Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/21

Rh incident, when the M.C.C. laid down that the rule should be that for the batsman to be given out l.b.w. the ball must pitch between wicket and wicket. Previous to that it is clear that the l.b.w. rule was interpreted differently owing to Ring and Taylor's "shabby play," and it is a fair inference that for a batsman to be l.b.w. the pitch of the ball was not limited to between wicket and wicket, but anywhere, and if the batsman saved his wicket with his leg he was guilty of unfair play and was given out l.b.w., and this interpretation of the rule was what Lord Bessborough wanted to reinstate.

It is probable that most of us have forgotten about this first meeting of the County Cricket Council in 1887, but it will repay everybody to study it carefully. At that meeting there was an almost universal expression of opinion amongst the delegates, many of whom were most distinguished cricketers, that some alteration in the l.b.w. rule was necessary. Lord Harris, the Chairman, in his opening speech said that in that year, 1887, "the scores were very abnormal"; "there was a very strong feeling that these scores had been very much the effect of a style of play that had become noticeable within the last three or four years"; "gentlemen of the older cricket world were decidedly of opinion that some alteration was required in the law of l.b.w." Lord Harris himself "had abandoned any idea of changing the size of the wicket and was inclined to think that an alteration of the l.b.w. rule would be valuable and of importance." The great R.A.H. Mitchell wrote, "that a man should be out whose leg was between wicket and wicket and was hit by a ball that would take the wicket."