Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/140

this is the case they cannot be l.b.w. The rule of l.b.w., as at present interpreted, has perhaps been the cause of more forward play than was the case in the days of our forefathers. A bowler with an off-break pitches a ball outside the off-stump, the batsman plays forward, does not smother it at its pitch, misses it, and the ball hits his leg; the batsman is not out because the ball pitched outside the wicket. Again the bowler pitches the ball straight on the middle stump, and again the batsman misses it and is hit on the leg; but the umpire thinks the ball is breaking away so much that it will miss the leg stump, and again the batsman is not out. Whichever way the rule is interpreted it will not affect the second case, but I can't help thinking that the first case, where the ball pitches outside the off stump and breaks past the bat and goes straight to the wicket till intercepted by the batsman's leg, may alter the matter very materially. If the ball with the off break cannot be smothered the batsman will run a great risk of l.b.w.: this will make back play to such bowling the proper game; and it was by such play that Robert Carpenter, the