I now thank Peace for his brilliant thread, and I apologise for producing a brilliant thread. Sorry.

Could go on about what I've learnt about hair, but fear drifting into interesting.

I blame the readers who lose patience with unimaginative and dull, and move on so fast. Disgraceful. So could such readers push off and leave us to our lack of devices. Thank you.

(This next bit for non-Brit. readers)

   For the batsman to be out LBW, the umpire has to believe that the ball hit the pad up to the roll of the batsman's pad, that the hit leg was in the line of the two sets of stumps, that the ball pitched between the stumps or on the off side (pitching on the leg side won't do), and that if the batsman had not got in the way of the ball, that the ball would have hit the stumps. It is, OF COURSE, very difficult for the umpire to give the batsman out if the bowler is a left-arm leg spinner (or one who bowls googlies). Thjat's because the angles are awkward. Again, if the batsman comes down the pitch to the pitch (different pitch, naturally) of the ball, the umpire is not going to give the batsman out, mostly because he becomes very unsure about the likelihood of the ball hitting the wicket. The umpire is the best person to decide if it was LBW as he is the only one directly in line, and with clear vision. He has also had to watch to see whether the bowler has bowled a no-ball as well, or first, which adds to the complications. Many a time a bowler has plonked hisd front foot over the crease,especially fiery Fred Truman, the first man to take 300 wickets in Tests which mightlook alittle laughablenow with two others having reached twice as many but in his day it was a tremendous achievement and reached without the benefit of any technology that can now show the true result where the umpire is, and might have been uncertain once upon a time. So it would be interesting to know how many wickets he didn't get because the umpire's doubt ledhimtogivenotoutwherethereplaymighthaveshownadifferentresultitisihardtosaydespiteallweghavetoday.


Ivor