LEAVES OF A SPORTFOLIO

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6864, 21 May 1932, Page 11

LEAVES OF A SPORTFOLIO

Cricket Law And Custom —What Is An Overthrow ?—An Unusual Point —“Lost Ball"

H ELATED, but interesting still, is an inquiry from a cricket umpire about the correct ruling on a question which arose in a match in the past season. Without the assistance of a diagram, the question can scarcely be explained to any reader who is not acquainted with the nomenclature of positions in the field, but cricket enthusiasts should be able to follow it. The striker hit the ball to the onsidc, and the fieldsman at long-on had to run to the ball; apparently there was no mid-on in this instance. While the ball was being fielded the batsmen van two runs. When the fieldsman was trying lo throw in the ball it slipped out of his hand and crossed e the onboundary almost in a line _ with the bowler’s wicket. The inquirer gives a variant of the incident, with the ball crossing the boundary at fine-leg, but that really docs not affect the question, which is: How many runs should be scored? ' My answer is that four runs should be scored. Although be does not say so definitely, I fancy that the correspondent thinks that six runs —the two run by the batsmen and four for what, from remarks he makes on his question, he evidently considers to he an overthrow to the boundary.

could have made at least three runs; but that is beside the point. On the other hand, if the ball had actually been thrown to the wicketkeeper or the howler, and, missed by that player, had gone to the far boundary, the striker would have been credited with four runs plus whatever runs had been made before the throw-in passed the wicket. * * * CUSTOM in cricket grows out of good reason; any action not based on good reason is not allowed by player or the M.C.C. authorities to grow into custom. The Laws of Cricket specify certain measurements for the wicket, creases, etc., hut do not lay down a minimum size for a cricket ground; that would be impracticable for all matches. Nor do they give any indication to umpires of what allowances, if any arc considered necessary, should he made for boundaries. It is the custom in most games to have boundaries arranged, either to save undue interference with another match, or to save unnecessary labour for fieldsmen, or to leave room for spectators, and sometimes for all these reasons. It is also the custom that when the allowances for boundaries are made odd numbers are avoided, so that a good batsman and an inferior one shall not have to change ends when a boundary-hit has been made. There is, therefore, good reason why the allowance for a hit to the boundary is either two runs or a multiple of two; generally it is four. But the arrangement of boundaries and of allowances for them is only a sanctioned convenience—not always utilised in matches outside of organised competitions—and it is meant to be used in a reasonable way.

The inquirer draws my attention to various laws of cricket, some of which do not touch the question, and he wants to know why, if four runs are added for an overthrow to the boundary at third man, for example, four runs should not be added for the mis-throw to the on-houndary. But be touches the point when be says: “Please give me the interpretation of an overthrow.’ It is the definition of an overthrow, taken in conjunction with the fact that the law allows umpires to arrange boundaries where necessary, that shapes my answer to the question.

In tlie case of the mis-throw referred to earlier, it does not seem reasonable to assume that the batsmen could have made six runs before the hall was recovered and thrown in finally to the howler or the wicketkeeper. But if, after two runs had been made while the ball was still on the on-side of the wicket, the ball had been thrown in and, missed by the bowler or the wicketkeeper, had gone to the off-boundary, there is just as much reason to suppose that the batsmen could have run another four runs as to suppose that they could have run four for a hit direct off the bat to the off-boundary. I have dealt with this question at some little length because any attempt to disregard custom, where there, is no law on a particular point, or to bring “bush-lawyer” methods into cricket, is to be deprecated. * The correspondent also says that he has been informed that Law 34, providing an allowance for ‘‘lost ball,” is not in use now, and he wishes to know if that is correct. The answer is that the law is still in use, where necessary. The correspondent has overlooked the fact that the laws of cricket are not meant only for competition matches, in which it is customary to have boundaries. Law 34 cau apply only when no boundaries are fixed, or when the ball is lost before it reaches a boundary—and the field would need to he of very long grass, or to have some, rabbitholes, or something of that kind, for the hall to he lost within a boundary. The point to be borne in mind on this subject is that the ball becomes “dead on the call of a boundary. So if the ball is lost after a boundary has been called the hit is worth no more than the allowance for a boundary. The correspondent does not say why he has asked his question about the “lost hall” law. I wonder what strange incident, and what quaint argument, has prompted it! A.L.Cti

THERE is a very important point of difference between the laws of cricket and those of, say, Rugby football. In cricket, custom rules on points that are not governed by specific laws; in several instances it has been held sufficient to state the custom without making it an absolute law. But in Rugby football there has grown up the practice of making whatever is the custom in the Home unions into a law for the whole of the Rugby-playing world. The laws of crickSt are much more clastic than those of Rugby. Sometimes the Marylebone Cricket Club, which is by common consent the final authority in cricket, has considered it sufficient to say, in reply to a request for a ruling, that “it is the practice” or “it is customary” that such-and-such be done, without going through the process of converting its finding into actual law. And when the M.C.G. does not dissent from any generallyrecognised custom, even though it may not have taken official cognisance of it, that custom should be followed. Now, the M.C.C.’s book of the Laws of Cricket, with decisions and interpretations authorised by the M.C.C., does not contain any definition of an overthrow. But the custom is to define overthrows as “runs scored after the ball lias been thrown to the wicketkeeper or bowler but not stopped. A definition in those words appears in the “Encyclopaedia of Sport,” which was edited by the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, and to which half a dozen of the most famous players of ,that day contributed the articles on various aspects of cricket. The mis-throw in the instance cited by my correspondent, then, is not an overthrow, but is something equivalent to the fieldsman’s carrying the ball over the boundary. The M.C.C. has ruled that “if a ball hit or pass over or through the boundary or is carried over it by the fieldsman the umpire should call a boundary hit.” • . When, as in the instance cited, a fieldsman accidentally kicks the ball to the boundary, or allows it to slip out of his hand to the boundary, or actuallv carries it over the boundary, the full allowance for a boundary hit should be given, unless the batsmen have run more than that allowance before the ball reaches the boundary. It seems as if, in this particular case, the batsmen