CRICKET

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 512, 11 October 1900, Page 7

CRICKET

On Saturday afternoon last despite the wet, a large number af players attended net practice on the Domain Cricket Ground. It is to be hoped that considerably more interest will be taken in cricket this coming season than has been the case in past seasons. Season 1900 may be termed the year af records and new rules In double centuries. “Ranji,” Hayward W. Grace and the R E. Foster, who is only 22 years of age, has done in two successive seasons what it took W. Grace twenty years of his long and brilliant career to accomplish. From 1868 to 1888, Grace th ee times scor d two separate hundreds in first-class cricket, and now •’' at-one bound the graceful Worcestershire amateur stands in the bracket with the champion, who so long held the honors alone in this remarkable feat. In addition, Foster, this year broke the record for highest individual score in the series of inter-University matches by making 171 in great style at Oxford With regard to new rules, I notice that the “ over ’* in England now consists of six balls, the same as in Australia ; that the captain of a team has the option of “declaring,” tiis innings at or after lunch on the second day, and that in a three days’ match the side 150 runs ahead has the option of calling on the other side to follow its innings. These are important alterations in the laws of the game, and apparenely have met with acquiscence in all parts of Ingland There.is, however, one new rule, passed in 1899, which seems to me to call for comment. I refer to the permission given to the umpire at the striker’s end to call “no ball.” To enable the umpire to fulfill this duty he certainly must watch the bowler closely, for it is impossible, by a mere casual glance, to determine whether the action in delivery is an infringement of ’he rule. Now, if the umpire at the strikers’s end has to watch the b owler closely, how is that umpire to legitimately discharge the duties imposed on him by rules 42 and 47. Rule 42 reads The wicketkeeper shall stand behind the wicket If he eh*ll take the ball for the purpose of stumping before it has passed tbe wicket, or if he shall incommode the striker by any noise or motion, or if any part of his person be over or before the wicket, tne striker shall not be out excepting under laws 26, 27, 28, 29,30” Rule 47 reads:—“The umpire at the bowler’s wicket shall be appealed to before the other umpire in all cases except those of stumping, hit wicket, run out at the striker’s wicket, or arising out of law 42 ”

Select the winners of three races by the exercise »f your knowledge of racing and you handle the .gold .