Official Notice Of Risk Of Physical Injury In Cricket

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1935, Page 12

Official Notice Of Risk Of Physical Injury In Cricket

M.C.CS. RECENT ACTION IS FIRST OF ITS KIND IN HISTORY

WHATEVER may be the cause of the recent agitation about fast legtheory bowling, whether it be the batsman’s way of batting, or the bowler s way of bowling, the opinion .pronounced by the Marylebone Cricket Club is particularly interesting, because it is the first time in the mng history of cricket that official notice has been taken of the risk of physical injury which the game involves (says a writer in the London “Observer ). So far as is known, cricket has always been played with a hard ball, and this missile has been discharged by one man often with a high velocity at another man. Though the attack may not be quite so direct as in the ancient game of rounders, where deliberate aim is taken at the player’s person, still, for the best part of two centuries, batsmen have stood up to a bombardment, sometimes more and sometimes less menacing, without making formal protests or appeals for public sympathy. Any measures of protection against bodily damage have been taken by players themselves, or by outside agents at their instigation, and there

have always been pessimists who prophesied that the game would become 100 dangerous for enjoyment. But until 1934 all that cricket legislation has done has been from time to time to make the ordeal more uncomfortable than before. The last and most perilous change was authorised in 1864, so that there have been 70 seasons of silent and stoical endurance. No wonder that enthusiasts praise cricket as a glorious game! In the earliest copy of the i tiles which is extant, a code drafted certainly before 1750, nothing is said about the bowler except that one of his feet must be behind the crease when he bowls. As all bowling was underhand there was no question of delivery to be considered. But when at the beginning of the 19th century one or two ingenious men introduced a round-arm, or even an over-arm, action,, protests were raised on the ground that this was throwing. It is true that throwing was not prohibited in so many words by the existing laws, and it is also true that nobody was able at that time, or, indeed, has been able ever since, to distinguish exactly between a throw and a bowl, but still this seemed as good an objection to the novelty as any other.- Anyhow, it served its purpose, for when the laws were revised in 1816, there appeared these words' in the new code: “The ball must be delivered underhand, not thrown or jerked, with the hand below the elbow at the time of delivering the ball.” In this way the first restrictions were placed upon the bowler, restrictions which subsequent amendment of the rules has tended largely to remove. Sternness Holds the Course.

The events which resulted, more than 10 years later, in the final adoption of round-arm bowling are rather difficult to follow. So far as one can make out, William Lillywhite, whose name is familiar as the pioneer of the new style, disregarded the existing laws, and bowled round-arm without any objec T tion on the part‘of his contemporaries to play with him or against him. Remonstrance was confined to a few professionals, who. when trial matches were arranged in 1827 to test the merits of the old and the new bowling, declined to play unless the Sussex bowlers, of whom Lillywhite was the chief, bowled fair; that is, abstained from throwing. The matches were played in due course, but no change was made in the rules, nor, it may be added, did Lillywhite make any change in the way he bowled. It must be remembered that the authority of the Marylebone Club was not absolute then, and is not now. Many cricketers who were interested in this new kind of bowling wanted to see what batting against it was like. Also, as Lillywhite was very slow, there was no chance .of his hurting you.

When, in the revised rules of 1831, the change to round-arm was allowed, no doubt, in order to secure uniformity of practice, there is no. indication of any fear of increased pace following this concession. Batsmen who had stood up to the furious underhands of Brown, of jßrighton, may have thought that the limit of speed had already been reached. Brown was so fast that he

had to have a special longstop, who protected himself with a breastplate stuffed with straw. It was not for some seasons that bowlers like Mynn and Redgate demonstrated that round-hand, with its body swing and horizontal - sweep of the arm, could develop a pace far beyond that of any underhand delivery.

But the menace to the batsman was not so much in the increase of speed as in the fact that, as the bowler’s arm became higher, so did the vulnerable zone, if one may so put it, become higher also. Originally a second stocking rolled about the ankle, served as a slight protection against balls that sei- . dom rose knee-high. But when the round-arm bowlers began to give the ball more lift, regular defensive clothing in the form of pads and gloves came into use. The public were entertained by these precautions, and “Punch,” in the early ’fifties, contained humorous references to the perils of modern cricket. Men of MeWle. i * Although the risk of damage to batsmen was becoming less of a joke every season, the next step taken by the cricket legislature was to increase this risk rather than to reduce it. The noballing of John Lillywhite by Willsher at the Oval in 1863 called attention to the umpire’s difficulty in watching the exact height of a bowler’s arm, ana as there was no satisfactory way of stopping the overhand delivery, the authorities took the simpler course Of pOrm The Result of this change was, of, course, the bumping ball, which, instead of threatening the batsman s legs or ribs, was as likely as not to fly about his ears. On the rough and fiery wickets of 60 years ago batting against fast bowling must have been the most unpleasant business. The condition of Lord’s was particularly bad, and that ground was the scene in the summer of 1870 of the single fatal accident which has ever occurred in first-class cricket. The wonder is that there were not more cases of serious injury. The chief reason for this comparative immunity has been the improvement in wickets by a process of artificial treatment, which by taking the life out of the pitch takes much of the fire out of a fast bowler’s attack. Criticism has been directed, though more freely by spectators than players, against the preparation of this featherbed surface, but there can be no doubt that, but for the use of marl, this question of the batsman’s risk would have cropped up long ago. Before the ® groundsman’s art became the exact science that it has become during the past half-century, bowlers of the pace of Richardson, Kortright or Ernest Jones could hardly have been used at all. As regards cricket other than first-class, and matches where the wicket is not’ so reliable, there has always been some prejudice, amounting almost to an unwritten convention, against the short bumping attack,. a prejudice shared both by the batting and the fielding side. ■ It is not only dangerous, but also extremely dull, with its continual ducking of the head by the batsman, and its lack of occu--pation for any fieldsman, except the wicketkeeper standing back. There is nothing to commend such a form of cricket whether as a pastime or as a spectacle. .. Whether new rules, or new. instructions to umpires, can affect it is . a difficult subject to discuss, and still more difficult to decide. All that has been attempted in this article is to show that this is a new type of official action, because it is the first time cricketers have been told, as football players have so often been told, that they must not play too roughly, or else they will hurt each other.