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Barbs, you are not alone in not knowing much about cricket!

I have mixed feelings about how so many cricketing terms pervade the crossword landscape. On the one hand, evoking the sound of leather on willow and the calm traditional image of blokes dressed in white having some harmless fun on a village green is something that I enjoy. However, it smacks of a boy’s in-club that reflects the skewed demographic of crossword solvers over the years. These terms are so ingrained in the the psyche of crossword setters from all the years of this tradition, that these terms are what come to mind easily for them and they don’t necessarily think to look elsewhere for clues.

I would be interested to hear what anyone else thinks about this.

I am glad that this forum exists, otherwise I would have had no idea what the theme was, and would have been unable to solve this one. It was also a bit of an education looking up the “numbers”. The word numbers and the multipliers threw me off- I was looking for a more mathematical theme...

A plethora of similar indicators that I don’t have a name for but always enjoy in crosswords:
Scorer, winger, blazer, writer, pointers, 2d
Those “how to solve cryptic crosswords” pieces often mention these, and I guess they are a bit of a trope. I have come across them often, and always enjoy the mis-direct and humour in them, but have never quite seen this many in one crossword before.

Thank you femmeNoir

Despite getting 10ac early on, I'd still no idea what the theme is . I'm now assuming it is songs, though I did think it might be cricket. Since I'm hopeless on songs I'm not sure what to google, But I'll have another go.

I hate the sports themes, as I don't follow any sport, but I did play cricket at school.

I'm glad to see Chris didn't give up as I expect to be asking for hints soon. But it has got to better than last week.

roof,
Theme is songs by a particular group. Euro rather than my (US) side of the pond.

Thanks Geeker

I googled 10ac twice and got the theme, then googled the group to get the songs. I just have to fit them in now.

I've done all but two. Like you all said, once you'd got the theme and googled it was fairly straightforward.

But I'm not sure of the answer to 19d or 26ac. I have I?P?I?O? for 19d, but I'm not sure of that O. I have G?E?R for 26ac. Any hints would be welcome.

Of course, I got 19d just after I did the above.

...and 26ac, although I don't get all the parsing.

Hi Roof,

26a - 5 letter "language" minus its last letter/"not quite" + R(ight) - definition is the famous "Australian intellectual"

Ta Brendan