Reply to Billy

Happy to see that one of our cricket legends has contributed to the NIACUS Site. He is surely still too young and talented to be considering donning the white coat?

He has reminded me of an incident in a senior league game I umpired some time ago. In answer to an appeal for LBW I had raised the finger and given the batsman out. The next man in missed the first ball which turned and hit him on the pad. Another appeal followed. Sometimes we use the phrase "it turned square" and to me this ball almost did this. So much so that I felt it could have missed the leg stump. So any doubt not out and this was my decision. To say the bowler did not agree would have been understating his case. To this day he is probably still convinced I was wrong. He stared for some time at where the ball had pitched but eventually turned to go back to his mark. On his way back I saw him have a quick glance over his shoulder to look at the batsman and the result was a slight lowering of his disappointment. This was confirmed as I heard him say to himself, on the way past me, "Ah well, it will not make much difference to the score, it's only "Bumper"