BODY-LINE CONFERENCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19750, 17 March 1934, Page 16

BODY-LINE CONFERENCE

MEETING IN ENGLAND The Board of Control has appointed Messrs H. Bushby and W. C. Bull to represent it at' the Imperial Cricket Conference, a meeting of which will be held in England during the coming season (writes Dr. E. P. Barbour, in the Sydney Mail). It is inevitable that one of the most important subjects to be discussed by that body will be the question of body-line bowling. It is not only England and Australia who are concerned with the problem. The question requires a definite pronouncement of opinion by a composite body such as the Imperial Cricket Conference, and in preparing delegates with instructions for submission to this body the Board of Control had done no more nor less than its obvious duty. A Doubtful Remedy. One cannot, however, derive much satisfaction from the remedy which the board has to suggest to the conference. It will be remembered that in the early part of last year a sub-committee appointed by the board made certain recommendations which were adopted by the board in the form of a rule, denominated rule 49 (b), and reading as follows:

“Any ball which, in the opinion of the umpire, is bowled at the batsman, with the intention of intimidating or injuring him, shall be considered unfair, and ‘no-ball’ shall be called and the bowler informed of the reason. If the offence is repeated by the same bowler in the same innings he shall immediately be instructed by the umpire to cease bowling, and the over shall be regarded as completed. Such a bowler shall not be permitted to bowl again during the innings then in propress.”

This rule was the subject of considerable opposition in England, even among old cricketers who had been outspoken in the condemnation of bodyline tactics. They pointed out, not without reason, that it imposed an almost impossible task on the umpire when it asked him to be the judge of the bowler's intention. Intimidation is not a cricket crime. Fast bowlers from time immemorial have taken most of their wicktes because their very speed tends to make the batsman uncomfortable, to disturb his confidence —in other words, to make him timorous or to intimidate him. If the element of intimidation is removed from fast bowling altogether, then fast bowling itself is liable to become rapidly extinct. Where, then, are we to draw the line between the legitimate intimidation of Spofforth and Richardson and the extreme methods adopted by Larwood, in which ball after ball was sent whizzing at the batsman’s head, with a packed leg-field to make it impossible for the batsman to defend his head with his bat? Even if the greatest umpires, such as Borwick, Hele, Chester, and Hardstaff, were competent to judge so delicate a point (which is doubtful), what chaos might we expect in the lower grades of cricket when a fast bowler, who is winning a match for his side, is suddenly disqualified by an umpire for intimidation! And what is to happen on a sticky wicket, when a mediumpace off-spinner will hit the batsman on the body again and again by quite legitimate bowling? It ceems to me that to place this responsibility in the hands of the umpires removes it from the very men who are most competent to judge, and who, if they are so minded, can eliminate

from cricket body-line bowling or any other blot which threatens its fair name. Those men are the captains, in whose hands is already placed the safe conduct of the game in so many other directions.