"No-Ball" A Common Breach In Cricket At Present

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 January 1948, Page 8

"No-Ball" A Common Breach In Cricket At Present

(By

“MONTPELIER.”)

A mild epidemic of “no-balls” in Australian and New Zealand cricket, at present, is making umpires closely watch the hack foot of the express bowler.

Chief offenders in Wanganui this season have been two visiting players, R. MeK. Murray, of Wellington, and the young Aucklander, J. A. Hayes, who paid the penalty for dragging that back foot suspiciously close to the bowling crease. That the fault of repeatedly bowling no-balls is a bad one, goes without saying. It represents gift runs for the batting side, near zero chances of a wicket falling, and, finally, wasted effort on the part of the bowler. Plunket Shield engagements ' have produced a crop of no-balls, and there was sensation in Australian cricket circles last week when Ray Lindwall was no-ball-ed in the New South WalesSouth Australia match. After being no-balled twice, Lindwall argued with Umpire Wigzell about the latter’s position at the wicket. Wigzell refused to budge, and heated controversy ensued.

Next day, Lindwall was shown a motion picture of his bowling during the match. “The film of 10 successive balls bowled by Lindwall showed that he had offended every time," reports a correspondent of the “Evening Post.” “The express bowler admitted after seeing the film that he 'was dragging his foot over the line and would have to rectify it.’ The film will be shown in England where the incident is creating a furore. English cricket writers contend that Lindwall footfaulted in the last Test matches against England, and are viewing the present news with a certain amount of glee.” CAN BE EXPENSIVE. Batsmen, of course, can swing at no-balls with impunity, and first-class players make no bones about handing out the deserved treatment. Denis Compton, to name but one, will bang the no-ball for six every time. It is only natural that fast bowlers should bowl the most no-balls, but the really good ones will go to considerable pains to avoid offending. Larwood reckoned his total distance needed in running and walking to bowl just one ball, at 50 yards, so he took great care to see that all that effort was not wasted on a noball. A close observer at the Wanganui v. Auckland Colts match on Cook’s might have noticed that Hayes made a mark with his foot six inches behind the bowling crease. Presumably the mark was where he brought down his back foot. But if the minimum distance we can allow far drag is six inches, then Hayes must have been close to a no-ball every time. This vexed question of whether a bowler is sending down no-balls or not, continues, as in the case of a doubtful 1.b.w., to provide a topic for speculation among spectators. But we will never get a “no-balled”bowler as peeved as John Willes was. This pioneer of round-arm bowling persevered for 15 years until on July 15, 1822, at Lord’s, he opened the bowling for Kent against M.C.C. and was promptly “no-balled,” whereupon he threw down the ball in disgust, jumped on his horse, and rode away out of Lord’s and out of cricket history. Failings Of Elimination System. At the Minor Association’s Conference held in Wanganui recently, Mr. A. M. Ongley (Palmerston North), the country selector, advanced the following reasons why the present group elimination scheme of Hawke Cup matches is not satisfactory:— 1. It takes too long for the holders of the trophy to emerge. 2. Those associations eliminated in their first or second game had not time to arrange other representative fixtures. 3. There are no Hawke Cup matches for the holders in the holiday period, which is the best time for them. 4. Extensive travelling involved. A Good Idea. Many senior cricketers in Wanganui miss the week by week bulletins of leading club batting and bowling averages, half-centuries and centuries scored, most catches and stumpings, which the late Joe Hayhow made a practice of pinning just inside the door of the Cook's Gardens pavilion. Although the association appointed a statistician to take care of Wanganui’s representative matches at the beginning of this season, no one is keeping players posted with those very interesting details of club performances. Until someone assumes this task, players and the public will be kept in the dark as to who, for example, is in the running for the "fastest fifty" trophy.

A Famous Dropped Catch. The recent retirement from business life in Dunedin of Mr. Arthur H. Fisher ,one of New Zealand’s best known cricketers of former times, recalls the famous occasion when he dropped a catch in a match between Otago and an English team in 1903. The batsman he dropped was “Plum" Warner, who at that stage had made only 10. Warner went on to make 211, the first double century in firstclass cricket in New Zealand. This was but an incident, however, in a particularly successful career. A fast-medium left-hand bowler, Fisher took 123 wickets in representative matches at a cost of only 10.3 runs each, one of his best performances being against the Australian team of 1896, when he took six wickets for 39 and five for 39. Scoring Rates. An interesting analysis of the scoring rates of the world’s best batsmen since the modern game of cricket began, is contained in "Champions of Cricket,” a book recently published by the Cricket Book Society in Hunstanton, Norfolk. The writer, Gerald Brodribb, says that the scoring rates have been calculated on the big scores of the greatest batsmen, and that the average scoring rate of a batsman in first-class cricket is 33 runs an hour. Nearly 70 players are listed, and it is not surprising to see Gilbert Jessop at the top, with a scoring rate of 80 runs an hour. Only one run behind him is L. N. Constantine. The next of the present-day players on the list are H. T. Bartlett (52) and New Zealand’s M. P. Donnelly (49). Compton and Bradman both have rates of 47 an hour. Hammond 43, Hobbs 43, Hardstaff 40, Dempster 39, Hassett 37, Hutton 37, W. G. Grace 36, Edrich 34, Washbrook 34, and W. A. Brown 33. Lower in the list are V. M. Merchant 29, B. Mitchell 28, W, H. Scotton 16, A. C. Bannerman 16, and R. G. Barlow 14.