THE "FOLLOW-ON."

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8727, 24 February 1894, Page 7

THE "FOLLOW-ON."

The Marylebone Cricket Club proposes to alter the cricket law which relates to a " follow-on." At present the side which is eighty runs behind has to follow its innings. The proposed alteration is to allow the side which is eighty runs ahead to determine whether its opponents shall or shall not be required to "follow-on." Experience (says the London Daily News) has shown that on the carefully-prepared wicketa ot the present day it is often a serious risk to bowl and field through two innings in succession, and opinion was slowly ripening on the subject when the much discussed incident in the Oxford and Cambridge match last year of Mr Wells bowling a no-ball and a wide to the boundary to prevent Oxford from following on, at once brought the question to the front. From that time some alteration of the law was inevitable. The balance of expert opinion, so far as it has been expressed, is in favour of the optional theory adopted by the Marylebone Committee, but there is considerable divergence of view. The chief objection to the optional plan is that it increases the advantage of winning the toss. This, it must be admitted, is undesirable, but as the law stands now a side may often—on hard wicketa —suffer by its own good play, and after gaining a lead oj 80 or more runs, lose all its advantages by going through a second innings with worn-put bowlers.