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which apparently pitches dead straight, is missed by the batsman, and yet misses the wicket. If it had hit the batsman on the leg you would have blamed the umpire for not giving him out, and yet he would have been right and the critic wrong. As a matter of fact, to bowlers round the wicket, unless the ball is right up, it is generally right to judge that the batsman is not out. The line of the ball delivered with the hand wide away from the bowling wicket makes it almost impossible that a short ball can both pitch straight on the wicket and then go on and hit the stumps. At the same time I think the benefit of the doubt, which by an unwritten law of cricket seems invariably given to the batsman, might in this particular be given to the bowler. It is bad play to put the leg in front of the wicket, and in these days of gigantic run-getting the bowler ought to have the benefit of the doubt, and not the batsman. An umpire has many things to think about—he has to count the balls, he has to look at the bowler's feet to see that he