Body lines
Sir: Writing on the bodyline controversy, my friend Mr Richard West mentions the way in which English cricketers on tour in Australia could expect 'beery and very explicit voices' to barrack them when they fielded on the boundary about `the alleged infidelity' of their wives or girlfriends ('Bodyline insults', 15 June).
Putting it like that, Dick West may have forgotten the greatest of all Australian heckles. It was at the Sydney Test of 1901. England were in the field and an Austra- lian batsman was building up a good score when he pulled the ball high towards the mid-wicket boundary. The England cap- tain A.C. Maclaren raced back for the catch. As he turned to try and sight the ball with the sun straight in his eyes, a voice from the crowd bellowed, 'Archie! You drop that ball and you can f— my daughter.'
I ought to know whether Maclaren took the catch or not, but I'm afraid I don't.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Dunlewey Far, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, Ireland
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