Cricket 1914

232 THE WORLD OF CRICKET. J u n e 13 , 1914 . The L .b .w . L aw . B y A. C. M a c L a r e n . M o s t of us had hoped that the lbw rule discussion was over long ago, since the m ajority of present day cricketers are satisfied th at the rule needs no revision. B u t the Hon. R . H . L yttelton in his letter to the Times is again agitating for an alteration. He is disappointed a t the games being too frequently left drawn, and is of opinion th a t Barnes alone is a class bowler to-day, owing to the great number of runs made in county cricket on the true fast w ickets which, I tak e it, M r . Lyttelton thinks are better than ever they were. I t must have surprised Mr. Lyttelton to find the total of the K en t X I only reaching 86 on a true fast wicket, the account of the match being in the n ext column to his letter. The bowlers are not so bad as Mr. L yttelton ’s letter makes them out to be. I have seen recently three very excellent young bowlers, all of whom interested me immensely. Two of these bowlers are not playing first-class cricket, bu t either one of the tw o would come out top bowler for Lancashire to-day if qualified. Some committees are apt to be led too much b y figures, and youngsters are a t times thrown on one side, owing to being out of luck or because they were bowling against the best two batsmen on the side, to be rested when they have brought about a separation, and to be given no show against the tail-enders. Catches are dropped, and fieldsmen are n ot always made the most o f b y judicious handling. I maintain that there are young bowlers lacking recogni­ tion to -d ay; unfortunately, th ey do not catch the eye. Unless a big thing is accomplished, little is thought o f a young bowler as a rule. I t is unfair to compare present day bowlers w ith those of tw en ty years ago— the latter had not anything like the amount of bowling, owing to fewer matches, and, again, there were nothing like the number of good batsmen on a side th a t there are to-day. I t is impossible, nowadays, for bowlers to retain the fire and fizz off the pitch as did the men of a quarter of a century back ; but to alter the lbw rule, as Mr. L yttelton suggests, is to make a farce of the game when the w icket is sticky, and to handicap, above all, the very man who is the chief attraction— the scientific batsmen. Mr. L yttelton makes no mention of the fact th at it is absolutely necessary to step in front of one’s w icket to be in the proper position for forcing the ball to the on-side. Has no one ever derived pleasure from seeing such as Trumper, Hobbs, Spooner, Macartney, and others bring off this delightful shot, the most difficult stroke on the board, which would become impossible w ith the alteration of the lbw rule ? I certainly have no patience w ith the batsman who gets in front to practically every ball that is straight on a good wicket, for the purpose of stopping it w ith his legs should it get p ast the bat. This type of player does exist, and is evidently the man whom Mr. Lyttelton wishes to see punished. Umpires give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman as the rule demands ; but it m ight reason­ a b ly be given to the bowler when conditions are in favour of run-getting. In the old days, when these rules were framed, the bowler had the best of the batsman ; nowadays, owing to a very great extent to the excessive amount of cricket played, the reverse is the case, and y e t the batsman still gets the benefit. I, for one, should not object in the least to the benefit going to the bowler when everything was in favour of his opponents. This getting back on to one’s wicket, ball after ball, prevents all forward p lay when the w icket is hard, and when the chief scoring shot is the forward drive— thus little is doing, and boredom ensues. This is the real existing evil, and it is due— in a large measure— to the advent of the googly, which must be played back. The batsman, however, has little or no chance on a real sticky wicket, and any alteration in the lbw rule to assist the bowler under these conditions would prevent games lasting out even one day. ------------ + ------------ Overseas C r icke t C h a t. AUSTRALIA. The averages of the first-grade clubs in Hobart are just to hand, and hereunder will be found the figures of a few of the leading performers, in condensed form :— BATSMAN. RUNS. AV ER. H.S. B O W LER. w . AVER. C. H. Robinson . • 539 77-00 178 C. Benjafield . 36 14*55 R. J. Hawson . • 583 72-87 208* C. Woolnough 27 16-29 R. Pennycuick . • 630 70-00 204* C. Newton . . . 37 i 8*35 G. F. Linney • • . 368 52*57 I l 6 * H. Allen ......... 20 19*55 H. Myers -------- . 278 46-33 89* T. Freeman .. 1 7 21-41 C S m it h ............ 428 42-80 38-90 138 83 16 23-00 23-40 H. Allen ............ • 389 D . G. P a to n ... 20 H . P. Facy • 344 38-22 99 D. Absolom .. 17 24-82 L. B u tle r............ . 382 38-20 114 T. D . Carroll . 23 25-21 D . G. Paton . . . . 297 37-12 59 21 26-52 E. Headlam . . . • 371 37-10 95 V. G iffo rd ......... 36*54 97 K . Eltham ----- • 336 33-60 121 J. A. W oods . . . 324 32-40 101 The batting figures look healthy enough; but the bowling averages are decidedly thin, and the evident shortage of good bowlers discounts the big run-getting to some extent. Twenty centuries were scored; three each by R. J. Hawson and C. H. Robinson, two each by G. F. Linney and R. Pennycuick, and one each by K. Bailey, L. Butler, T. D. Carroll, H. Etham, T, Freeman, Ernest Russell, Clyde Smith, T. Weavers, R. Wilkins, and J. A. Woods. Hawson’s 208* is a record for the competition since it was reorganised on the present lines; but Charles Eady, Kenneth Burn, and possibly others, made far bigger scores in the old days. Three times during this season (for North Hobart in each case, and with Robinson playing a part in each) over 200 were added for a wicket. In the bowling line K. Watt’s five wickets in five balls (al­ ready mentioned in these columns) and Ernest Russell’s 7 for XI, the last 6 for a single run, West Hobart v. North Hobart, on February 7, are the only feats which Mr. W. Backhouse (who annually “ audits ” the figures) finds worthy of mention. But Watt’s complete tale of 13 wickets cost 360 runs, and Russell only had 7 more in all the other games he played in. Nobody who took fewer than 15 wickets is included in the figures given above. NEW ZEALAND. Wellington loses a good man in C. V. Grimmett, a plucky bat and a very useful slow bowler, who has gone across the Tasman Sea to practice his trade of sign-writing in Melbourne. He may be heard of again there, though he mil have bigger competition to contend against than in the Empire City. J. Gordon Kinvig, who was less prominent than Grimmett, though he made a good many runs in club cricket and appeared once or twice for the province, has also gone to Australia, with a recommendation to Warwick Armstrong as to his cricket capabilities. Saunders is not thought likely to return to Wellington. As a groundsman he did good work under difficulties ; but no one seems to have held his coaching capacity very high, and after the first season he was there no one came along to be coached. As to this, the fault could hardly be all on the side of Saunders. Poor bat and field as he always was, his experience in first-class cricket must surely have rendered him capable of telling Welling- tonians a few things they did not know. CANADA. F. A. Sparks (University College School v. Albion) took 5 for 11 at Victoria, B.C., on May 16. For the other side E. W. Ismay had 8 for 37. Grant (Victoria B. v. Men’s Own) lowered 7 for 19. More cricket as she is wrote : " Bennett was high with 32 . . . found it too great a problem to solve his breaks . . . they pulled out a winner . . . the splendid total of 165 runs . . . Martin and Cane were high bats.”