BODY-BOWLING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 25, 31 January 1933, Page 5

BODY-BOWLING.

FOR AND AGAINST.

AUSTRALIA'S VIEWPOINT.

REPRISAL POLICY NOT

favottred,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, January 27.

The protest of the Board of Control against "body-line bowling" and the reply of the M.C.C. are still popular subjects for discussion here; and I _ani inclined to think that few people in Isew Zealand—and certainly very few in England —yet appreciate the intensity ox feeling that this controversy ha«i engendered. In one sense the Jtt.UO.s reply was very much what was expected. But those responsible for it are seerainglv "unconscious, of this, that e y have expressed their feelings even asking for evidence about the fac s of the case. The M.C.C. is much amazed at the term k 'unsportsmanlike, and hastens to assert its conviction that Jardine and his comrades would never be o-uiltv of any conduct that could be so described. The M.C.C. committee therefore cannot be aware that the .English bowlers, under Jardine's direction, have practised here a form of attack which, when it was attempted last year in England, was promptly condemned —by Hobbs and Warner, among others —as "not cricket," and therefore tabooed at once.

This, I think, is what the people here •esent most of all. Everybody knows that when Bowes started bowling fast short-pitched bumpers to Hobbs in the iTorkshire-Surrey match last year, the veteran protested at once, and Warner, me of the managers of the presenteam, hacked Hobbs up by declaring publicly that this "body-bowling' is iltogether alien from the traditions and the sport of cricket, that if necessary the M.C.C. must penalise it, and that Yorkshire, by exploiting such tactics, had tarnished its high reputation. All .Australians know this, and they are bitterly resentful at what they regard as an unsportsmanlike attempt to work ott upon our Test team a form of attack which has been strongly condemned by Warner himself, and would not be tolerated at Home. The Australian View. Whatever the people who have not seen any of these Test matches think or say, there is only one opinion on this point among the great majority of those who have either "watched the play or taken part in it. Having watched Voce and Larwood persistently bumping short-pitched balls over after over straight at the batsmen's body and head, the people here —and most Australians know a great deal about cricket —are not inclined to listen to this talk about "orthodox leg theory." Mailey, who as a bowler is disposed to think that Voce and Larwood ought to be allowed to choose their own method of attack, maintains that they have bowled straight at the batsman systematically. Oldfield, after he had been "knocked out" by Larwood, explained at some length in two interviews that while the ball that got up and hit him was not a sample of "bodybowling," Larwood had systematically practised this method of attack against him, as against Woodfull and Bradman, with the manifest intention of unsteady - ing and intimidating them; and I should think that a few overs of that sort of thing—with the field so placed that there is no escape from physical injury without sacrificing one's wicket—must have its effect upon even the stoutesthearted batsmen that ever played the game. What of the Past? ' The Australians, therefore, regard it as positively proved that "body-bowling" is intended to terrorise the batsman. But how do they meet the countercharge that Australian fast bowlers have in the past pursued the same tactics ? T. M. Garrett, sole survivor of the 1878 Eleven, has never seen this sort of bowling before. By a direct negative Gregory and McDonald declare that they never bowled at the batsmen; Oldfield and Carter have declared that in all their long experience they have never had to "take" bowling of this type, delivered by Australians. Ernest Jones, perhaps the fastest of all Australian bowlers, ridicules the idea that he ever bowled at the batsman, (Of course this may fail to impress English critics—but I am trying to give the Australian point of view.) A. G, Moves, who played in inter-State matches frequently against Jones and Cotter and Gregory, asserts that he never knew them to bowl at him 01 any other batsman. But perhaps the question has been summarised best bj Dr. Barbour, who has had long experience of cricket here and who has ventured the opinion that Jones and Cottei and our other fast men could nevei have indulged in "body-bowling," foi if they had done so, there would be no present generation of Englisl cricketers—their fathers would have been killed off in their prime.

The Reprisal Suggestion. It is a curious fact that the experiments made to acclimatise the new method of bowling here have so far produced some startling results. A match at Adelaide conducted on these lines .provided four hospital cases; another match which "featured" body-howling at Grafton meant a broken nose for one man and concussion for another; and this week-end the West Australian fast bowler, Haleombe, has been made the subject of a special complaint to the local Cricket Association by a rival captain for introducing body-bowling to the dismay and injury of his opponents. As Haleombe took twelve for 39 in the two innings, he seems to have found the experiment successful. But I am glad to say that public feeling here is _so far definitely opposed to anything in the way of reprisals. There ground for the belief generally held that if two of our fastest bowlers—say, Haleombe and Gilbert, the Queensland! aboriginal, who is said to be at least as fast as Larwood—were instructed to fire their deliveries half way down the pitch straight at the batsmen, Jardine and his men would find the position just as disconcerting and dangerous as Woodfull and Oldfield have found it already. But happily there is not much fear of that; indeed, I believe that rather than resort to reprisal the Board of Control would accept the somewhat humiliating suggestion offered by the M.C.C. and cancel the other matches. It would be a sad ending to the tour, and a terrible setback to the great game. But it is quite certain that neither the cricketers nor the people of Australia are prepared to accept treatment that the highest British cricketing authorities have denounced as unsportsmanlike when they have seen it attempted at Home — and the sooner that the M.C.C. and Messrs. Jardine and Warner realiseJMs, A-