RULES OF CRICKET

Evening Star, Issue 21285, 14 December 1932, Page 3

RULES OF CRICKET

PUZZLES FOR UMPIRES DECISIONS IN UNUSUAL CASES The rules of cricket are full of surprises (writes A. M. Crawley, noted amateur player for Kent). How many people would have known that when T. W. Goddard, of Gloucestershire, stopped a ball recently from A. Melville, of Sussex with his cap, it meant 5 runs to Melville? The umpire did, which settled the question, presumably to the satisfaction of Melville. But umpires have not always found it so easy to give decisions in cricket, and players have not always been satisfied. One splendid instance is worth repeating. The occasion was a match between Oxford and Surrey at the Oval, in 1924, I think, and T. B. Raikes and R. C. Robertson-Glasgow were batting for Oxford. Robertson-Glasgow hit the ball to a fieldsman, and both began to run. As they met halfway down the wicket Raikes changed his’ mind, stopped, turned round, and ran back to his own crease, accompanied by Robertson-Glas-gow. While they were doing this the fieldsman had got excited, and overthrown the ball. Both batsmen 1 thereupon turned round and ran down the wicket together to Robertson-Glasgow’s end, arriving neck and neck. The spectators, who had had a dull day’s cricket, were delirious with excitement by now, and when for the second time the fieldsmen made a muddle, and both batsmen turned together again and raced down the wicket, they stood up and roared. As a reporter told the story, “ on the last lap the Old Carthusian outstayed the Old Wykehamist, and won by a short head,’’ and the empty wicket was at last put down. Who was out? And how many runs were scored ? No one was sure whether the batsmen had crossed on the first run, and Robertson-Glasgow had crossed the wicket three times and Raikes twice. Raikes settled the question by walking out, and the umpires wore relieved their dilemma. But the story goes that they both admitted that they would not have known what to say, and I can find no record of what the scorer’s decision was. Perhaps the most difficult thing of all in cricket is to decide when the hall I

is “dead.” The rule says “when it finally conies to rest in either the bowler’s or the wicketkeep’s hands. But who is to define what “ finally ” means? If a fieldsman throw's it back to the bowler, the bowler can still run a man out if ho has not returned to his crease, or for that matter if he moves out of it, so can the wicketkeep. But in practice this rule is governed by an unwritten law. 1 remember one occasion when N. M. Ford, batting at Harrow, broke this law and was run out, to his extreme indignation. He had hit a ball to cover point—where R. Holdsworth duly fielded it—and cajled No, while standing about a yard in front of bis crease. Thinking the ball “ dead,” as •neither batsman was attempting a run, Ford did not bother to put his bat dow r n behind the crease again, but walked straight out to ; pat the pitch. Holdsworth held the ball for a minute or two while the whole field watched Ford dealing death to a plantin, and then slowly rolled it in to the wicketkeeper, who broke the w'icket for Ford to be given “ out.” Annoying, but quite right. A more common and oven more annoying w r ay of being given out is to be caught off the umpire. This happens quite frequently in all sorts of cricket. As the rule briefly states; “ The umpire is not a boundary,” and the ball is therefore not dead when it hits him. If he was a boundary he would be the immediate target of every hard-hitting batsman, and an umpire’s job would he about as enviable as a parachutist’s. Sometimes a batsman is run out by the bowler before he has begun to run. Tliis is a favourite trick of G. G. Macaulay’s. When the ball is hit back at him hard- he picks it up and hurls it at the batsman’s wicket before the latter has recovered from his_ stroke. If he happens to be out of his crease ho is. of course. “ out.” C. K. Hill-Wood, the Oxford-Derbyshire player, once suffered tliis indignity, and has never forgotten it. And perhaps the most surprising, but not the least encouraging rule of all is to be found in the ‘ Instructions to Umpires ’ —which says “ no umpire is allowed to bet.” We may rest assured, then, that the pebbles and pennies which they carry in their pockets are not used for playing shove-half-penny. or marbles, but are kept solely for counting the balls in an over.