Talk:Innings

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The OED online edition reads: 4. a. In Cricket, Baseball, and similar games (in Great Britain always in pl. form innings, whether in sing. or pl. sense): That portion of the game played by either side while `in' or at the bat: cf. IN adv. 6d. In Cricket also used of the play of, or score of runs made by, any one batsman during his turn. to follow their innings (said of one side at cricket) = to follow on: see FOLLOW v. 19d. It is therefore quite incorrect to accuse OED of not having the singular word "inning" (it also has 3 other meanings of much greater antiquity) and I have removed this remark - please don't reinstate it. seglea 05:08, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough I suppose, I went to my printed edition for my information. --Bob Palin 06:53, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Then I guess the online edition reflects the internationalisation of the OED project in the latest edition. Weird; would they really be being snobby about American games in the earlier editions? And I'm surprised if the printed edition (what date?) didn't have at least the archaic forms. I could only get at the online edition through a loop of 3 computers this evening so I didn't explore in detail - sometimes it tells you which edition a word was introduced in. seglea 08:17, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've now checked: singular "inning" in baseball is recognised by the 2nd edition of OED (1989), which was printed, not just the (online only, I think) New Edition. Examples are given from 1856 on. seglea 23:14, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I assure you that I am very capable of looking up a word in a dictionary, I have the Oxford Reference Dictionary (1986) in front of me now, there is no entry for inning. However, I just dug out my Concise Oxford Dictionary (1981) and it does have an entry marking it as an Americanism. So there we go... The point is however that in cricket it is an innings and on that I think we agree. --Bob Palin 01:42, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Aha, disparity explained. OED to me (and to Wikipedia, to judge from the link) means the big multi-volume affair (1st edn 1928, 2nd 1989, 3rd edn in preparation but work done so far available on line). I can easily believe that the Reference dictionary wouldn't have inning. But, as you say, the main thing is that the article has the correct usage. Curious that OED refers to "innings" as Great Britain - I am virtually certain that the same usage applies wherever cricket is played.

You are quite right, Seglea (or at least to the best of my knowledge you are). Innings is universal, except in the US. (And , presumably, other places that speak in US english). As for the dictionaries, as I remember,

• OED is the full Oxford English Dictionary - about 7 volumes.
• The Shorter Oxford Dictionary is two volumes - though for some reason, the acrynom "SOD" doesn't seem to have caught on!
• Various other versions exist: Pocket Oxford, illustrated, and so on.

Tannin 06:45, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

(England had the better of the first innings, outscoring Australia by 104)

Wikipedia is not a repositry for wishful thinking! :-) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 21:53, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Quite so, Pete. But, you see, I'm Australian, so I thought it would be courteous to give the Poms this one little victory. Might be a while till the next one. ;) Tannin

I can't resist pointing out the 259-run first-innings lead England managed at Trent Bridge...! ;) 86.136.255.50 14:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ordinarily, the whole British/American english debate doesn't really bother me. But this idea of using "innings" as a singular noun sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Brrr. Meelar 02:33, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

--

Isn't it more accurate to describe it as cricket-versus-baseball than as British-versus-American? Michael Hardy 02:03, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, but the cricket usage spills out into British English in other contexts, as the article says. Does this happen in the US (e.g., "the President has had a good inning")? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Probably not. A baseball player's inning or at-bat doesn't last that long. American publications occasionally use 'had a good innings'. Although here's CNN's Richard Quest, (originally British), getting in a muddle: "Our tech guys response to my predicament sums up my feeling: "It (Quest's laptop) had a good innings. I guess this is an appropriate answer in the baseball city of Chicago." Hakluyt bean (talk) 23:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've just tidied this up quite a bit to remove the "offense/defense" terminology from the introductory discussion of what team is batting and what is fielding, since those terms don't apply in the same way for cricket. What I've done should now read correctly for both sports. I've also NPOVed the British/American plural usage - it was rather slanted towards British, IMO. (oops, forgot to sign) Dmmaus about 30 May.

First the article states "each side has two innings." but then the example says "Sri Lanka made 464 in the third innings (of the game)". Perhaps this is correct for one of the variations of cricket but I believe in the essential incomprehensibility of "cricket" and don't want to wade through all the articles. Should this example be changed? Rmhermen 16:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why it should be changed. It's correct, and fits in with the definition given in the article. "Each side has two innings" means there are four innings in the game:

• first team's first innings (first innings of the game)
• second team's first innings (second innings of the game)
• first team's second innings (third innings of the game)
• second team's second innings (fourth innings of the game)

In fact, I think it's a good illustration of the difference between the cricket and baseball definitions of the word, since in baseball these would be considered "half-innings", and therefore a valuable example. -dmmaus 22:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article states: "An inning, or innings, is a fixed-length segment of a game" If innings last as long as there are still batsmen, then the length can vary. It is not a "fixed" length —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.124.219 (talk) 14:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An inning in Baseball is one thing, and an innings in cricket something else. Both can (and should) be explained fully in each or those articles. It's not like "bat" where the word is the same and has many different uses. There is no need for this as a separate article. Another-sailor (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree. I suggest that this page get merged with Innings (cricket), as Innings, because "innings", as a singular term, refers only to cricket version. The baseball page could be Inning, because, as has been thoroughly explained, "inning" is never used in the context of cricket. The cricket article doesn't need any reference to the baseball concept, just the usual small link at the top for people who landed here looking for "inning", and the baseball article could include the small link and a brief note that the term derives from the cricket version.Rks13 (talk) 21:01, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The information in this section is false. The term is immemorial and the earliest known record of it is dated 1730, as has been the case for a long time. I will rewrite it in due course. Jack | ^{talk page} 11:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]