The gray area beyond the boundary
The first ball of the 17th over: Ramnaresh Sarwan gets his bat under a tossed up delivery from Ajanta Mendis and smashes it high and hard. At the long on boundary, Angelo Mathews timed a little jump, got both hands to the ball, realized that if he made the catch he would land on the rope or outside it, and tossed the ball high in the air.
Landing on the wrong side of the rope, Mathews waited till the ball was coming down, leapt high, and with a tennis style swat with his right palm, hit the ball back up in the air and across the ropes into the field of play. Recovering, he ran back onto the field, collected the ball and fired in the return as the batsmen completed their third run.
It took an eternity, and more replays than I bothered to count, before the umpires declared that a ‘three’, and not the score recently known as the DLF Maximum.
I didn’t mind the endless replays much — there was much to admire in that moment, most especially the incredible — and sustained — presence of mind that Mathews displayed, first in getting rid of the catch before it was completed, then in going airborne on the wrong side of the line so his feet wouldn’t be touching the ground when he palmed the ball back into play.
An expert panel of Harsha Bhogle, Anil Kumble and Ian Chappell spent considerable time on the incident, and on the question of whether the umpires were justified in calling that a three and not a six. Harsha’s question: What then if the fielder stands outside the ropes, waits for the airborne ball to cross the rope, palms it back over the rope, runs onto the field of play and completes the catch?
Admittedly a gray area — and it is always fun when in a sport some act shines a light on a gray area in even seemingly airtight rules.
I don’t have the answers, but on balance I’m with Anil, who said the key to the Mathews save was that his first contact with the ball was inside the field of play. From that point on, at no time was any part of his body touching the ground outside play when he was in contact with the ball — and so, Anil argued, the umpires’ decision was correct.
Sounds logical to me; what does the hive mind think?
Update: The MCC has confirmed that Mathews’ fielding effort is legal. The bit that floats my boat?:
“The MCC Laws sub-committee had recently discussed fielding such as this and felt that such brilliant and quick-thinking acts should not be outlawed,” Stephenson said. “MCC is happy with the Law as it is written and occurrences such as the one yesterday, while extremely rare, are good for the game of cricket as a whole. It is also pleasing that two of the committee’s members were involved in making the correct decision on the field of play.”
I saw that piece of “fantastic” fielding (pardon be for the IPL hyperbole but this one deserves it) and I think we are losing the charm of the act by talking about laws and theories.
What that piece of fielding demonstrated was a tremendous presence of mind, an incredible commitment to save runs, and brilliant athleticism. It is a moment to savor and not to be lost in theoretical what-ifs.
Chandan: I think Harsha’s point was, if a fielder on the line sees a hit going above his head, he can run outside the field of play, palm it back in, etc. Not that the fielder stands outside the ropes before the ball is bowled.
Prem,
Firstly, I think there have to have 11 fielders inside the field when the ball is bowled. So how is it possible that one would stand outside the field?
And if anyone other than the playing XI outside the field palms it back, the shot would count as six. No?
In T20 esp with short boundaries this type of incidence would not be as rare as being implied in this post.Therefore there is much more clarity needed on Harsha’s scenario. Harsha’s scenario itself can have the following 2 variations
1. if the fielder goes outside the boundary line and then takes a forward jump and blocks ( or even catches the ball ) and lands inside the boundary line. would that be considered a six ?
2. Same as scenario as 1 except he blocks the ball and lands outside the boundary line.
Above 2 scenarios can be easily handled if there is law that clears states that once a fielder steps outside the boundary line he cannot thereafter take part in any further activity for that delivery.
Only downside with this clause is many a times a fielder would tap the ball with his foot to prevent a ground shot boundary in the process goes over the boundary line. He may not be able to come back to retrieve the ball and throw it back. We can tweak the above clause a little bit to handle this.