LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

100 Chapter Thirteen Changing the Law At the Advisory County Cricket Committee meeting at Lord’s in March 1952 it was proposed that a sub-committee be appointed to examine the state of county cricket. Counties had become concerned about falling attendances, and the fact that in 1951 more than 50% of county matches had finished as draws, and there was a growing public demand for more attractive cricket. MCC gave wholehearted support to the Advisory’s proposal and the MCC Cricket sub-committee, of which Robbie was a member, began by giving serious consideration to possible amendments to the leg-before-wicket Law, in particular to proposals from Don Bradman over the previous nineteen years. His first suggestion had been made in a two-page typewritten letter to the MCC secretary, dated 30 January 1933. This would have arrived at Lord’s soon after the Bodyline crisis had been temporarily resolved to allow the 1932/33 Ashes series to be completed. In the meantime MCC had advised the Australian Board of Control that the Committee ‘will watch carefully during the present season for anything which might be regarded as unfair or prejudicial to the best interest of the game. They propose to invite opinions and suggestions from county clubs and captains at the end of the season with a view to enabling them to express an opinion on this matter at a special meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference.’ A private letter ‘out-of-the-blue’ from the batsman who had been one of the main targets for England’s leg-theory tactics during the recent Test series, asking MCC to take a fresh look at the lbw Law and not the problems of Bodyline, appears to have been treated as being a subject that had no relevance to the investigations proposed, and so it was ignored and placed on file without even the courtesy of an acknowledgement. But by 1934 MCC was prepared to re-examine the lbw Law, although without any reference to Bradman’s earlier suggestion, and produced an experimental amendment to be used for a trial period during the 1935 season. It didn’t go quite as far as Bradman would have liked, but was a step in the right direction as it extended the Law to allow an umpire to give a batsman out after missing a ball pitching on the off-side of the wicket provided it hit some part of the striker between wicket and wicket. Wilfrid Brookes, the editor of the 1936 Wisden , asked several people to give their opinion and Robbie wrote: I am a firm believer that, if the experiment becomes law, we shall go a long way towards obtaining ‘brighter’ cricket. Our wicket at Lord’s last year gave the rule as big a test as any other ground in the country and in no case did I hear an umpire during the whole season suggest that it made his duties more difficult. On the contrary, many agreed that it