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

There’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.

“Scorecards are beautiful things,” the BBC statistician Andy Zaltzman says. “They’re like time machines. You can look at a scorecard from 1800 and, even with fairly minimal details, get a sense of how the game evolved. There’s a joy in the infinite variety of the possible narratives within a game.”

Therein lies the magic. John Arlott, the great commentator and poet, once described the scorecard as “at once the most compressed and the most expansive form of literature”. A line such as “Bradman b Hollies 0” is both a plot twist and a shock ending. Five consecutive single-digit scores convey a sense of panic in the dressing room. Extras topping the batting charts, as happened to Bermuda’s women in 2008 when they were bowled out for 13 by South Africa, becomes a kind of cruel punchline.

View image in fullscreen Andy Zaltzman’s 2019 Cricket World Cup final scorecard. Photograph: Andy Zaltzman

To the trained eye, scorecards are not just records but stories, pocket novellas where you infer characters, tension, pacing, even humour.

Bill Frindall, the BBC’s encyclopaedic scorer nicknamed “Bearders”, went further: “The scorecard is cricket’s autobiography, written one ball at a time.” For Frindall, who recorded every Test between 1966 and 2008 in immaculate longhand, the card wasn’t a dry ledger but a diary, each entry carrying the cadence of a ball bowled and played.

And just like the Matrix code, cricket’s scorecard language has been painstakingly invented. Early scorecards were little more than lists of runs, often published weeks after the game.

The oldest surviving scorecard dates back to 1744 and recounts a game between London and Kent played at the Honourable Artillery Company ground. The result – a 55-run win for Kent – as well as the individual scores are marked, but modes of dismissals, as well as bowling figures, are absent.

By the late 1700s, Samuel Britcher, scorer at Marylebone Cricket Club, began producing annual score lists at Lord’s, printed as penny pamphlets. These were among the first formal scorecards. Britcher recorded runs, dismissals and bowling figures, but only in the simplest sense.

For instance, dismissals were often just marked as “bowled” or “caught”, without details of who caught the ball. The notation was inconsistent. As the renowned amateur player Arthur Haygarth lamented: “When there are two scores of the same match, they never agree.” Club cricketers today – especially those tasked with the unenviable job of screaming out “Bowler’s name!?” – can no doubt relate.

In the Victorian era came the rise of more structured, statistical thinking. The 1840s scorecards started including balls faced, bowling analyses and extras, though standards varied from publication to publication. By the early 20th century, the modern two-column batting and bowling format was emerging: batters listed with scores and dismissals; bowlers with overs, maidens, runs, and wickets.

Scorekeeping also opens the game to those who might not shine on the pitch. “They also allow you to be involved even if you’re not very good at playing,” says Andrew Samson, a veteran scorer and statistician from South Africa.

“I’ve always loved doing it. I was pretty rubbish at batting and bowling but I was with the first team at school through scoring. It’s so special seeing fans in the crowd keeping score.”

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Modern scorers have turned what was once dichromatic code into a rainbow palette. Zaltzman not only scores in a unique way, matching batters with the bowlers they’ve faced, but also uses an array of coloured pens as he does so. For example, Steve Smith’s runs will be noted in dark blue while Mark Wood’s balls will be in red. A commentator sitting alongside Zaltzman can instantly see patterns, partnerships and momentum shifts.

And yet, as the Matrix warned, the digital age brings a degree of danger. Across the country, runs and wickets are increasingly recorded on iPads and apps, with live feeds streaming into analytics dashboards.

View image in fullscreen A spectator checks his scorecard at an Essex v Warwickshire match in 2008. Photograph: David Ashdown/Getty Images

Modern scoring provides a precision Haygarth could never have imagined. But, as Samson notes: “It would be a shame if we lose the old technology of pen and paper. I’d encourage any young fans to give it a go next time they watch a game.”

Zaltzman picks up the story as he shares an image of his own handwritten record of England’s 2019 World Cup final win against New Zealand. On it Ben Stokes’s heroics, Jimmy Neesham’s all-round effort and Jofra Archer’s winning super over are all captured in dazzling technicolour. “I love looking at them as much as I love creating them,” Zaltzman says.

“There’s something therapeutic in writing little numbers next to names. It’s so incredibly satisfying. You start with this blank scorecard and then by the end you have the story of a whole cricket match. What could be better than that?”

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