Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/40



T is not easy in a controversy to look on all sides of a question, and this platitude is repeated here because to many of us it appears that when any change in the laws of cricket are proposed, batsmen are too frequently purely advocates and not often enough judges. They fail to see things from all points of view; batsmen they are, and as such do they look at the question; they forget the bowler and the interests of the game as a whole. It is not surprising that this should be so, indeed it is very natural; it is noticed here only because it seems that batsmen in this very controversy about l.b.w. overlook what is fair to the bowler. Take as an instance the bowling out of Mr. Knight by Kennedy, described by the batsman himself in the last chapter. Here the batsman was clean bowled by what was evidently a very fine ball which pitched outside the off stump and broke back. Hayward, and it seems the batsman also, were almost moved to tears because Kennedy got a wicket with a fine ball which beat the bat and the batsman because he did not use his legs as a second line of defence. An impartial outsider might well ask what more could Kennedy have done. No bowler can produce shooters on modern wickets, and Kennedy did all that a bowler could do in bowling a good length ball that broke back, and if