Cricket question--what is a sticky wicket??

Question

And what the heck does "Bobs your Uncle" mean??

Answer 1

Sticky wicket generally means "A difficult situation".

This phrase is being used in cricket also. After rain, the ground becomes soft and the ball bounces more erratically, making it more difficult for the batsman. Hence a sticky wicket, in full to bat on a sticky wicket. To be on one, figuratively speaking, is to experience great difficulty.

"Bob's your Uncle" is a catchphrase which seemed to arise out of nowhere and yet has had a long period of fashion and is still going strong. It’s known mainly in Britain and Commonwealth countries, and is really a kind of interjection. It’s used to show how simple it is to do something: “You put the plug in here, press that switch, and Bob’s your uncle!”.

The most attractive theory—albeit suspiciously neat—is that it derives from a prolonged act of political nepotism. The Victorian prime minister, Lord Salisbury (family name Robert Cecil, pronounced ) appointed his rather less than popular nephew Arthur Balfour to a succession of posts. The most controversial, in 1887, was chief secretary of Ireland, a post for which Balfour—despite his intellectual gifts—was considered unsuitable. The Dictionary of National Biography says: “The country saw with something like stupefaction the appointment of the young dilettante to what was at the moment perhaps the most important, certainly the most anxious office in the administration”. As the story goes, the consensus among the irreverent in Britain was that to have Bob as your uncle was a guarantee of success, hence the expression. Since the very word nepotism derives from the Italian word for nephew (from the practice of Italian popes giving preferment to nephews, a euphemism for their bastard sons), the association here seems more than apt.

Actually, Balfour did rather well in the job, confounding his critics and earning the bitter nickname Bloody Balfour from the Irish, which must have quietened the accusations of undue favouritism more than a little (he also rose to be Prime Minister from 1902–5). There is another big problem: the phrase isn’t recorded until 1937, in Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Mr Partridge suggested it had been in use since the 1890s, but nobody has found an example in print. This is surprising. If public indignation or cynicism against Lord Salisbury’s actions had been great enough to provoke creation of the saying, why didn’t it appear—to take a case—in a satirical magazine of the time such as Punch?

A rather more probable, but less exciting, theory has it that it derives from the slang phrase all is bob, meaning that everything is safe, pleasant or satisfactory. This dates back to the seventeenth century or so (it’s in Captain Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of 1785). There have been several other slang expressions containing bob, some associated with thievery or gambling, and from the eighteenth century on it was also a common generic name for somebody you didn’t know. Any or all of these might have contributed to its genesis.

Answer 2

In cricket, the term "sticky wicket" refers to a wicket (pitch) which becomes wet through rain but then dries out quickly, leaving the pitch a little spongy. This causes an slowing effect on the ball when it hits the pitch, making it bounce up unpredictably and therefore making it hard to bat successfully. However, genuine "sticky wickets" are now practically unknown in the sport, because all proper wickets have been covered during rain for about fifty years. So it ihas become something of an old-fashioned and redundant phrase. The phrase also passed into ordinary non-cricket useage, and means any situation which is awkward or difficult to overcome.

Answer 3

The term sticky wicket comes from a situation the pitch has become damp, typically due to rain or high humidity. This makes the path of the ball more unpredictable thus making the job of defending the stumps that much more difficult. The full phrase is thought to have originally been "to bat on a sticky wicket." Such pitches were commonplace at all levels of the game (i.e. up to Test Match level) until the late 1950s.

Answer 4

A wicket that the pitcher is having a hard time knocking down.

I have no Uncle Bob, so I wouldn't know...

Answer 5

when a nightwatchman doesnt not get out the next morning and actually causes waste of time for the regular batsman, he/she is called a sticky wicket.

some people have used the last wicket not getting out easily as the sticky wicket too.

Answer 6

Bobs your uncle is Australian slang. it basically means 'and there you have it'. It's used when showing someone how to do something.

e.g. stand it up and bobs ur uncle.

when something is finished. It's something along those lines.

Answer 7

I think "bob's your uncle" means that Robert is your mother's brother.