I have been thinking of the origin of cow corner for quite some time? Why is it called so and who gave this name?
In modern cricket, the flat track bullies bludgeon hapless bowlers between long on and midwicket, when it is almost expected them to play it anywhere else. That's the shot Suresh Raina plays with perfection on most occasions. Premeditate, sit on the left knee, open the right leg farther, swoosh, on leg side, over cow corner for a six.
Not all good cow corner sloggers are flat track bullies, Steve Waugh, Mike Hussey, and Paul Collingwood are some of the players who are good with this shot. There's a pattern isn't it? Grafters, accumulators, who used the cow corner shot to surprise the opposition, for that's a vacant place on most occasions.
Long long ago ,the shepherds ,who were for a change grazing cows tied their cows to trees on their leg side. This allowed them to see the cows with a corner eye even when they played the match. No one was allowed to hit at that place, for it was sacred and would lead to heavy pounding on their back for every injured cow. And hence the name cow corner, where the cows happily grazed in spite of the match going on in the middle.
This situation continued even after shepherds who grazed cows. Though there were no cows at the cow corner, cricketers found it difficult to hit the ball towards cow corner. It was as if invisible cows (that only cricketers could see) were grazing between mid wicket and long on . And then came Steve waugh who realized that there were no cows after all, and hit it over cow corner in spite of Ganguly's delaying tactics. He passed on the information to Mike Hussey , while Hussey passed it on to Raina during his stint with Chennai Super kings. Paul Collingwood had a spy in Australian camp , that's how he learned about this. Now with this ground breaking revelation, the secret is out in the open, and we could see more cow corner shots in the world cup that's just around the corner.
A note on Suresh Raina:
He's a decent batter as long as he doesn't expect a short ball for every ball bowled to him. Unfortunately, he seems to think that way once he is out of the subcontinent.
