We think enough has been said as to the difficult nature of the post to show conclusively that it is an impossibility to find an umpire who will not be liable to give bad verdicts. It is most unfortunate that all umpires, in addition to having to bear the heavy weight of knowing that they may at any minute be called upon to give a decision about which they are uncertain and consequently liable to err, have also too often to suffer from the abuse of those who consider themselves aggrieved by wrong decisions. The chief principle that tends to harmonise the game, and make it the quiet English pastime that it is, is that the umpire’s decision shall be final. It would be impossible to play the game if this were not so; how would matches ever be finished satisfactorily if every batsman had a right to remain at the wickets until he himself thought he was fairly out? And yet, though this principle is universally known as the main one on which the prosperity of the game depends, we unfortunately find but too frequently, and even amongst some of the leading cricketers of the day, a tendency to revile and abuse the unfortunate umpire whenever an appeal has been given against them. If a batsman considers he has been given out wrongfully, he has a perfect right, of course, to give his opinion of what has taken place privately to anyone; but he has no right to stand at his wicket wrangling with and abusing the umpire, nor has he a right to declare publicly to the pavilion on his return from the wickets that a wrong decision has been given. Too often one sees a sulky, bad-tempered-looking face arrive at the pavilion, and in loud tones declare he was not within a yard of it, or ‘it didn’t pitch within a foot of the wicket.’ Such conduct is unsportsmanlike and ungentlemanly, and, what is more, is unfair, as such a statement is a public accusation made against the professional capacity of an absent man who has no opportunity of refuting or contradicting it.
First-class amateur cricketers should remember that it is impossible for them to pay too much deference to the decisions of umpires, as it is from them that the standard or tone of morality in the game is taken. They should ask themselves, if they wrangle and dispute with umpires in first-class matches when a large assemblage is present, what will happen in smaller matches, when there is not the same publicity and notoriety to restrain the rowdiness which has before now been the result of a wordy warfare with ‘the sole judge of fair and unfair play.’ We admit that there is nothing so disappointing and annoying to a batsman as to be given out by what is really a bad decision. Take, for instance, a man who cannot for business reasons get away as much as he would like to indulge in his favourite game. He has been looking forward for weeks to a particular match, perhaps one of the greatest importance; he has been practising hard for the last month in his spare time in the evenings after business hours. The eventful day comes, the time for his innings arrives, and just when he has settled down with ten or fifteen to his score, and has begun to find himself thoroughly at home with the bowling, his hopes are dashed to the ground by a bad decision. He is maddened with anger and disappointment for the moment, and every cricketer will heartily sympathise with him; but if he allows his feelings to get the better of him, and indulges in an open exhibition of anger against the umpire, that man should never play cricket again until he has satisfied himself that, come what may, he will be able to curb himself sufficiently to prevent such exhibitions, which act so greatly against the true interests of the game.
The majority of cricketers, we are happy to say, are not open abusers of umpires and their decisions, though a considerable number have earned this unenviable notoriety. But by far the greater proportion of batsmen, though not open cavillers at the umpire’s verdict, always refuse to allow that his judgment, when adverse to them, is correct, and especially in cases of l.b.w. It is one of the most extraordinary things connected with the game that, no matter how straight the ball may have pitched, how low down it may have hit the leg, and how straight it is going off the pitch to the wicket when stopped by the opposing leg, there is not one batsman in twenty who will allow that he is fairly out. ‘The ball pitched off the wicket;’ ‘It would have gone over the wicket;’ ‘It was twisting like anything and would have missed the wicket;’ and ‘How could it be out? I hit it hard,’ are the usual excuses that are made to a knot of the crestfallen batsman’s friends and sympathisers after his return to the pavilion. Sometimes, no doubt, one or more of these excuses may be perfectly true, and the batsman has been unfortunately dismissed by an error in judgment on the part of the umpire; but in far the larger number of instances they are simply sham excuses invented by the player to cover his own discomfiture. In some cases a batsman may really believe that the ball would have missed the wicket or did not pitch straight, and if so he has a perfect right, if he thinks fit, to tell his own friends what is opinion is; but as a rule the umpire’s judgment is right and the batsman’s is wrong. The mere fact of a ball hitting the leg when it is pitched so nearly straight and would have so nearly hit the wicket as to justify an appeal to the umpire, shows that the batsman has seriously erred either in his judgment of the pitch of the ball or in his stroke. He has made a mistake—the ball hitting his leg is a proof that he has done so; and yet, with this proof staring him in the face, he comes out and states positively what practically comes to this: ‘The ball must have been very nearly straight and would have very nearly hit the stumps, or else the bowler would not have asked; I mistook the pace, or the pitch, or the flight of the ball, or all three of them at the same time; but now that I have had time to think over it, I know for certain the ball was not pitched straight or would not have hit the wicket.’ This is the logical conclusion of the vast number of excuses that are made with regard to decisions of l.b.w.
A clear case.
When a batsman says that he has hit the ball, it does not always follow that it is correct, for under certain circumstances he may imagine he has touched it when in fact he has not done so. For instance, if he plays forward with the bat close to his left leg, he may slightly touch his pad or his boot, which may produce in his mind the same impression as if the bat had touched the ball. In a forward stroke a slight touch on a hard ground with the end of the bat will often convey the same idea. There are one or two well-known cricketers, thoroughly keen and honest players of the game, whose habit of finding fault with umpires’ decisions adverse to themselves has often provoked great amusement. We remember on one occasion taking part in a match in which one of these critical gentlemen was playing. Shortly after his innings began he missed a perfectly straight ball, and just as it was going to hit the centre of the middle stump it came into contact with a thick well-padded leg. He had to go. Shortly afterwards in the pavilion he was overheard replying in answer to a friend, ‘Out? why, it didn’t pitch straight by a quarter of an inch!’
What has been said with regard to the duty of batsmen to abide by umpires’ decisions applies equally to bowlers. What can be worse form than a public exhibition of temper on the part of a bowler because an appeal is not answered in his favour? ‘Wha-a-a-t?’ shouts a bowler at the top of his voice, after a negative answer to an appeal, his eyes glaring at the poor unfortunate umpire as if he wanted to eat him. ‘What is out, then?’ Perhaps in the next ball or two the batsman is palpably out, either bowled or caught. ‘How’s that, then, sir?’ says the bowler in sarcastic glee, as if his success was directly due to the former verdict of the umpire. All this sort of thing is very poor cricket, and not calculated to promote the true spirit of friendliness which should distinguish every match if the game is to be enjoyed.
It is in club cricket that there is always the greatest number of disputes about umpires’ decisions. This is owing to the fact that the only way in which umpires can be procured is by each side bringing its own. As a rule the professional bowler of a club stands as umpire in all matches, and this system, as before mentioned, cannot fail occasionally to cause a little wrangling. Supposing, for instance, a side has to get half a dozen more runs to win a match with only one wicket to fall, and the umpire of the fielding side, by giving the last hope out leg before wicket, decides the game in favour of his employers, it must inevitably stir up some angry feelings, especially as a batsman is scarcely ever known to admit the impeachment of being fairly out l.b.w. Considering the keenness and anxiety to win of every cricketer worthy of the name, the fact of serious disputes being almost unknown is a remarkable instance of the generosity and manliness of English players.
But it is in bonâ fide country or rustic matches that there is most often good reason for finding fault with the decisions of umpires. We are not speaking of matches between clubs who can boast enough members to enable them to engage a professional bowler, level a good large square piece of turf, and erect a local habitation in the shape of a neat and pretty little pavilion; but of matches between clubs in remote villages, where the village common, rough and uneven as it is, suffices for practice on the week-day evenings and for matches on Saturday afternoons, where the only weapons of the batsmen are the old well-worn and usually desperately heavy club bats, where the village barber is the bowler, the village baker the best batsman, and the umpire, on whom his side relies for victory more than on all the other men in the village, the publican. There are still such clubs in existence, though not nearly so many now as in days gone by. The increased popularity of the game, and the greater facilities for getting about the country, have caused many of these old village clubs to become large and well-to-do. One of the greatest treats that any cricket-lover can have is to take part in a match between two really primitive village clubs. The old fast under-arm bowling, now sixty years at least out of date in first-class cricket, still preserves its pristine efficacy on the rough uneven turf, and against the untutored batsmen. The running and the shouting and the general excitement when the parson misses a catch, or the butcher is bowled, is very pleasing to one accustomed to the stateliness and publicity of a match at Lord’s or the Oval. But the village umpire is, perhaps, the most interesting personage on the ground. He is usually a stout elderly man, who, grown too grey on the head and too thick in the girth to give his side any more active help in the field, assists in quite as efficient a manner in his new post. He is generally a genial, jolly sort of fellow; devoted to the game, he fondly imagines that he is an infallible judge of every point that can arise in it, though really he is wofully ignorant of the whole subject. He is, however, looked up to by the whole village as an authority whose opinion cannot be disputed; probably he has once in his life, many years ago, been to Lord’s, and has there, while watching Carpenter, Hayward, and George Parr, laid up a store of information connected with the play of great cricket celebrities which has sufficed ever since to maintain his reputation as a cricket savant.
Before the beginning of a match, he may be seen diligently rolling the stubborn ground with a small hand-roller, in the hopes that some of the numerous adamantine hillocks may be compressed to something like a level with the surrounding dales and valleys.