Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/137

Rh so with leg-break balls The ball delivered from round the wicket generally leaves the hand a good foot outside the extremity of the bowling crease; this means that it starts about 4 feet 4 inches from the middle stump of the bowler's wicket, and in its journey through the air, even if pitched in a line with

the leg stump of the batsman's wicket, it has to make considerable way from the leg side of the wicket. This, of course, makes the ball go across the wicket more from the pitch, and, as a rule, means that a leg-stump leg-break ball round the wicket misses the wicket on the off side. A batsman, if the ball is pitched off his wicket, may defend it, as the rule of leg before wicket now