Gideon Haigh
The Window
Radiating
excitement and
entitlement
August 7 2016, EdgbastonEnshrined in the 1744 code and now dealt
with under Law 31.1, the convention that
the umpire cannot send a batsman on
their way unilaterally is among cricket’s
oldest. “They are not to order a player out
unless appealed to by the adversaries,”
advised John Nyren in The Young
Cricketer’s Tutor (1833), after the general
assertion that ‘the umpires are the sole
judges of fair and unfair play”.
On cricketers that imposed some
apparent moral restraints. “Do not ask
the umpire unless you think the batsman
is out,” urged John Lillywhite in 1866. “It
is not cricket to keep asking the umpire
questions.” It was probably WG Grace,famously avid, notoriously amoral,
who helped the game get over such
squeamishness. Historian of umpiring
Teresa McLean reports that “it was
normal for pretty well the whole field to
appeal for caught behind” by the 1890s,
and the collective howzat duly became a
photographic staple. “Who has not seen
pictures of sides making a mass appeal
with even the remotest fielders raising a
finger as though to show the umpire what
to do – or else!” averred Gerald Brodribb
in Next Man In (1952), which features
one such as its frontispiece, Bill O’Reilly
leading an Australian chorus.
Here is another, a spontaneous ballet34 | thecricketer.com