Nurdle?

Thursday's Christian Science Monitor has a rather confused article by Mark Rice-Oxley titled Cricket makes a comeback in Britain.

Rice-Oxley talks about the increased interest in Test cricket as a result of the excitement of the Second and Third Tests between England and Australia, yet the sub-editors appear to be more interested in playing up the Twenty20 elements of the article. Possibly because they've noticed the word "baseball" used in close proximity to Twenty20 quite frequently.

The abstract for Rice-Oxley's article reads:

Forget five-day matches and tea breaks. Today's cricket is short and saucy, delighting a new set of fans.

Ahem. Then there's the photo caption that reads:

SMACK! England's Andrew Strauss hit a "six" (like a home run) during a game against world No. 1 Australia at Old Trafford in Manchester, England, Aug. 14.

But it's the glossary of cricketing terms in the sidebar to the CSM article that has me beat. Especially this item:

Nurdle - To score runs by nudging the ball into vacant areas of the field.

Surely nurdling is a tactic from the noble sport of farnarkling?

If the Christian Science Monitor really wants to explain cricket to its American readers, it needs to focus on four points:

1. US cricket has a chronic history over the last decade of unstable and disputed central government.
2. The USA was recently ejected from the 2005 ICC Intercontinental Cup for failure to meet tournament deadlines, and replaced by the more professional Cayman Islands.
3. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a promise five months ago to the Indian foreign minister to learn to understand cricket, yet has failed to act upon this committment.
4. Bart King was a better all-rounder than Freddie Flintoff.