The day after MCC cricket law 41.5 was passed in September, Marnus Labuschagne of the Queensland Bulls broke it. The law states, “It is unfair for any fielder wilfully to attempt, by word or action, to distract, deceive or obstruct either batsman after the striker has received the ball”. Labuschagne was penalised five runs for pretending to throw the ball when he’d actually failed to pick it up.

Former MCC committeeman, the august Right Hon. Lord Percy Ridgewell Blitherington-Prigg, approves of the ruling:

“Labuschagne?! Trust some bally Frenchman to turn our game into a dashed mockery! We all know what those knife-wielding alley-dwellers used to do to splendid Englishmen who went for honest, virile ways of sorting matters out!

Pretending-to-throw-a-ball! When-he-didn’t-even-have-it-in-his-hand! Bloomin’ outrage! I fully expect civilisation itself to take a toss before this rapscallion ever does again! Next thing you know, deceiving a chappie at bat will become routine. Didn’t anyone learn from that bounder Bosanquet? The blackguard contrived to defraud innocent batsmen who anticipated, quite reasonably, that they’d be receiving nice, dependable leg-breaks until they retired as befuddled seniors. Rotter got them befuddled well before their time!

There were the poor dupes, frolicking in their perfectly humdrum paradise of charming expectations followed by tea and digestives, when whoompa! Bosanquet lets go this monstrosity, rightly dubbed the “wrong ‘un” by poor puzzled Aussie plebeians after he began employing it against them. “Wrong ‘un” was local cant for a lowly miscreant – criminal, to put a fine point on it!  A cad and a bounder! For once, the colonials got something right – though we were glad of Bosey’s indispensable assistance in snatching the Ashes back from them!

When Bosanquet first unleashed this deviant horror, the noble batsman, disbelieving though he was, had to walk. There was no rule to protect him against it! As one, the ladies gave at the knees! The vicar almost choked on his cucumber sandwich! How could anyone be so beastly to a poor batting blighter whose only desire was to club miserable, preferably predictable trundlers to all corners?

Such deception wasn’t legislated against, and before we knew it we had all manner of thieves and con-men wielding their infernal zooters, flippers and things as though they were daggers and coshes, one even wheedling his way into venerable Wisden’s top-five. But such dishonesty wasn’t enough mischief for mere leg-spinners. Oh no. A Subcontinental crook then comes along and finds a way to corrupt offies as well with some sinister device called a “doosra” or some such.

Deception has no place in sport. I’ve witnessed first-hand, without a word of a lie, in the spiffing game of Rugby no less, many a shameful try scored as the consequence of an abomination dubbed the “dummy”. I’ve seen many a soccer match tragically lost because of such larcenous practices as “runarounds” and “stepovers”, invented by hairy Huns, Gallic goths and Hispanic vandals. Yes, and I’ve seen many a grand, manly British pugilist, straight of back and jutting of chin, have his honourable adventure cruelly cut short after falling, quite innocently, for some tactic invented by debased Americans – “the feint”, I believe they’ve termed it. I’ve beheld the ruination of cricket teams after unscrupulous opposing captains altered the promised batting order to suit their unprincipled desire to win! Now I note that even the upright art of batting has become despoiled by this reprehensibly modern desire to “switch-hit” and “reverse-sweep!”

All this shaping-up-to-do-one-thing-and-then-doing-another nonsense has to cease! It’s not clever, it’s plain dishonest! In all these cases, a man has clearly been fooled! In the case of this perfect perisher Labuschagne’s fake throw, the batsman stopped in his stride! That’s right. Fell for it! Well, momentarily, anyway. A fielder should make his way from one place to another as innocently and without uproar as – I don’t know – some sort of asexual marine invertebrate, like a mollusc. Fielding was the final bastion of blamelessness on the pitch – and now, this! Pretending to throw a ball one doesn’t even have in one’s possession! As the Good Book says, let your yes be yes, and your no, no! Yea, consider the mollusc.

Bravo to the MCC for preserving good and fair Victorian values! I say, I’m all for advancing our game into the Twentieth Century. I mean it’s fine for women to play, for example, as long as they’re lady-like and gentlemanly, but what sort of example would this give them?

Pretending to throw a ball? Pretending to have a ball? It’s, it’s – common! There, I’ve said it! People who resort to such underhandedness should take a good squiz in the looking glass. Surely any true gentleman – male or female – would consider such behaviour infra dig. This law might go some way toward restoring ancient manners lost to our game and allowing it to proceed with decency.

Fair play to the poor match official who takes it upon himself to decide what deception is and what it isn’t though! After all, subtlety is of the devil himself, I rather fancy.”

Published in Inside Cricket, November 2017