Lucky Pads and Nelson's Number: Cricket's Superstitions

Watch a batter walking out to the middle and you may notice small things: the same foot over the boundary rope, the same tap of the bat at the crease, the same glance at the sky. None of it is in the Laws, and none of it will make the ball do anything different. Yet almost every dressing room in the world has someone who will not move from the seat they were sitting in when the last wicket fell, and someone else who would rather walk barefoot than wear the wrong socks. Cricket is a game that invites ritual, and the rituals have become part of its folklore.

Why cricket breeds superstition

Part of the answer is the shape of the sport. A baseball hitter faces a pitcher for a handful of seconds at a time; a cricketer can spend hours at the crease, or hours in a pavilion waiting for a turn that might last one ball. That waiting is the breeding ground for habit. When the stakes are high and the outcome is partly down to chance, the mind looks for something it can control, and a repeated action offers exactly that.

The other part is the brutal arithmetic of a dismissal. A batter can play beautifully for forty minutes and then be gone to a ball that nipped off the seam. Because skill and luck are so tangled together, players are reluctant to disturb anything that was present when things went well. If you scored a hundred wearing a particular shirt, why would you risk another one?

The curse of the Nelson

No superstition is better known than the fear of 111. The score, and its multiples 222 and 333, is called a Nelson, after Admiral Horatio Nelson, who is said to have had one eye, one arm and one leg. Three ones standing side by side look a little like three stumps without their bails, and that image has helped the legend stick. Whether or not the story about the admiral is the true origin, the name is firmly lodged in the language of the game.

Superstition found its most famous champion in the umpire David Shepherd, who stood in international matches in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. When a score reached a Nelson, Shepherd would raise a foot off the ground and hop, or shuffle, until the score moved on, on the theory that keeping a leg off the floor would ward off the bad luck. Crowds learned to watch for it. It became one of the sweetest sights in the sport: a serious official performing a harmless little dance in front of thousands of people.

Fans have their own versions. Some will not say a batter's score aloud when a hundred is close, in case the words themselves tempt fate. Others will not go to make tea when a partnership is flourishing. In many households, a long stand has been kept alive by a family member who has refused to leave the sofa for an hour.

Rituals in the dressing room

Players are rarely shy about admitting their habits, and the stories are widely told. A common one is the order in which equipment is put on: many batters always strap on the same pad first and would feel unsettled if they did it the other way round. Tendulkar is often mentioned in this connection, with reports that he always put his left pad on before the right. Others carry a small item in a pocket, and Steve Waugh's habit of keeping a red rag in his trouser pocket while batting is among the most frequently cited examples.

These routines work on a few levels. They give the player a fixed sequence to follow when nerves are jangling, and a sequence is easier to carry out than a vague instruction to relax. They also mark a boundary between the noise of the dressing room and the focus of the middle. By the time the second pad is fastened, the batter has already started to switch into the right mode.

• Sitting in the same seat while a partnership builds.
• Wearing the same lucky item, whether a cap, a sweatband or a worn-out pair of gloves.
• Stepping over the boundary rope with the same foot every time.
• Marking a guard or tapping the crease in a set pattern before every ball.
• Refusing to change a routine after a good score.

Is it really about luck?

Most players, if pressed, will say they do not truly believe a lucky charm changes the outcome. What they do believe is that routine steadies the mind. Sports psychologists have long noted that pre-performance routines help athletes stay consistent, and the line between a superstition and a well-honed habit can be very thin. A fast bowler who always walks back to his mark the same way is doing something useful, whether he calls it luck or not.

There is also the matter of belonging. A dressing room that shares a ritual is a dressing room with a shared identity. Touring sides often develop habits that are passed on from one generation to the next: who sits where, which song is played before the toss, who gets the first drink. The superstition becomes a small tradition, and tradition is what binds a team together when results are poor.

When superstition meets the scoreboard

The nineties have their own special nervousness. A batter in the nineties is often said to be in the grip of some strange pressure, and the dread of falling short of the milestone can make an experienced player look like a beginner. In that sense the mental side of cricket gives superstition a very real foundation. Fear affects footwork, and a player who believes a number is cursed may well play it differently. The belief creates the result it was supposed to prevent.

The same is true of the opposite belief. A batter who is convinced that today is his day may stride down the pitch with more freedom, and the lucky charm has done its job even though it has done nothing at all to the ball. This is why coaches tend to leave harmless habits alone. If a ritual helps, and does no harm, there is little reason to take it away.

The comfort of small rituals

In the end, cricket's superstitions endure because the sport is so wonderfully unpredictable. A rain delay, a crumbling pitch, a faint edge on a day that was going perfectly: nobody can plan for all of it. A hop on one leg from an umpire, a rag in a pocket, a pad that goes on first are small ways of saying that we know we cannot control the game, but we would like to feel we have done our part. That quiet human instinct, as much as the runs and wickets, is part of what makes cricket the game it is.