Remembering the wide-bat controversy

… 23 September, and that date two days on, are ones that resonate through cricket even to this day, and perhaps, given the current debate about super-blades and whether it is time to start reining in their power, more so than ever. It concerns a cricketer, Thomas White, one of two of the same surname who played contemporaneously almost two-and-a-half centuries ago when the game was in its infancy, and an incident that became known as "the wide bat controversy". At first this was believed to centre around the fellow known as 'Shock' White, a Middlesex cricketer from Brentford. More likely, and generally accepted, it was actually Thomas 'Daddy' White, of Reigate, a significant Surrey and All-England all-rounder, who went in to bat for Chertsey, playing against Hambledon, at Laleham Burway, in Surrey. This was a game billed, as was customary at the time, as "A Great Cricket Match" played between two top sides for high stakes, originally £50 a side, but with larger stakes accruing and it was during the first Chertsey innings that White, according to contemporary account, through prank, pursuit of unfair advantage, or an attempt to hasten the introduction of a new law, "tried to use a bat that was fully as wide as the wicket itself".