Cricket running to order

Press, 8 September 1982, Page 32

Cricket running to order

The New Zealand Cricket Board of Control has a big business on its hands these days. But it is not enough to plan tours, and visits by test teams from other countries. Attention has to be given to detail, and the recent meeting, of the board in Wellington did just that. It decided to restrict the number of instances of players leaving the field to “freshen up” and it also reckoned that a player acting as a runner for an injured batsman must be dressed identically to the batsman, even to the wearing of a helmet

Dennis Lillee is quite famous for the number of times he has left the field, perhaps for the change of a shirt. But in future a fieldsman will be allowed to go when the umpires are satisfied he has been injured or is suffering from illness. Umpires today have a very trying task, with refinements to the laws and the playing conditions coming each season. Now they will need a course at Otago University, or at least a St John Ambulance Brigade certificate, before they can be deemed able to judge whether a player wishing to

go to the showers is genuine, or merely, thinks the umpire is wet behind the ears. The attempt to ensure that an injured batsman is not given an unfair advantage when having a runner is entirely praiseworthy. But the change to the rules does not go quite far enough. It is dll very well to have the runner dressed as his incapacitated batsman is, even to the helmet. On a cold day, there will have to be a count of pullovers, perhaps a check of underwear. The insistence on similar dress is commendable, but how about physique, and ath-

letic ability? Should a number eleven batsman, built like a brick pavilion, have for his runner, someone half his age and the winner, only two years previously, of the inter-school sprint championship? The day may come when the jury system has to be introduced. Candidates for batting runners may have to be rejected. — up to a given number — by opposing captains. There will have to be a Court of Appeal, of course. If the Board of Control does not like its findings, it can make its own rules. R. T. Brittenden