CRICKET WITHOUT BOUNDARIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 504, 28 September 1912, Page 7

CRICKET WITHOUT BOUNDARIES.

The controversy which has been raging in Britain around the alleged dullness of modern cricket has led a writer in the London Daily Chronicle to suggest that cricket might be enlivened if the conditions of an earlier era were reverted to and boundaries abolished. When Dr W. G. 3race played his first match at Lord's, a player was allowed four if the ball struck the pavilion railings, and every other hit had to be run out. The only reason why boundaries were introduced was that when a ball fell among the spectators the fieldsmen had very nften great difficulty in recovering it. Before these artificial limits were established it was possible to score sixty from a single hit. This was frequently done at Chatham, when matches were played on the Lines, with a steep downward slope to right and left of the pitch. A good hard hit would send the ball over the bank and no fieldsman could catch it til it came to rest in the town below. It is suggested that another reason why the cricket authoritise instituted boundaries was to safeguard the spectators. Cases are en record where spectators were seriously injured by the ball, and such accidents were rather frequent when no actual bounds were set to the field of play. Perhaps the most original and diverting suggestion which has been made for the reform of cricket was that offered by a Spanish gentleman, who, after witnessing a match a Lord's for the first time gravely remarked: "I think the man who hits the ball so far away from the thrower should be made to go and fetch it himself. Surely there is no need to have so many persons lounging about the field simply to wait upon him." It can readily be believed that the man to whom this ingenuous remark was addressed sought safety in smiling acquiescence.