Unknown catch rule prompts call for change after Big Bash stunner
The cricket world is calling for a law change after Brisbane’s Matt Renshaw took advantage of an obscure rule in the Big Bash League.
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Matthew Wade has fallen victim to a curious catching rule as Hobart mustered just 9-126 in a five-wicket defeat in their Big Bash League clash with Brisbane at the Gabba.
The returning Test batsmen was doing his best to lift the Hurricanes to a reasonable total, before finding Matthew Renshaw on the mid-on rope. Renshaw caught the ball, stumbled towards the rope and lobbed it in the air as he fell over the boundary.
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It looked as if Wade (61 off 46) would collect six runs for his troubles, before Renshaw jumped in the air while standing outside the field of play and parried the ball to the waiting Tom Banton.
The catch was reviewed and after a lengthy delay Wade, who admitted soon after the dismissal he wasn’t sure of the rule, was sent on his way.
The catch was deemed legal thanks to an MCC rule change designed to encourage more athletic fielding.
The rule states the fielder, as long as first contact with the ball is made inside the boundary, can parry the ball as many times as they like while airborne outside the boundary.
WHAT THE PLAYERS SAID
Knowing the rule is one thing, but exploiting it will be another according to Wade after his impromptu cricket theory lesson at the Gabba.
“It’s a bit of a strange one, we play a lot of sports where you can’t come from outside the field of play and touch the ball again,” Wade said. “But I’ve got no grudges … nobody’s talked about it until this point so it hasn’t been much of an issue, but will it be an issue (now that it’s happened again)?
“Maybe players could expose it a little, but you’d have to do a hell of a job to do it.” Renshaw, who admitted he didn’t know the law and that the parry back to Banton was accidental, said the skill may find its way into fielding sessions. “Apparently you can just keep hitting the ball up as long as you’re in the air,” he said.
“So maybe we’ll keep practising that.”
HOW CRICKET WORLD REACTED
Lord’s, home of the MCC who act as cricket’s rule makers, tweeted that “Under Law 19.5, the catch is deemed lawful.” The law says: “A boundary will also be given if a fielder in contact with the ball makes contact with any object grounded beyond the boundary, including another fielder.” the Lord’s tweet explained that “the key moment is when he first touches the ball, which is inside the boundary. He’s airborne for his second contact.” “Amazing catch,” it said.
But some former players thought it was ridiculous and required a rule change.
“It’s out,” Dean Jones tweeted. “But law needs to be changed.”
“I’ve got no problem with where he left from. It’s where he ends up. After he touches the ball he needs to end up back in the field of play,” Kiwi cricketer Jimmy Neesham added. “If that’s not the rule then the whole thing is farcical and the rule needs to change.”
“I’m comfortable with how it was judged … but I guess we have to question whether that should be the rule or not because there is clearly a lot of people out there who think it’s a crazy rule,” former Kiwi skipper Brendon McCullum said in commentary for Channel 7.
Ben Cutting (43 not out) guided the Heat to 5/131 and into third on the Big Bash League ladder.
— with wires
Originally published as Unknown catch rule prompts call for change after Big Bash stunner