How cricket lost appeal
QUESTION Was there an Ashes series Down Under where the England bowlers weren’t awarded any LBW decisions?
In the 1970/71 england tour of Australia, england bowled out Australia on 12 occasions without being awarded a single leg before wicket (LBW) decision. Despite this, england won the seven-test series 2-0 (the third test was abandoned due to bad weather).
It was a bad-tempered series. Captain Ray Illingworth introduced the use of hostile, short- pitched fast- bowling, courtesy of John Snow, Ken Shuttleworth, Bob Willis and Peter Lever.
the fiery Snow hit tail- enders on the head and relentlessly intimidated Australia’s batsmen. england felt they were under siege, battling biased umpires, an antagonistic press and hostile crowds.
Independent umpires weren’t introduced to test cricket until 1994 so the three umpires used in the series were all Australian; the intractable Lou Rowan, and his colleagues tom Brooks and Max O’Connell, both on international duty for the first time.
the england team disputed several umpiring decisions. there were various run out incidents, but the scene was set in the first innings of the first test at Brisbane when Aussie opener Keith Stackpole should have been run out for 18 when Geoff Boycott threw down the wicket at the bowler’s end. Lou Rowan was having none of it.
the Australian papers carried photographs the next day showing that he was clearly out and labelled the decision ‘one of the worst in cricket history’. the test ended in a draw but the decision probably cost england victory as Stackpole made 207, his highest test score. Australia were dismissed for under 265 six times, with Snow claiming 31 wickets.
Illingworth said: ‘he’d run out of steam by the end but bowled beautifully. to bowl out Australia cheaply six times is good but without one LBW is bloody marvellous. If england get Australia out for under 300 six times this winter they’ll win.’ After the series, Illingworth, Boycott and Snow were called to a disciplinary hearing at Lords and Illingworth and Snow never toured again.
John Snow, in his autobiography Cricket Rebel, penned a chapter titled Bitter Rows With Umpire Rowan, in which he wrote: ‘I have never come across another umpire so full of his own importance, so stubborn, lacking in humour, unreasonable and utterly unable’.
It should be noted the Australians themselves received only six successful LBWs in the series. the rules were different at the time. For a batsman to be given out LBW, the umpire must decide the ball has hit the batsman on the body and would have gone on to hit the stumps.
Furthermore, umpires of the era were very reluctant to give LBWs if players thrust their legs a long way forward towards the ball.
Mark Williamson, Canterbury, Kent.
QUESTION In the novel Martin Chuzzlewit, one character ‘of a theatrical turn’ had ‘serious thoughts about “coming out” ’. What did this phrase mean in this context?
In DICKENS’S time the phrase ‘to come out’ simply meant ‘to make one’s debut’.
In this case our gentleman ‘of a theatrical turn’ had considered appearing on stage but ‘ had been kept in by the wickedness of human nature’, no doubt frightened of being heckled — a common practice at the time. the presentation of debutantes at court in the early Victorian period was known as the ‘coming out’ ceremony. Coinciding with the start of the London high social season (just after easter), two or three days were set aside for young ladies of breeding to be formally be introduced to society.
About 100-200 girls each day would draw up in their carriages outside St James’s Palace (later Buckingham Palace), carrying bouquets and dressed in their finest to attend these balls.
Fascinatingly, the modern use of the term ‘coming out’ is directly related to these debutante balls. Large U.S. cities at the turn of the 20th century began to organise masquerade balls known as ‘drags’ in direct defiance of laws banning citizens from wearing clothes of the opposite gender. In 1931, the newspaper Baltimore Afro-American covered a drag ball. the article detailed the ‘coming out of new debutantes into gay society.’ Sheila Cooke, Chester, Cheshire.
QUESTION Where is Europe’s oldest forest?
BEFORE settled agriculture began to transform europe’s landscape dramatically from about 7,500 years ago, the continent had been covered in thick primary forest that had filled the void after the retreat of the Ice Age, 10,000 years ago.
Most of those forests are long gone. Settlements, farming grounds and pastures have taken the place of woods. Along with those forests, whole ecosystems disappeared and iconic species such as grey wolves, brown bears and european bison, europe’s largest mammal, have retreated to the fringes.
there remain several old growth forests dotted around europe, mostly undisturbed by the effect of man. the largest and most famous of these is the Bialowieza Forest, covering 1,500 square kilometres on the Poland/Belarus border.
It’s a protected area recognised as a Unesco World heritage Site and serves as the last natural refuge for the european bison, as well as a wide range of other endangered species. Other key sites are Uholka-Shyrokyi Luh in Ukraine and Izvoarele nerei in Romania.
Mr J. E. Singh, Ipswich, Suffolk. n IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.
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