Out-door Games: Cricket and Golf/Chapter 5

by Robert Henry Lyttelton

CHAPTER V

Reform

There are several essential elements in cricket as there are in all games, and when these essential elements are wanting it is time to take stock of our position, find out what is wrong, and if possible devise a remedy. Nobody who understands the game and is a sportsman can deny that the present state of things in cricket is intolerable, and the problem of how to make such changes as shall remedy this is in the minds of all who have any experience of the game. The first essential point which ought to be present in every game, and which is conspicuous by its absence in present-day cricket, is a decisive result to at least 80 per cent. of matches, and yet during the last few years it is, I believe, true that about 40 per cent., or nearly half the

The Late
MR WILLIAM DAVIES.

number of total matches, have been unfinished. Matches played on hard, true wickets, with fine weather, show a far larger proportion of drawn matches, and it is hardly saying too much that under such conditions the chances are about even that any first-class match will be drawn. Apart from the fact that this is a state of things that does not exist in any other game, let us see what the effect of this is on the game itself. In the first place, it is a proof that the scoring is enormous, and from this may be gathered the fact that the sense of proportion or balance is gone. No longer do batting and bowling, when the wickets are hard and easy, meet on equal terms. The game has become a question of how many hundreds can be scored; the bowler has been beaten by the mowing machine and the heavy roller; and the only people who can be said to enjoy the game are some of the spectators, who have probably never played cricket, and care only to see hard hitting, and the batsmen themselves. It is no wonder that the busy man, who can only afford to play a game one day in the week, has taken to golf. He has tried cricket, and his captain having lost the toss, he has fielded all day and got no innings at all. He may even have been on the side whose captain has won the toss, but the innings has been declared at an end, and he has not been permitted to put on his pads. Two or three Saturdays spent in this way have made him forswear cricket, and small blame to him. Another bad feature in the game produced by this high scoring is that as the dead true wickets have made bowling impotent, so many batsmen who are by no means first class have been hoisted on a pedestal in no way deserved. They have scored and do score hundreds, not because they are good batsmen, but because it is impossible for any but one or two bowlers to bowl difficult balls. In other words, as all bowling has become easy, so all batting has become good. But this is a most unsatisfactory condition of things. To score hundreds and to have a big average of anything over 20 or 25 ought to be in the power or capacity of the few, not of the many; as it is, the fact that any fool is able to get runs simply means drawn matches. Real cricketers who love a close finish and a decisive result can only see their hearts' desire on a wet wicket and unpleasant weather. The ignorant spectator who understands and appreciates a hard hit, but does not understand or appreciate a hanging ball being beautifully timed and returned along the ground to the bowler, might have been taught better things, but his taste has been vitiated and his baser nature pandered to by the high scoring of the day.

There is another way in which high scoring is an evil, and that is that it tends to make the cricket on the third day a burlesque. Everybody sees that the game must be drawn, so all the heart is taken out of the players, the regular bowlers are taken off—it is no good tiring them—the field are listless, and the spectators leave the ground. In several cases lately stumps have been drawn before the advertised time. The elevens have to play a match on the following day two hundred miles off perhaps, and to catch a particular train becomes important. The whole spirit of the game is broken, there is a sense of unsatisfied effort and of wasted time, and if cricket was not the great game it is, it would be killed by such a state of things. Thirdly, the bowling suffers. It is impossible to get men out by bowling a good length. The maxim inculcated by Nyren, "Be sure keep a length," is no good now. The ball cannot be made to turn, shoot, or hang. The shaven grass and the heavy roller have taken all this out of the ground. Any fool can get runs now, so the bowler has given up trying to bowl well, and bowls badly instead. You go and see a match nowadays, and you see a very fast bowler like Jones, the Australian, or Jessop, pounding the ball half-way down the pitch—with four or five men in the slips—and endeavouring to make the ball bump, that the batsman may hit under it and get caught behind the wicket. There is another bowler who bowls slow, and who is determined to get a curl or twist on his ball. The bowler, whose ball has a natural curl from leg, is disestablished by the absurd regulation of leg before wicket as interpreted at present, and the bowler I am trying to describe is not one of that class. He is of the class that tries to get a twist of a foot or so, but though I have seen many such bowlers I never in my life saw one who could bowl a good length with a leg twist. The fast bowler pounding away with long hops, and the slow bowler with a leg-break bowling every variety of length, with no command whatever over the ball—this is another terrible development of the game to which the present easy wickets and consequent high scoring have brought us. There is yet another, and this touches the batting, considered as a science, and a beautiful thing as it ought to be. A premium has been put on reckless and abnormal hitting. This is not altogether bad, because such hitting, though prolific of runs, does not as a rule last very long, and is always pleasant to look at; but it has also put a premium on Noble and W. G. Quaife and players of that class, who have succeeded in making cricket nothing short of a terror. There ought to be room for purely defensive batsmen; they have existed ever since cricket began. Haygarth and Ottaway are two examples of men who may be described as sticks, but who occupied a distinguished position in the world of cricket. These players, however, did not stick so long as to cause matches to be drawn. The wickets helped the bowler in those days, and even the strongest defensive player found himself bowled or caught after a time. But the fearful and terrible feature of cricket now lies in the fact that Noble and Quaife, by a rigorous system of self-suppression, by never touching an off ball except by hitting it down on the ground, by leaving all rising balls alone, cannot be got out on the present wickets. They may be batting almost for days. In the third match played between England and Australia last year at Manchester, England, by scoring 372, practically made themselves safe from defeat, and all the Australians could, or at any rate attempted to do, was to play for a draw. Noble scored in the match 149 runs, and he was at the wickets for 81/2 hours, an average of 18 runs an hour on a fast wicket with boundaries, and at one time he did not make a run for three-quarters of an hour. Such cricket ought to be impossible. The man is not to be blamed. He must do his best to save the match, though to dig would be preferable as an amusement; but the necessity for such a thing ought not to arise in the first place, and to carry it out ought to be beyond the power of practical politics. Lastly, high scoring makes the game too hard a toil. It is all very well playing a few matches for three days, but to play every match for a full period of three days in hot weather on hard grounds, and with sundry night railway journeys thrown in—such a state of things wears out players, shortens their cricket careers, especially if they are fast bowlers, and wearies them of the game.

So much evil is being produced by the high scoring that I am in the position of thinking that any change in the laws or otherwise that may diminish the number of runs must be a benefit. But I will go further, and maintain that changes may be made that will not only diminish the number of runs, but will also improve the quality of the batting. If a batsman is not allowed to use his legs to prevent the ball hitting the wicket, or has to use a smaller bat, he will find that, though he may have to alter some of his methods, he will nevertheless be able to score quite largely enough. What, I hope, will be impossible is for the inferior player to be able to score 50 when an innings of 10 is about the proper figure—to judge from the real batting ability he possesses. It may be regarded as a certainty that if big scoring by inferior players become a rare exception, drawn matches will not take place unless caused by bad weather.

It is perhaps necessary, before discussing the particular measures of reform, to state broadly that in England it is impossible to prolong the duration of matches to more than three days. Speaking personally and quite apart from considerations of gate-money, I should greatly prefer to see the majority of matches begun, continued, and ended in two days. If there are not many players like W. G. Quaife and Noble, it is quite possible, if no time is wasted, and if no innings exceeds 220, to occupy only two days in playing such matches, and I think I am right in saying that between 1860 and 1880 it was the fact that a majority of matches did only take two days. In summers like 1899, when nearly 50 per cent. of matches were unfinished, the wear and tear is too great, fast bowlers get worn out prematurely, like Richardson, much night travelling is a weariness to the flesh, and, worst of all, on the third day when it is obvious that a draw is and can be the only result, there is no seriousness in the game, which degenerates into burlesque. Three days is the utmost limit that is possible for cricket in England, and I repeat, what has been remarked elsewhere, that even in Australia, where apparently time is no object, it would be an advantage to curtail the matches to three days. Many drawn matches prove several things, but there is one fact especially that I wish to dwell upon, namely, that they prove that the balance between batting and bowling is destroyed. When innings of over 250 are played, there is a triumph of batting over the bowling, and when this is continually occurring interest in the game must diminish; in other words, it is not a game in the strict sense, it is only an exhibition of batting, much as a football match, when one side scores ten goals to nothing, it is not a game, only an exhibition of goal getting.

I have heard it constantly remarked by some people who appear unable to satisfy themselves that reform is necessary, that we ought to possess our souls in patience and wait for a wet season, then it will be seen that so far from the bat triumphing over the ball, the boot will be on the other leg; there will be a series of small scoring matches, the Middlesex and Somerset match at Lord's being alluded to, when three hours sufficed to finish the whole match. I cannot agree with the people who argue thus. To begin with, it is true that one match was finished in three hours, but whatever practicable change is made it is hardly likely that any more astonishing result will ensue. But the great point that reformers take is that you must not legislate for cricket in wet weather, but for cricket in hot summer days and on hard wickets, when both cricketers and spectators enjoy the game, and under the only possible circumstances that cricket is enjoyable. I venture to think that cricket reform will not make very much difference in the scoring on soft bowlers' wickets. As I have said, no reform would produce a smaller scoring match than Middlesex and Somerset match of last year.

It may be stated at once that altering the rules, and perhaps the implements, of the game involve questions on which the greatest possible differences of opinion exist, and no doubt that is one reason why the M.C.C. are slow to move; and there is another reason, namely, that the actual first-class players who rightly are consulted, for the most part are inclined, according as they are batsmen or bowlers, to look at the matter from the batsman's point of view or the bowler's, but not both. It is this which makes me think that the present-day cricketers ought to lay great weight on the opinion of players like F. S. Jackson, A. E. Trott, S. M. J. Woods, J. R. Mason, and Lockwood, who can both bat and bowl. I do not deny, however, that the subject is a very difficult one, and any rash or injudicious change would be a calamity, as it would defeat its own object and produce reaction, which would be most deplorable. Fully admitting then both the difficulty of the subject and the danger of legislating on wrong lines, I cannot help thinking that a beginning might be made by the M.C.C., which is the prime authority, and which is, moreover, in a financial position to do so, inaugurating some matches to test experimentally a new rule. The club might play the Yorkshire eleven, or any first-class county, and in that particular match test what the effect of the alteration in Rule 24, relating to l.b.w., would be. Matches have already been played where a net has been set round the ground, and every run has been run out. However, the effect of this has not realised the expectations of some.

Another match might be played in which the batsman experimented with a bat more or less reduced in size, and with ordinary wickets against an eleven with ordinary bats, and wickets one or two inches higher. It would probably be necessary to have several matches played as experiments in one or more changes in the rules, but one object-lesson by practical experience would be gained, and the ground cleared for permanent and useful reforms—the one thing essential being that the matches be played on hard, true wickets.

Reforms may be classified under three heads: (1) alteration in the laws independent of what may be called the implements of the game; (2) alteration in the implements; and (3) alteration in the customs, such as boundaries. Under the first head is the all-important question of l.b.w., and the follow on. Of all questions, that of l.b.w. has provoked the greatest difference of opinion, and the position of those who favour change or the contrary is so high, that a great deal of thought has been rightly given to this point. There is one point, however, on which I think some opponents of change—even so great an authority as Mr. A. G. Steel—are wrong, namely, that a change would make the umpire's task more difficult. The effect of the rule as at present drawn is, that the umpire has to satisfy himself on the following points if he is to give the batsman out: (1) the ball must have pitched on some spot lying between two parallel lines drawn from the leg stump of one wicket to the off stump of the other, and from the off stump of one wicket to the leg stump of the other; (2) the ball must strike the batsman somewhere on his person before he hits it with the bat; (3) the ball must hit the wicket if it had not hit the batsman. Now, the first and third of these facts are extremely difficult to judge, and let us see what the proposed alterations would effect. The supporters of such a change argue that is a matter of no importance where the ball pitches, the important point is, whether the batsman keeps the ball out of the wicket with his legs, and not with his bat. The umpire with the law altered has not got to think of more than two of the requisites; he may dismiss from his mind all question of the ball pitching between parallel lines from wicket to wicket, which many think the hardest thing to judge, and confine himself to the other two—namely, whether the ball would have hit the wicket if the batsman's person had not prevented it, and whether the batsman hit the ball with his bat. Now, if under the present rule the umpire has three things to keep in view and form a judgment on, and only two under the proposed alteration, how can it be fairly argued that the alteration will make his task harder? It must have the opposite effect and make it easier. The late Lord Bessborough once told me that somewhere about the year 1841 the rule as then drawn did not make it clear as to what was meant: Dark and Caldecourt, the two leading umpires of the day, held different views, and the M.C.C. had to be referred to. After much weighing of facts I have come to the conclusion that it will be to the advantage of the game that the rule shall be altered, and the reasons why this conclusion is reached are several: (1) Under the rule as at present drawn the bowling has become in one sense stereotyped, i.e., it is almost entirely over the wicket, as, unless a ball is pitched right up, it is practically impossible to get a man out l.b.w.; (2) the batsman would learn to play the ball with the proper weapon, the bat, and he would hesitate before he threw his leg into dangerous positions in front of the wicket; (3) if bowlers were to bowl round the wicket it would be found that they would occasionally bowl a ball that properly could and would be hit to leg, a hit that is delightful to the player and charming to the spectator, but which, in these days, is practically abolished; (4) the task of the umpires, always difficult, would be made easier. Whether the M.C.C. will make any alteration in the law remains to be seen, but certainly a change should be tried, a few matches should be played, and the effect of the experiment watched. This change in the l.b.w. rule may make an important change in the scoring, but it is not entirely owing to that reason that it is advocated here. Nobody objects to the really first-rate batsman getting his large scores, but what is objectionable is, that on the billiard-table wickets the best bowling should not prevent batsmen, who certainly are not first-class, making hundreds. My impression is that a change in the l.b.w. law would go a long way towards removing this defect. If you carefully watch a great innings, such as Hankey's 70 in Gentlemen and Players, many of Grace's, Shrewsbury's, Jackson's, Ranjitsinghi's, and others, it would astonish you to see how few balls hit these batsmen on the leg at all. Bowling is played as it should be: the ball is met by the bat, not by the leg, and this notwithstanding the pitch of the ball.

Mr. Steel is one of the highest authorities of the game: both as a player and as a judge of the game he can speak with a weight which commands the respect of everybody. Mr. Shuter is another player who as a batsman and captain has had a long experience, and it is therefore with a chastened feeling that I attempt to explain why I feel myself bound to differ from both these gentlemen on the important question of l.b.w. Mr. Steel bases his objection to a change in the law on the case of a slow leg-break bowler. Such bowlers, he says, would bowl good length balls with nearly every field on the leg side, and in his opinion the very best batsman would in a short time stop with his legs a ball which would have hit the wicket. It is assumed that Mr. Steel means round-arm bowlers only by the term slow leg-break bowlers, not lob bowlers, and we would ask how many slow leg-break bowlers have existed. In 1884 the Australians brought over one who had been a success in Australia, but was a dead failure here. Mr. Cooper bowled round the wicket with a prodigious curl, and Mr. A. O. Jones of Nottingham is a similar bowler, though not with such a command of break. Mr. Nepean used to vary the off break with an occasional ball that would come in the other way, and Mr. Bull of Essex is also a performer of the same school. But the leading characteristic of all these bowlers is the almost exaggerated slowness of all the leg-break round-arm balls, and I believe that to bowl with a leg-break it is absolutely necessary to dispense with two of the elements that make good bowling—pace and length. Palmer, the Australian, used now and then, but very seldom, to bowl a fairly fast ball with a leg-break, but though he came off a few times, he would tell you that a good length ball was a fluke, and not within his power to command. If a ball is not of a good length, i.e., if either a full pitch, long hop, or half volley, a batsman should have no difficulty in hitting it with his bat, and not with his legs. Take the case of bowlers like Messrs. Cooper and Jones, whose balls are extremely slow, and are generally delivered at a considerable height in the air. You will not, as a general rule, find that even these men are good length bowlers, but even if they were, I do not think they ought to have a chance of hitting the batsman anywhere on his legs. The proper way to play such bowlers is to go out and hit the ball full pitch, or stay back and play or hit it as a more or less long hop. Even if the batsman should misjudge the length, and find that what he deemed a long hop is really a fair length ball, its extreme slowness makes it comparatively easy to play back. If he does not succeed in this I maintain that inasmuch as he has first misjudged the length, and in the second place has failed to hit it, the bowler is entitled to his reward, and the batsman should rightly be given out l.b.w., though the ball might have pitched a yard wide or the wicket. Older cricketers like myself used to play when lob bowling was far more common than it is now, but I cannot call to mind that it was a frequent occurrence for the old-fashioned lob to hit the batsman on the legs, and if not lobs why slow leg-break balls?

Mr. Shuter, whose opinion is entitled to the greatest respect, a few years ago seemed to anticipate that a great crop of l.b.w.'s would ensue if the law were altered, owing to the fact that players play forward with the left leg close up against the bat. The batsmen play forward, but do not smother the ball, which breaks and hits the player on the leg, and if the umpire thinks the ball would hit the wicket gives the striker out. Mr. Shuter, it may be inferred, thinks this a hardship from the batsman's point of view. It must be remembered that the cardinal fact in arguing this question is that the bat is meant to be the only and correct weapon wherewith to play or hit the ball, and let us keep this in mind in considering Mr. Shuter's objection. A bowler bowls a good length ball with a break back from the off. In nine cases out of ten a batsman must play forward or back to any ball. In Mr. Shuter's case the batsman has rightly or wrongly played forward, and has missed the ball and saved the wicket with his leg. The point on which I am at issue with Mr. Shuter is, that whereas he thinks that the batsman is to be pitied because he failed to hit the ball with his bat, I think, on the contrary, that when the umpire has given him out l.b.w., he has met with his deserts. What more can a bowler do than bowl such a good ball that the batsman fails to touch it with his bat, and only stops it with his leg? The bowler suffers the hardship. He has done all that a man can do, but, under the present law, he has not met with his reward. In the case of by far the largest class of bowlers—those who bowl right hand and with a break back—there is no reason whatever why the leg should ever prevent the ball from hitting the wicket. It is the essence of forward play that the ball should be smothered. In the instance brought forward by Mr. Shuter the ball was not smothered, and it may therefore be fairly argued that the batsman should have played back and not forward. At any rate the leg, and not the proper weapon, the bat, was used, and the batsman ought to suffer.

In discussing Mr. Steel's objection I laid great stress on the lob bowling of former days. Mr. Steel brings forward the case of slow round-arm leg-break bowlers who, he urges, would be practically impossible to play if the rule were altered. I reply that you cannot bowl slow leg-break balls except at such a slow pace that the batsman, if he is fool enough, may even play back at a half volley; whilst there is very seldom any good length ball of this character. A good lob bowler, on the other hand, bowled good length leg-breaks, and it seems to me, if Mr. Steel's argument is sound, that it would be such lob bowlers that the new rule of l.b.w. would unduly favour. But I can call to mind the days of V. E. Walker, Goodrich, William Rose, O. Mordaunt, A. W. Ridley, and Tinley, and I do not believe that in playing these bowlers good bats used to stop the ball with their legs, though the rule was the same then as it is now; and if they did not, why should present-day batsmen? and if they do, why should they not be given out? In 1884, on a well-known occasion, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, "spes ultima Teucri," got three or four Australian wickets with lobs, which the bowler himself, in his most sanguine moments, would not have called higher than second-rate. One of the wickets was l.b.w., and doubts were expressed whether the batsman was properly given out. Mr. I. D. Walker was talking to McDonnell—both, alas, are now dead—and said that if a batsman allowed a lob to hit him on the leg at all, he deserved to be given out, properly or improperly. McDonnell agreed with him. Both were batsmen, and I. D. Walker was a lob bowler also. To be given out l.b.w. a batsman's legs must be in a straight line between the two wickets, but it is not necessary that the legs should be in this position to anything like the extent that is seen in these days. From the dread with which some batsmen seem to regard any alteration in this rule of l.b.w., it would seem that the ball is constantly hitting the batsmen on the legs. I believe, on the contrary, that it would surprise some of our friends if the truth on this point could be known. I should like to ask any of our first-rate performers to carefully note how often in an innings of a hundred the ball hits his leg at all without first hitting the bat. I believe that many an innings of over fifty has been played by W. G. Grace, and not one ball has hit anything except his bat or gloves. The upshot of an alteration in the rule will be, in my opinion, a blessed diminution in the number of runs scored by second and third rate batsmen; but first-class players will score very much as they do now, and if, as I believe, this is the fact, it is because first-rate batsmen are not hit by the ball on the legs at all, but use the proper weapon—the bat. If this result is brought about it will be most beneficial to the game, but more reforms will be wanted to ensure a fair equality between batting and bowling, between attack and defence. Such reforms will be referred to in another chapter.