Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/25

Rh Reviewing all these facts it will be seen that more than forty years ago the proceedings at the first meeting of the County Cricket in 1887 show us that great dissatisfaction was felt, and at a special meeting of the same body in 1888 a motion in favour of an alteration in the l.b.w. law was carried by eleven votes to three, the effect of which was that a batsman should be out l.b.w. "if with any part of his person, being in the straight line from wicket to wicket he stops a ball which in the opinion of the umpire would have hit the wicket." The very strongly worded resolution of the M.C.C. Sub-Committee was also passed in the same year, but nothing whatever was done, and then came the full dress debate in 1901, and though; there was a majority in favour of changing the law, still nothing was done.

It might be said by some that no change was necessary because l.b.w. cases were not numerous and drawn matches were not common in those days. In 1890, for instance, l.b.w. cases were nothing like so numerous as they are nowaday. Admitting this, surely the fact that the percentage of cases of l.b.w. having risen from 1 in 17 in 1890 to 1 in 8 in 1926 and 1 in 9 in 1927 is more than enough to justify a change in opinion as well as an alteration of the law. In seven weeks in 1927, out of one hundred and twelve matches played on dry easy wickets, forty-two were drawn simply because of the gigantic scoring. Do cricketers really think that such a state of things is satisfactory? Has not the time come for the "stronger measures" alluded to in the last paragraph of the report of the M.C.C. Committee of 1888?