It's up stumps and retire to the pavilion

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on April 08, 2007

In Reply to: It's up stumps and retire to the pavilion posted by Chris on April 08, 2007

: What does this sentence exactly convey? You can find it by googling it, one of the main references being the movie "Brazil"

It's a cricketing metaphor. At the end of the day's play, or the end of the match, the umpires "draw stumps" (pull the three wooden stumps that the batsman has to defend out of the ground) and everyone goes back to the pavilion (the cricketing equivalent of the clubhouse), to change out of their cricket things and have tea and buns. So, to English English-speakers this conveys "OK, that's it for today".

• It's up stumps and retire to the pavilion Smokey Stover 08/April/07
  • It's up stumps and retire to the pavilion Smokey Stover 08/April/07