Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

42 Incident at The Oval down the other end, where the rest of his spell passed off without incident. So Walker missed a trick by not consulting with the authorities, but Willsher was also at fault, as according to Sporting Life , Lillywhite had warned him in the previous over and he had carried on regardless. The immediate problemwas how to get the England players back on the field. The president of the Surrey club, George Marshall, chaired an impromptu committee meeting in the pavilion, the upshot of which was to keep Lillywhite as umpire but allow Willsher to bowl as normal for the rest of the match. Naturally enough, Lillywhite refused their kind offer, and he was replaced for the third day by George Street, a minor cricketer who had never played top-class cricket, and would thus not cause any trouble. At this news, says the Sporting Life , Willsher expressed his ‘deep regret for the part he had taken in the affair’, and indicated that England were now willing to continue the match. The Surrey committee ‘courteously declined to claim the game, which of course they were entitled to.’ The crisis was thus averted, and further action would have to wait until after the match, but at last the issue of ‘high’ bowling would have to be resolved one way or another. Whilst joining in the universal chorus of praise for Lillywhite’s courageous stand in enforcing the letter of Law 10, Sporting Life left its readers in no doubt over its preferred outcome: The law, as overridden by the late style of bowling, is practically obsolete … if … the law can be so framed as to make the bowling of Willsher and a host of our very best cricketers legally available against the superior batting of the present day, so much the better. The question remains as to why Lillywhite chose this particular match to make his point. Bearing in mind his letter from 1858, it was clearly something he had felt strongly about for some time, and if, as Walker claims, he ‘had never previously acted as umpire’, then it would make perfect sense. The trouble is that this assertion is incorrect. Indeed, the first first-class match he umpired was back in 1856, when Willsher took, in all, 11 wickets for Kent and Sussex against England at Lord’s. Lillywhite would therefore have had ample opportunity to take a look at him Particular umpire. John Lillywhite in 1859.