Just as there reach my desk two or three documents
dwelling on the value of the Olympic games as an agency making for international good will there breaks this storm over the leg-trap theory in Australia. On the face of it a bowler is as much entitled to bowl for a catch to leg as for a catch in the slips, but there is undeniably a greater chance of hitting the batsmen in the one case than in the other. No sharp line can be drawn between the legitimate and the illegitimate in cricket—historic cases of the bowling of no-balls or wides to avoid a follow-on may be recalled—but broadly speaking a bowler must be held entitled to resort to any reasonable tactics to get a batsman out. It is doubtful, in any case, if the M.C.C. could frame a workable rule which would eliminate " leg theory " bowling. It is obviously out of the question to forbid bowling on the leg stump, or to forbid very fast bowling, or to forbid a concentration of fieldsmen on the leg side. Can you then illegalize these things when they occur together, as in Larwood's case ? Most of the experienced English cricketers say No. The Australian crowd—and, one must add, the Australian Captain—say Yes. But the depth of feeling stirred by the whole business is alarming. Adelaide is coming to bulk as large as Ottawa.
Previous page
