Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/39

Rh In 1774 there was a meeting, under the presidency of Sir William Draper, supported by the Duke of Dorset, the Earl of Tankerville, Sir Horace Mann, and other influential supporters of cricket, to draw up laws for the game, and therein it is stated that the "pitching of ye first wicket is to be determined by ye cast of a piece of money," but it does not then say by whom they are to be pitched, nor does this function come within the province of the umpires as therein defined. This, therefore, is the first problem which I would ask the help of all cricketing readers towards solving—the date at which the pitching of the stumps ceased to be the business or privilege of the bowler. It was the introduction of "length" bowling, no doubt—previously it was all along the ground—real bowling as in bowls—that forced them to straighten the bats. Mr. Ward, in some memoranda which he gave Nyren, and which the latter quoted at large, says of these bats, used in a match that arose from a challenge on behalf of Kent County, issued by Lord John Sackville, to play All England in 1847: "The batting could neither have been of a high character, nor indeed safe, as may be gathered from the figure of the bat at that time, which was similar to an old-fashioned dinner-knife curved at back and sweeping in the form of a volute at the front and end. With such a bat the system must have been all for hitting; it would be barely possible to block, and when the practice of bowling length balls was introduced, and which (sic) gave the bowler so great an advantage in the game, it became absolutely necessary to change the