Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/442

410 this is an innovation about which it may be said that cricket would be improved if it was no longer the fashion. In fact, the modern idea is that, failing the bat, the legs must protect the wicket; and we say most emphatically that this is against the spirit of the rules and practice of cricket. One hears a batsman who has been given out l.b.w. come away from the wicket and talk as if he were the victim of the greatest hardship. And why? Because he maintains that the ball pitched perhaps an inch off the off stump. But where is the hardship? He does not go to the wicket to play with any other weapon except his bat, and if he is in front of his wicket and the ball hits his legs, the real hardship is suffered by the bowler unless the umpire gives him out. The famous Robert Grimston used to say that it was bad play to be hit on the leg at all; and he was right, if the legs happened to be in front of the wicket Small sympathy did anyone get from this sound old sportsman if hurt under these circumstances. 'Hurt? I hope he is hurt. I hope he will feel it in the night if he wakes up; his leg was before all three stumps, and he ought to have been out, and would have been out under the old law. He put his leg in front purposely, and it isn't fair cricket; it is cheating!'

There was a proposal made, we think by Mr. Webbe, to the effect that the umpires shall give a man out who wilfully stops a ball with his legs. We would earnestly ask Mr. Webbe and his supporters to tell us how this change can ever work? One class of objectors to any change allege that too much power would be given to the umpires. Mr. Webbe's proposition would not only entail on an umpire a thorough knowledge of cricket as a game, but would also require him to be a judge of morals. How can one decide on the wilfulness of an act? A batsman puts his leg in front of the wicket and hangs his bat in front of his leg. The ball misses his bat and hits his leg. He is given out, and he will stoutly maintain that there was no wilful act at all; that he never played such a ball in any other way in his life, and it was bad luck that it missed his bat Who can settle this question?