Jaffa: Beautiful Cruelty?

Richie Benaud has been asked to date the first cricketing usage of the 'jaffa', an unplayable delivery that has left the dictionary editors stumped. In many cases, the OED is unable to tell how a word was invented. It is seeking assistance from people who might claim to have been present when the musical description 'ska' was introduced into british-Jamaican clubs. The dictionary is certain that gentlemen required 'something for the weekend' before 1990 but "finding documentary evidence has proved unusually difficult".

(The Times, 10 June 2005)
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/language.html#OED


Any one know what the results of this search were or what does OED have to say on it now.
Everything from oranges to cakes have been discussed.


John Hall mentioned that Trevor Bailey has used this term for a long time. What is the earliest known usage of this term in cricket or at least Bailey's earliest usage.


I would like to make a suggestion though this may be completely and utterly wrong and may easily be shown that way by the historical usage but it fits in very nicely and on the face of it sounds plausible (though historical facts may clearly show that this origin is impossible). So throwing out a wild suggestion (Only since other Urdu terms have come into usage in cricket). So with no shred of evidence here is the suggestion.


In Urdu jaffa means cruelty. In Urdu poetry it is commonly used in the sense of a "beautiful cruelty".