LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

102 letter and my views were consigned to the dustbin. Anyway in those days who, amongst the greybeards of England or Aust. thought I was qualified to talk about the laws of the game. In 1939 I wrote an article in Wisden and I commend to you the views I therein expressed — page 44 — in fact the whole article. In Australia I persuaded the S.A. Cricket Assoc’n to experiment with the lbw law and we played district cricket under it one or two seasons. The experiment in my opinion was a success but it was abandoned because (a) it was felt that our players were at a big disadvantage playing under one rule in club cricket and another one in inter-state cricket and (b) the other states refused even to try the experiment. No doubt, the batsmen, who are in the majority, opposed it. If you will read the 1936 Wisden, page 341, you will find a most illuminating argument about the lbw. It shows clearly how the present off-side extension was opposed by many including Sutcliffe but that the fears were swept away by ‘genuine methods in the art of batsmanship. You will need to work carefully because the majority of batsmen will oppose a change for selfish reasons. But we must remember the public view and above all the game itself. Surely the experiment could be tried in the same way as the last one was tried — see how many decisions it brings — signal lbw (n) — if both countries try it simultaneously. If MCC will try I’ll bet I can get our people to do likewise but without MCC we won’t do anything. So good luck. So in 1952 Robbie was able to refer back to Bradman’s earlier correspondence and begin a campaign to persuade the MCC Cricket Sub-committee to implement Bradman’s proposal. But Robbie was also concerned about slow play and time-wasting which was even beginning to affect cricket played at schools and he sent a list of radical suggestions to the MCC secretary, Ronny Aird: 1 Too much first-class cricket. 2 Suggest two divisions on association football lines with a limit of twenty matches per county per season. 3 Lack of playing facilities for elementary [sic] and secondary schoolboys. Suggest provision of concrete pitches in parks. (Of course a great deal has been done on this direction.) 4 Standard of Coaching. Safety-first tactics used by first-class cricket coaches, and most schoolmasters. 5 Suggest we are too technical, defence is the main consideration instead of attack. 6 Boys are in danger of being coached on mass production lines rather than personality and individuality being considered. 7 Lack of amateurs of the right quality. 8 Suggest although cricket technique may have improved over the past fifty years, the ‘spirit’ has declined. Public schoolboys be encouraged to turn professional at attractive wages in some form.’ Coinciding with the MCC issuing a book and a film on coaching, to which Changing the Law