Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/124

authority as Mr. A. G. Steel—are wrong, namely, that a change would make the umpire's task more difficult. The effect of the rule as at present drawn is, that the umpire has to satisfy himself on the following points if he is to give the batsman out: (1) the ball must have pitched on some spot lying between two parallel lines drawn from the leg stump of one wicket to the off stump of the other, and from the off stump of one wicket to the leg stump of the other; (2) the ball must strike the batsman somewhere on his person before he hits it with the bat; (3) the ball must hit the wicket if it had not hit the batsman. Now, the first and third of these facts are extremely difficult to judge, and let us see what the proposed alterations would effect. The supporters of such a change argue that is a matter of no importance where the ball pitches, the important point is, whether the batsman keeps the ball out of the wicket with his legs, and not with his bat. The umpire with the law altered has not got to think of more than two of the requisites; he may dismiss from his mind all question of the ball pitching between parallel lines from wicket to wicket, which many think the hardest thing to judge,