The Ultimate Mispronounced Cricketing Names XI
From Josh Buttler to Pat Cummings.
It is a Friday afternoon, and I still have about 30 minutes to kill at work before I can leave (and, as an aside, if for whatever reason you come across this and think you work with me, no, you didn’t and no, you don’t).
Today, I spent my lunch break watching the extended highlights of the first day of the West Indies vs. Australia from overnight (my gratitude to West Indies Cricket for posting these on YouTube, and to every other cricket board: up your games) and listening to the commentators consistently call Pat Cummins Pat Cummings.
Aside from the fact that Cummings just doesn’t work with his nickname, Cider, (what the fuck is Cummings Cider?), one might think that that after 14 years in international cricket, ~500 international wickets, and however many trophies won as captain, we’d have collectively clocked how to pronounce his name as a cricketing community by now, but alas.
Naturally, this got me thinking about compiling an XI of commonly mispronounced cricketing names. It’s the only rubric through which I know how to evaluate the world, after all—ask me to talk about my emotions and you’ll get a blank stare, but ask me to compile an XI of human emotions and you’ll get a damn good one (Jealousy and Rage are opening the bowling, Caution is opening the batting, and, of course, Greed is batting at four).
To wit:
The Openers
Josh Buttler (Jos Buttler)
Josh English (Josh Inglis)
At the top of the order, we’ve got what I like to call the Commentator’s Lament™, a veritable puddle of Jos’ and Josh’s.
Just remember, Josh English was born in England but plays for Australia, and Josh Buttler is actually the English one. Good luck!
The Middle Order
Marnus Labu-shane (Marnus Labuschagne)
Soochin Tendoolkur (Sachin Tendulkar)
Veerot Kohlee (Virat Kohli)
Brandon McMullen
Jeff Dijon [wk] (Jeff Dujon)
If you are from Australia and are in any way responsible for the travesty that is Labu-shane, I want you to listen to me very carefully: lah-boo-SKAHG-nee. Let’s try that again: lah-boo-SKAHG-nee. It’s not that hard. I will strap your entire country down Clockwork Orange style and force them to watch a pronunciation video until you all get it, I swear to god. Tell me you didn’t grow up watching a bunch of South Africans named Labuschagne in Super Rugby without telling me!
Coming in behind Marnus, remember when Trump tried to pronounce Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli’s names? God, that was good. I watch it at least once a month as a little treat.
In at six, who else but Scotland’s Brandon McMullen, the Cricket ‘07 copyright-free version of Brendon McCullum.
Finally, it is Jeff Dujon, not Jeff Dijon. He is a man, not a mustard.
The Bowlers
Pat Cummings [c] (Pat Cummins)
Marco Jansen (mispronounced with a hard-J)
Lizard Williams (Lizaad Williams)
Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas.
Leading the side, we have Cider himself (now, why did they stop calling him that when he became captain?), Captain Woke Patrick James Cummings. I know that humans are pattern-seeking creatures and lots of words end in ‘ing’, so you might expect this one to, too. However, maybe you could consider recognising the pattern of how everyone else pronounces it?
I don’t have anything funny to say about Jansen, except there is no hard ‘J’ sound. Yahn-suhn. Yahn-suhn. Yahn-suhn. This has been a PSA.
To be fair, Lizaad Williams’ parents were asking for it with this one. Your name’s lizard, lol.
Last, but certainly not least, people just never seemed to be able to pronounce Chaminda Vaas’ full name correctly. Odd, that. Be better!
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My dad, bless him, would always pronounce an earlier, similarly trophy-hungry, Australian captain’s name as ‘Ricky Pointing’.
That was a fun read 😊