [Muffin @40 I get the impression that the new terminology is something that has come in with the 20-20 thing, and faster run rates in ODIs where there are enough sixes to be worth commenting on.]

  46. Btw, Wiggers@18, you’ll have to explain the nina – I’ve no idea. (But cricket not my first sporting preference, as a spectator I mean.)

  47. Alphalpha @46

    The radio cricket commentary programme, Test Match Special, is often referred to as “TMS”.

  48. I fell into the same trap as some others with 22dn and got BOREAL from the definition(finally). HOMELILY took some time too. The rest of this went really easily but the aforementioned two took longer than the rest put together!
    I have no interest in cricket so everything I “know” comes from crosswords- but crossword knowledge was enough for this.
    Thanks Boatman.

  49. Thanks to scchua and Boatman.   Good Lord – Blake’s Seven followed by cricket ?  I must be my week for once !  I think my favourite (of many) was EVILLY ; for some reason that just appealed to me (pun intended.)    Regarding the nina  , I wonder if Boatman was originally  trying to get that to read “TMS  CMJ” but was defeated by the J  ?

  50. JohnB @49, it’s a lovely idea but alas, Boatman himself commented earlier in the thread that he was unaware of the TMS nina.

    For those of you who are wondering what the hell we are whittering on about, Test Match Special (TMS) is the flagship live radio commentary programme on BBC R4 and the World Service.  Christopher Martin-Jenkins (1945-2013), or CMJ, was a TMS commentator for almost 40 years.

  51. Sadly the BBC seem to have lost the right to some? TMS broadcasts and we now get chat in the name of The Cricket Social.  A rogue radio station called Guerilla Cricket now brings commentary complete with much swearing and a complete disregard for cricket decorum.  It can be quite witty but much loved TMS characters, CMJ, Johnners  Blowers, Simon Mann, but not for me, Aggers are greatly missed.  Hey ho it all comes down to money I suppose!

  52. My spirits rose when I saw Boatman’s name at the top of this puzzle and it has certainly lived up to expectations.  What an absolute beauty.  Not only is the theme through the clueing delightfully delivered but the solving and parsing is brilliant.  Not a superfluous word throughout and, if you follow instructions exactly as they are set down, there’s your answer.

     

    It’s actually difficult to highlight favourites.  Almost every clue deserves praise and there are some ingenious tricks in there.  IN NO WAY, SWAN NECK, TERSE, TARTED UP and BOREAL all delighted.  A toss up between CASTRATED and VAMPIRE  for clue of the day.

     

    Thanks and huge respect to Boatman and scchua of course

  53. Did think after solving that there was a Nina in TMS at row three but Boatman above has squashed that!

    Pity – also a pity that it was a ‘T’ in 6d and not a ‘J’ as it could have been a double Nina with CMJ (the late cricket commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins) too!

  55. So many excellent clues. BY EAR took far too long to get but I do like it. The anagrithmetic in 20d was too much for me, again this finally went in from the definition and crossers.
    Great fun.

  56. Very fair imo. I (relatively) whizzed through most of it – and I’m rubbish. However I was ‘stonewalled’ (to continue the theme) by a fair few so it amounted to a proper challenge without being utterly impenetrable to someone of my limited ability. In awe of Boatman’s ability to weave cricket into every clue – thank you.
    CASTRATED defo my favourite and, although I got TAIL ENDER due to an informed guess I’m not sure I’d EVER be able to parse this straight up.

  57. Thoroughly enjoyed this after getting to it late.

    BillB @36

    If someone said “Morgan scored 111, running 30, and getting the rest in boundaries” you’d surely know “boundaries” meant either 4s or 6s?

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