Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/28

20 made the ball break back from the off as often as anybody of his pace did, and his four hundred and four wickets were got at the expense of twelve runs per wicket. If batsmen who played Spofforth had used their legs as J. W. Hearne and many modern batsmen do, by standing clean in front of the wicket with both legs, he would always have been a great bowler, but he would not have been so effective, because there would have been scores of cases of batsmen saving their wickets with their legs to balls pitched outside the off stump and breaking back, and his average of runs per wicket would probably have been nearer twenty runs than twelve. Some people may argue that this would have been no disadvantage, but if there be some who say this, they must either not have thought enough of the effect this would have in producing more and more drawn matches or they must more or less approve of drawn matches, and if this is the case I am sorry for them. Great bowlers like Spofforth, Barnes, Foster, Turner and Richardson are entitled on their merits to get wickets for something like an average of twelve runs a wicket, and if they fail to do this, it is because the conditions are not fair. The really great bowlers like Spofforth and those I have mentioned are comparatively few in number, and if an average of twelve runs per wicket is the best thing they can do, the average of the ordinary bowler on modern wickets must and does run to twenty and more, and the result is drawn matches.

The rise in the percentage of cases of l.b.w. between 1870 and 1890 is startling enough. But now it is just about twice as much as it was in 1890, and after reading the report of the speeches made at the first meeting of the County