The Douglas Marillier Shot
Krish Raghav -
Monday, August 18, 2008 9:03 AM
Remember Douglas Marillier?
(I promise not to use the 'remember [person.object/pop culture reference]?'
gimmick ever again, but this post needs that remembering)
Douglas Marillier was the Zimbabwean man who added the word 'Marilliered' to
the dictionary. Most notably to the dictionary of Indian cricket fans, when he
used the aforementioned verb to beat India in a 2002 ODI with a valiant 56 not
out.
He pioneered the 'Marillier shot', the inspiringly bizarre cricket stroke
(poorly pictured below) involving an ungainly scoop of the ball over
fine leg. (I believe 'Ashrafulled' is also a legitimate synonym today)
Right. Now here's a challenge.
Top Spinner is a new Cricket flash game released by Benzido, who previously made a
flash game about dismembering attacking Ninjas with their own shurikens
(Cricket, obviously, was the next logical game to make after that)
Take a look at the game screen:
Simple enough. You use the mouse to play shots, swat away incoming balls till kingdom come, and you get runs depending
on where the ball hits the edge of the screen.
But wait. Look at the top-left edge again. There's a
distinct 'Six' area there - one that can only be reached by playing...that's
right, a Marillier Shot.
The problem, however, is HOW?
I tried ungainly scoops of the mouse, only to watch the ball unceremoniously nosedive straight onto the wicket. I tried deliberate edges, golf shots, even reverse psychology. No good. In desperation, I even tried ye-olde-trusty Google search, which believed I was looking for an Xbox 360 game of a similar name.
Sigh. Ideas, anyone?
Play Top Spinner here.
[Douglas Marillier picture courtesy BBC]
P.S: My current high score is a measly 195.
P.P.S: Douglas Marillier's Wikipedia page is quite amusing - it starts like an encyclopedia entry, then reads like a riveting Reader's digest article.