because he knows that when his arm and wrist move slowly the unfair
jerk of the wrist and elbow will be more manifest than when it is
partially concealed by the usual quick movement of his arm. If throwing
tends to cramp bowling, as it does, and render certain essentials for
the development of the science impossible, then it must be injurious
to the game. Secondly, if throwing were allowed the batsman would
be in a position of considerable danger. Many cricketers say, ‘Let
throwers alone, they are always easy to play;’ and this, no doubt, is
so, for the reasons given above, especially when every thrower must,
for the sake of appearances, adopt some slight measure of disguise in
his action; but once let it be recognised that throwing is part of the
game, and a race of sturdy chuckers will spring up, whose pace will be
so terrific that the best and pluckiest batsman will not be able to
defend his body, much less his wicket, against their lightning-like
deliveries. Imagine what it would be if Bonnor, or Forbes, or Game
were to be allowed to throw, all of them having thrown in their best
days as much as 120 yards--is it likely that a batsman at a distance
of only twenty-one yards could be quick enough with his bat to stop
such bowling? Even with an ordinary fast bowler a batsman has sometimes
difficulty in preventing himself from being struck by the ball, and
with an undisguised thrower the danger would be tenfold.
The question then arises, what can be done to stop the throwing
nuisance? And it is one which every member of the cricket-loving
community should ask himself. It is a question of the greatest
difficulty, as is evident from the fact that the committee of the
M.C.C. have so far found it impossible to legislate with regard to
the nuisance. The committee has done everything in its power; it
has instructed the umpires to watch closely the delivery of every
doubtful bowler, and probably the umpires have acted fully up to their
instructions; but they have stopped here, and absolutely refused to
report to the world the result of their careful observations. It is a
fact that of late years no professional umpire in a first-class match
has no-balled a professional bowler for throwing. This is not to be
wondered at: professional umpires themselves have been professional
bowlers, and they cannot bring themselves to take the bread out of the
mouth of one of their own class by no-balling him, and stigmatising him
at once and for ever as a ‘thrower.’
We cannot get amateur umpires to stand: these would, no doubt,
fearlessly no-ball any unfair bowler; but if we could, we should
probably find that the quantity of bad decisions in the course of
the year would be greatly increased. An umpire wants practice and
experience in keeping his attention and whole mind fixed impartially on
the game, and this can only be acquired by those who stand day after
day in that capacity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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