INSTRUCTION TO JARDINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

INSTRUCTION TO JARDINE.

A statement that Mr. D. K. Jardine, captain of the M.C.C. team now on its way to India, has been instructed not to employ "leg theory" bowling during the tour this winter is not in accordance with the fact, writes Thomas Moult in a •London daily.

The phrase which the M.C.C. have usedin making their wishes known to Jardine is "body line." In other words, their request is that there shall be no employment of the kind of bowling va which the batsman's body is the target, and to this Mr. Jardine agreed. The difference is a vital one. It is not conceivable that the M.C.C. would deal such a rebuff to Mr. Jardine as to ask him not to bowl "leg theory," or that he would accept it. It would have impugned not only his own sportsmanship, but that of the players who, under his leadership, brought back the' ashes from Australia mainly because leg theory tactics were adopted'. Nichols, of Essex, on e of the two fast bowlers in the team going to India, was never during the past season in English cricket associated with body-line bowleg, and it may be revealed here that although Clark, of Northampton, has bowled leg theory on occasion during his career, his county committee requested him not to bowl anything approaching either leg theory or" body - ■line softsww ago.