THE CRICKET CONTROVERSY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21980, 15 June 1933, Page 6

THE CRICKET CONTROVERSY

The Marylebone Cricket Club has done less than justice to its reputation in its considered reply to the representations of the Australian Board of Control in connection with the use of what has been called " bodyline " bowlAng—an expression which the M.C.C. (resents —in test cricket. It evades the gravamen of the complaint. It says that the implication that any English bowler in Australia would be guilty of making a direct attack on the batsmen is " improper and incorrect." Any such action on the part of the bowler would, the »M.C.C. says, be an offence against the spirit of the game. That is what the Australian Board of Control itself says, and it created a storm of indignation at Home when it went so far as to say that the practice of " bodyline" bowling was "unsportsmanlike." The Marylebone Club does not, however, dispose of the Board of Control's allegation by saying that it conveys an improper and incorrect implication. It merely expresses the opinion it has itself formed on the basis of reports, the terms of which it does not disclose. It endeavours, further, to identify "bodyline" bowling with the practice of utilising the leg theory in bowling. A great many people in this country will have taken the view that the Australian public and press were seeking to excuse the failure of the Australian team by putting the use of the leg theory in a distorted light. The condemnation, however, of "bodyline" bowling by J. B. Hobbs, the famous English batsman who accompanied the English team to Australia and is not a witness biased in favour of the Australians, who says its purpose was to intimidate the batsmen, will certainly have influenced the minds of people anxious to arrive at a clear judgment on the subject. The decision of the M.C.C. committee to watch carefully during the present season at Home for anything which may be. regarded as unfair or prejudicial to the best interests of the game is amusing rather than impressive. Harold Larwood, the spearhead of the English attack in Australia, is not playing during the present season at Home. In any event, a short-pitched ball delivered by a very fast bowler does not bump dangerously on the softer English wickets as it does on the hard wickets in Australia. Yet it will have been noticed that even in England this season some consternation has been caused by the use of the leg theory by fast bowlers, even without the field packed on the leg side as it was packed by the English captain

during the tour of Australia. With the view taken by the Marylebone Club that the new law recommended by the Australian Board of Control to overcome the menace of “ bodyline ” bowling is impracticable, entire agreement may be expressed, and its protest against the absence of any apparent effort by the Board of Control to check offensive “ barracking ” on Australian grounds is fully justified. Otherwise the club’s reply to the Board of Control exhibits too obviously a determination to baulk the real issue.