MARYLEBONE CAUTIOUS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21493, 17 May 1933, Page 10

MARYLEBONE CAUTIOUS

The cricket controversy on bodyline or leg-theory howling—the terms have become too much entangled to be easily separated—seems unlikely to be settled for a while. Marylebone, faced with a difficult task, has issued an official statement saying that its full committee has discussed the subject and appointed a sub-com-mittee to consider it and report. According to comment apparently informed, the discussion lasted two hours, and from this and the decision it seems that nobody present was able to offer a convincing solution of the knotty administrative problem. The Australian Board of Control had put a plain question but the finding of a plain answer, one calculated to assuage ill-feeling, was evidently'not easy. So the matter stands, with the M.C.C. trying to keep its wicket intact rather than score. It is probably the best thing in the difficult circumstances, for as the days pass there emerges the fact that English experience and testimony give by no means the unanimous approval of the test team's tactics that at first was confidently announced. In . Hcndrcn's comment is support for the objections raised to the innovation as introduced into English county cricket before the tour, and the emphatic condemnation by Hobbs of the tactics in the test matches must be given considerable heed. "As seen by me in Australia," he has said, "more balls were pitched wide of the leg stump than N on it," and "Larwood had a pitch that was short." It is not easy to gainsay so definite an utterance by so fine a cricketer—in every sense —and his words make short work of much that has been offered as evidence for the defence. The sub-committee has an awkward task. It will be well if, together with its judgment on the facts, it produces a satisfactory recommendation. Now that the controversy has gone so far, care should be taken to carry it to a conclusion safeguarding the game and ensuring an amicable resumption of relations between the two leading cricket countries.