Bring the question to an issue thus: stretch a thin white string from the leg-stump of the striker’s wicket to the off-stump of the bowler’s wicket; and let any round-armed bowler (who does not bowl “over the wicket”) try whether good length balls, which do not pitch outside of the said string, will hit the wicket regularly, that is, of their common tendency and not as “a break.”
My firm belief is, that this experiment (with a bowler and a string) will convince any one that the two conditions of being out leg-before-wicket (“straight pitch,” and “would have hit”) cannot, except by accident, be fulfilled by an ordinary round-armed bowler; and if so, the law of leg-before-wicket should require that the ball pitch straight not from the bowler’s wicket, but straight from the bowler’s hand.
Objection. “This would make the umpire’s task too difficult: you would thus make him guess what was straight from the hand, but he can actually see what is straight from the wicket.”
Answer. This difficulty is an imaginary one. An umpire must be blind indeed, not to discern when the ball keeps its natural line from the hand to the wicket, and when it pitches out of that line, and then abruptly turns into it. Besides, as the law now stands, the umpire has the same difficulty and the same discretion, for how can he decide the condition, “would have hit,” without making allowance for the wide arm, and the “working” of the ball, and bringing the said objectionable guessing into requisition? The judgment now proposed for the umpire, is no difficulty at all, but the judgment he has already to exercise is a great difficulty indeed. How often is a batsman convinced, that the ball that hit him before wicket was making so abrupt a turn, that it must have missed the wicket, and, but for that abrupt turn, would never have hit him at all. I do not believe that of the men given out “leg before wicket,” one in three are deservedly out. But, often do we see a wicket saved by the leg and pads, when both the skill of the bowler and the blunder of the batsman deserved falling stumps.
With these observations, I must leave my friends to the free exercise of their heads and hands, feet and faculties, patience and perseverance, holding myself up to them as an example in one respect only, that I am not too old to learn, and will thankfully receive any contribution, whether from pen or pencil, that is calculated to enrich or to illustrate a work, which, I am but too happy to acknowledge, the community of cricketers have adopted as their own.
London:
A. and G. A. Spottiswoode,
New-street-Square.