Ball shooting along the ground

The change in ECB regulations recently from "more than 2 bounces" to "more than 1 bounce" constituting a no ball, made me think about the no ball call for a ball that rolls along the ground. I always interpreted this as an intentionally slow ball, which a bowler bowled so that it was so slow, that gravity caused it to roll before reaching the batsman, or a ball that legitimately slops out of the bowlers hand while in his delivery stride, and does the same. However, if a legitimately bowled reasonably fast ball actually "shoots" along the ground after the first bounce, wholly and completely due to the condition of the wicket, as opposed to something attempted by the bowler, how should an umpire treat this?

In February 1981 New Zealand wanted 6 runs from the last ball of a match to tie with Australia. The Australian captain, Greg Chappell, instructed his brother, Trevor, to bowl the ball underarm along the ground, thus preventing the New Zealand batsman from hitting a boundary 6. MCC considered this to be against the Spirit of Cricket and, with wide-ranging support they altered the Laws to prevent this happening again. Not only were MCC critical of this action, it was also roundly condemned by the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers. Later, both Greg and Trevor Chappell were to express their sorrow at having disgraced Australian cricket in this way.

It was clearly easy to prevent underarm bowling (Law 24.1(b)), but the real problem was to stop the ball being bowled so as to roll along the ground. It was realised that a ball that bounced many times would, as far as playing normal strokes is concerned, be much the same as one that rolled To solve that problem and still cater for all levels of cricket, particularly those involving young players, in some of which the ball may grub along the ground for no reason other than lack of ability, the clause was introduced that permitted the ball to bounce a maximum of twice. It was felt that this, along with the no-rolling requirement, was adequate and proportionate. ECB have not so much changed the Law as said they don't want the ball to be allowed to bounce more than once in matches in certain competitions.

From this you can see that the intention of the Law is to prevent what is perceived as sharp practice. A ball that it bowled normally may, due to some abnormality in the pitch, shoot along the ground. It must still conform to the Law, though it is not the primary target. The umpire has the (not too difficult) task of deciding whether the ball shoots or rolls. The difference is slightly awkward to explain in technical terms, but not difficult to recognise in practice. When a ball rolls it rotates at a rate that is consistent with the forward speed of the ball, rather like the wheels of a car. When it shoots, there is generally little contact with the ground (the ball spends most of the time a few inches above the ground) and such contact as it makes is more like a car wheel that is sliding on ice or water, it is not revolving, at least not at the right speed, so it is not rolling. The umpire does not have to measure the rotation and calculate whether it is consistent with rolling, his experience, both of cricket and life in general, will be quite adequate to differentiate between the two conditions. Rolling is not shooting. Rolling is expressly prohibited, shooting is not.

Read more about Law 24.6 (No ball) at the MCC website