Cricket

by A. G. Steel; R. H. Lyttelton

No umpire should ever be chosen to stand in first-class matches unless he possesses the perfect use of these two senses. More than once in important matches we have seen an umpire with his ears stuffed full of cotton-wool. This, no doubt, was an excellent preventive against catching cold in the head, but it was a monstrous thing to see the result of a match of some interest depending upon the amount of sound that could penetrate through two or three layers of wadding.

An umpire should possess powers of quick decision, because every time his opinion is asked he has to give it at once, and with firmness. If he shows any signs of doubt or hesitation, he destroys the confidence which it should be his constant endeavour to see reposed in him and his judgment.

An umpire has to concentrate every particle of his attention on the game, every minute of the five or six hours he is in the field has to be devoted to studiously watching every ball that is bowled and every incident in the play. Once let his attention be distracted, or his interest lessened in what is going on around him, and he will make a mistake. The powers of concentration necessary in an umpire are so great, and are required for such a lengthy period, that it is impossible to find them in any man unless he is imbued with a thorough love of cricket. It is this devotion to the game which enables our umpires to fix their attention on it for such long weary hours, in all conditions of weather, and in our most important matches, with such a heavy weight of responsibility upon their shoulders. Firm, free, and unbiassed in their judgment, our English umpires have the satisfaction of knowing that unbounded confidence is placed in them by the players and the public, and that never in the history of modern cricket has there been the faintest whisper of suspicion against their integrity or fair fame.

And now let us discuss the actual duties of an umpire connected with the game. The two umpires before the beginning of the match should be present when the ground is chosen and measured. By rights, it is the duty of the umpires actually to choose the pitch; but this is seldom done, as so much care and attention is spent on all grounds at the present day by the ground-men, that the wicket intended to be used has been generally prepared with diligence for two or three days previous to the match. They should, however, be present, and see that the ground is the proper measurement, and that the stumps are so fixed in the ground as to satisfy the sixth rule of the game—namely, ‘Each wicket shall be eight inches in width, and consist of three stumps.... The stumps shall be of equal and sufficient size to prevent the ball from passing through, twenty-seven inches out of the ground. The bails shall be each four inches in length, and when in position on the top of the stumps, shall not project more than half an inch above them. Umpires should be very careful to see that these provisions are complied with both with regard to the width of the wicket and the ball passing between the stumps.’ We have often seen stumps in a first-class match so wide apart that the ball would pass between them without dislodging the bails; over and over again have we taken hold of the ball and passed it between them to show the umpire that the stumps were too far apart; but we have never seen a bowled ball pass between the stumps without removing the bails in a first-class match, though this often happens in smaller matches. Umpires should themselves measure the ground between the wickets; groundsmen, as a rule, do this, but they occasionally do it in a careless and slovenly fashion, which may result in the distance being a foot too short or too long. The slightest difference in the usual distance of twenty-two yards from wicket to wicket makes a great difference to the bowler, and so it should invariably be checked by the umpires themselves using the chain.

Before the match begins, the umpires should settle what the boundaries are to be. This, of course, will only apply to those places where the boundaries have not been finally settled, as at Lord’s and the Oval and other well-known grounds. The usual practice, however, is for the visiting team to accept the boundaries that are customary on the ground; but should there be any dispute on this subject, it must be settled by the umpires. Having arranged all preliminaries connected with the pitch and the boundaries, the umpires should go to the wickets punctually to the very minute agreed upon for beginning play. A vast amount of time is on many grounds lost owing to unpunctuality; and if the umpires appear on the ground at the appointed time, irrespective of whether the players are ready or not, it has a good effect. The umpire at the bowler’s end, when the bowling is over the wicket, should stand as near as he can to the wicket without inconveniencing the bowler in his action; he should stand sideways fronting the bowler, but with his head looking over his right shoulder down the pitch. The object of this attitude is that as small a surface of his body as possible should be permitted to be in the line of sight of the batsman and the ball. There are some umpires who stand as much as five or six yards from the wicket, no doubt under the impression that so long as they are in a straight line with the two wickets they can see everything; but this is a mistake, as it is evident that the nearer the umpire stands to the wicket the better he can see and judge the points that arise for his decision. Before umpires were required to wear the long white coats which now render them so conspicuous, their dark ones often greatly interfered with the batsman’s view of the ball, but now this inconvenience has been done away with, and the batsman can never rightly complain of his sight being obscured by the umpire.

The umpire should stand perfectly still at the moment the ball is delivered; he must not even move his head, as any moving object directly behind the ball, and especially as near to it as the umpire is standing, may distract the batsman’s sight from the ball. He must watch the bowler’s hindmost foot to see if it touch or cross the bowling crease, in which case it is a ‘no ball,’ and must almost at the same time watch the bowler’s hand and arm to guard against any infringement of the rule against throwing.

The rule with regard to ‘no balls’ is, ‘The bowler shall deliver the ball with one foot on the ground behind the bowling crease, and within the return crease, otherwise the umpire shall call no ball.’ The umpire must, therefore, call ‘no ball’ if the hindmost foot of the bowler is, at the moment of delivery, even touching the bowling or return creases. This rule makes it important that the bowling crease should be neatly and correctly marked. The rule with regard to the bowling crease says that it ‘shall be in a line with the stumps, 6 ft. 8 in. in length, &c.,’ but says nothing about the width of it. We must, therefore, infer from the words ‘in a line’ that the bowling crease should not be of greater width than the thickness of the stumps. If it is drawn of this thickness only, it is a very narrow line, but is correct according to a common-sense interpretation of the rules 7 and 11; for supposing, as is often the case, the crease is thicker than the width of the stumps, it would then be a manifest injustice to ‘no ball’ a bowler because his hindmost foot has just touched the edge of it. These two rules evidently mean that the hindmost foot shall be behind the line of the wicket when the ball is delivered. If the crease is too thick, the foot may just touch it and yet not transgress the spirit of the two rules taken together.

With regard to the necessity, laid down in rule 11, for the hindmost foot to be on the ground ... when the ball is delivered, we think umpires may take it as settled that it is quite an impossibility for a bowler to deliver a ball with this foot off the ground. Let anyone try to bowl with only the left foot on the ground, and he will at once see the practical impossibility of doing so. A ‘no ball’ should be called quickly and distinctly directly the ball has been delivered; an umpire must not shout ‘No ball’ as soon as he sees the foot touch or overlap the crease, but must wait till the ball is actually bowled; otherwise he may land himself in a difficulty should the bowler stop and not deliver the ball. We remember an umpire, who is generally supposed to be about the best in England, making this mistake in 1886; he called a ‘no ball’ so very prematurely that it gave the bowler time to stop before the ball left his hand.

A wide ball is one that, in the opinion of the umpire, is not within reach of the striker. It therefore does not make the slightest difference where it pitches so long as, in the umpire’s opinion, it has never been within the batsman’s reach. Some people entertain the idea that if a ball has pitched fairly straight but afterwards twisted beyond the batsman’s reach, it should not be called wide; but this is wrong, as the rule says positively that ‘if it is not within reach of the striker, the umpire shall call “wide ball.”’ It is often a very nice point as to what is or is not within reach of the striker, and umpires’ opinions vary on this head. We think the true reading of the rule is that, on the off side, the batsman’s reach should not be limited to what he can only reach when standing still in his original position, but should be extended to what he can conveniently and comfortably reach with either leg across his wicket, say for ‘cutting’ or ‘off driving.’ On the leg side we think a ball should be called ‘wide’ if the batsman in the ordinary swing of the arms and bat for a leg hit could not reach it.[32] It thus follows, that a ball may be a ‘wide’ on the leg side which would not be one if at an equal distance from the batsman on the off side. If the ball passes so high over the batsman as to be out of his reach, it is a ‘wide.’ This very rarely occurs, but umpires should remember that if the batsman can touch this ball by holding the bat in the air, it is not a ‘wide.’ It does not follow that it is a ‘wide’ because the ball goes over the head of the batsman without being played at—most batsmen refuse to strike at such a ball because of the attendant risk—but it must be so high that the batsman cannot reach it when holding the bat in the usual manner.