cooking with gas vs on the ball

cooking with gas

phrase
  • Functioning particularly effectively; achieving something substantial. 

  • With the updated software, I was really cooking with gas. I got the project done in half the time. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cook, with, gas. 

on the ball

prep
  • Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things. 

  • Playing as a midfielder. 

  • Being in control of the ball. 

How often have the words cooking with gas and on the ball occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )