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.