XII. “If the bowler shall toss the ball over the striker’s head.” As to wide balls, some think there should be a mark, making the same ball wide to a man of six feet and to a man of five. With good umpires, the law is better as it is. Still, any parties can agree on a mark for wide balls, if they please, before they begin the game.
“Bowl it so wide.” These words say nothing about the ball pitching more or less straight and turning off afterwards: the distance of the ball when it passes the batsman is the point at issue.
XVI. Or if the “ball be held before it touch the ground.” Query; is it Out, if a ball is caught rolling back off the tent? If the ball striking the tent is, by agreement, so many runs, then the ball is dead and a man cannot therefore be out. Otherwise, I should reason that the tent, being on the ground, is as part of the ground. By the spirit of the law it is not out, by the letter out. But, to avoid the question, the better plan would be not to catch the ball, and disdain to win a match except by good play.
XVIII. “Or, if in striking at the ball, he hit down his wicket.”—
“In striking,” not in running a notch, however awkwardly.
XIX. “Or, if under pretence of running, or otherwise.”
“Or otherwise;” as, for instance, by calling out, purposely to baulk the catcher.
XX. “Or, if the ball be struck, and he wilfully strike it again.”
“Wilfully strike it again.” This obviously means, when a man blocks a ball, and afterwards hits it away to make runs. A man may hit a ball out of his wicket, or block it hard. The umpire is sole judge of the striker’s intention, whether to score or to guard.
This law was, in one memorable instance, applied to the case of T. Warsop, a fine Nottingham player, who, in a match at Sheffield in 1822, as he was running a notch, hit the ball to prevent it coming home to the wicket-keeper’s hands. Clarke, who was then playing, thinks the player was properly given out. Certainly he deserved to be out but old laws do not always fit new offences, however flagrant.