Five things I don't get about cricket

[neville cardus]

Should we ban fours that result from edges through the slips then? Miscues that fly for six? Anything that isn't a perfectly timed cover drive?

The difference is self-evident: Runs off the bat are only sometimes fortuitous or unintentional; runs off the pad are always that way. The solution seems self-evident, too.

 

[Dan]

The ball has been delivered, is still live, has not been padded away intentionally, and you can get to the other end without being dismissed. Team scores a run. End of.

 

[Dan]

Same thing when balls ricochet after a direct hit. It's a run. Back up properly if you don't want to concede it. One thing I learned very early on in fielding drills: it's not just up to one bloke to back up the throw, the entire team should be moving to be in position for a possible direct hit and ricochet.

The only change I'd accept is to disallow further runs if the batsman has obstructed the fielding team unintentionally (i.e. throw hits person, bat and rebounds off again), since that's currently a spirit-of-the-game thing anyway and intentionally obstructing is against the laws. Oh and in ****** park cricket, when balls rebound off the side of the astroturf pitch.

 

[neville cardus]

The ball has been delivered, is still live, has not been padded away intentionally, and you can get to the other end without being dismissed. Team scores a run. End of.

Well, yes. That is what happens. But it's no argument for why it should happen.

 

[OverratedSanity]

But the runs aren't credited to the batsman anyway. It's given to the batting team because the fielding team wasn't quick enough to stop them from completing the run. This is on no way unfair to anyone.

 

[neville cardus]

Legbyes are always and by definition the product of a mistake by the batsman. They only sometimes involve a mistake on the part of the fielding team. But the party which is always to blame is the party which is always rewarded. That sounds pretty unfair to me.

 

[Daemon]

It's funny how Dan's trolling allowed OS to feel comfortable enough to reveal his stupidity

 

[OverratedSanity]

Explain then how leg byes are unfair. The batsmen still have to complete a run, which carries an inherent risk. They're not free runs.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Legbyes are always and by definition the product of a mistake by the batsman. They only sometimes involve a mistake on the part of the fielding team. But the party which is always to blame is the party which is always rewarded. That sounds pretty unfair to me.

The party which is to blame isnt rewarded. The batsman doesn't get the runs. The team does.

 

[neville cardus]

Oh, for goodness sake. The batting team, as represented by the batsman, is rewarded for his -- and thus its -- mistake.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I don't see any problem with that whatsoever. It's up to the fielding team to stop them. I'd share you annoyance with you if the batsman got credit for the runs.

 

[neville cardus]

I don't see any problem with that whatsoever. It's up to the fielding team to stop them. I'd share you annoyance with you if the batsman got credit for the runs.

Why? What's the important difference that would account for your annoyance? Cricket is a team game.

 

[Red]

I've never understood why in the LBW laws, the ball has to pitch in line with the stumps, or pitch outside the off stump, and be going on to hit the wickets. Why cant it pitch outside leg and be going on to hit the stumps and be given LBW? Just seems blatantly unfair to leg spinners and some left arm bowlers bowling to RHers.

Wanted to make a point of how it hindered Shane Warne and that he probably would have taken more wickets than Murali, but realised he took a larger % of his wickets LBW than Murali anyhow!

 

[Furball]

Because you would just get **** cricket where right arm bowlers would go round the wicket and target a batsman's pads.

 

[Furball]

It's funny how Dan's trolling allowed OS to feel comfortable enough to reveal his stupidity

I actually think OS has put the case across for leg byes really well. One of those rare occasions where someone's put a point across that's made me reconsider my previous beliefs on a matter.

 

[Red]

Because you would just get **** cricket where right arm bowlers would go round the wicket and target a batsman's pads.

I dont think that's true. Most cricketers would love to have a bowler bowling at their pads.

 

[Furball]

I dont think that's true. Most cricketers would love to have a bowler bowling at their pads.

Not from that angle.

Right arm over drifting onto your pads is a freebie because you can help it anywhere onto the legside and if you miss you won't be out. Different game with someone spearingi it in at the stumps from round the wicket, that angle alone makes it much harder to hit.

 

[fredfertang]

Oh, for goodness sake. The batting team, as represented by the batsman, is rewarded for his -- and thus its -- mistake.

It's not necessarily a mistake - the pad is a legitimate first line of defence to a ball pitched outside leg and legitimate second line of defence if it strikes the pad outside off stump

 

[fredfertang]

I've never understood why in the LBW laws, the ball has to pitch in line with the stumps, or pitch outside the off stump, and be going on to hit the wickets. Why cant it pitch outside leg and be going on to hit the stumps and be given LBW? Just seems blatantly unfair to leg spinners and some left arm bowlers bowling to RHers.

Wanted to make a point of how it hindered Shane Warne and that he probably would have taken more wickets than Murali, but realised he took a larger % of his wickets LBW than Murali anyhow!

Bradman thought you should be able to get an lbw if the ball pitched outside leg, which is all very well for the best batsman who ever lived to say - the reality is that a balance has to be struck between bat and ball - if the balance moves too far in favour of the batman I dare say that idea might come back into vogue again, but I hope not for the reason Furball gives

 

[Dan]

Well, yes. That is what happens. But it's no argument for why it should happen.

Because its a stupid, moronic and entirely arbitrary distinction. You've abjectly failed to makr any case of why a batsman's intent matters at all; you've assumed you are correct, refused to defend your viewpoint as anything other than self-evident, and been insufferably condescending in doing so.

The game is about defending your wicket, and then scoring runs. If you have successfully defended your wicket and are capable of scorijg a run following that - irrespective of what thr ball hit or did not hit (your argument would also ban byes, because the battimg team did nothing to deserve them) - then you should have a right to take that run. The only moderations, lest you get pedantic then shout my clarification dowj for pedantry, is disallowing in the case of pad play (since neither the bowler, hamstrung by the LBW law, nor batsman, through disallowed leg byes, is rewarded for cynical, awful, aesthetically displeasing cricket without the symmetry of the game being impacted), or in the case of unintentional obstruction.

You're the one trying to change the laws of cricket. The onus is on you to demonstrate why. "I don't like it and I'm important because I nicknamed myself after an important cricketing figure" is not an argument for change.