Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/57



OR many years I have read and heard everything I could on this subject of l.b.w. and I can honestly say that with one exception I fail to see any sound ground for opposing the change in the l.b.w. rule advocated in these pages. The one exception will be dealt with later. In regard to the arguments put forth by Mr. Warner, Mr. Maclaren and Mr. Knight, they all amount to this, though they do not say so in as many words, that bowling is too difficult for batsmen to hope to play with the bat alone. The bat needs to be reinforced and the obvious reinforcement must be the legs. This is not an unfair statement, for Mr. Knight says the legs may and should be used as an extra line of defence because presumably the batsman often finds it too difficult to play the ball with the bat. Mr. Warner and Mr. Maclaren do not say this, but both advise putting the legs in front to a certain type of ball, and the effect when the ball pitches off the wicket and turns and is not hit by the bat is that the legs prevent the ball hitting the stumps in hundreds of cases, as it did by Hayward's admission in his. With all respect to these three great cricketers I cannot think they are on sound ground, and what they advise is grossly unfair to the bowlers. First, I ask them for the moment to forget that they are, or have been, batsmen