It was while sitting in the White Line Wireless box of dreams, commentating on the World Twenty20, that I was reminded of the darkness that still lingers over the game of cricket.
For while it is undoubtedly the best and noblest of all sports, it has yet a fatal flaw, a weakness that gnaws from within and prevents it from achieving its own colossal potential.
The darkness that blights our beautiful game has a name, and its name is leg byes.
I will not say it’s time to get rid of the leg bye, because it was time to get rid of the leg bye two hundred years ago. It is a deformed, loveless creature, a thing that should never have been, and whose every appearance during a game of cricket stands as a grotesque mockery of all that is lovely and good.
Let us examine the means of scoring runs that are available to a cricket team. They may score runs off the bat: a reward for participating in the central purpose of the game, hitting the ball. They may score runs via no-balls or wides: a penalty for error on the part of the bowler. They may score runs in the form of byes: a punishment for wayward bowling and/or slack wicketkeeping, or if you like, a reward for the batsmen’s quick thinking in taking advantage of that slackness.
Or they may amass runs by means of the leg bye, a reward for… missing the ball.
A leg bye occurs if, and only if, the batsman has been comprehensively beaten by the bowler. A mishit may bring runs, but the batsman has at least in that case managed to get bat on ball. A leg bye is the result of a total failure to lay wood on leather.
This most accursed of sundries can also only be attained when playing a shot, so there’s no question of batsmen achieving leg byes by judicious use of the pads – if a leg bye is taken it’s because the batsman has played and missed, or tried to get out of the way and failed.
And that’s the point: a leg bye is a mark of failure, yet it provides advantage to the team whose player has just failed. Dig around all you want in the spirit of cricket, that’s a principle you’re not going to find anywhere.
The leg bye also lacks the element of initiative and speedy reaction that can at times characterise the bye. A ball that strikes the pad or body might fly anywhere, through neither fault of bowler nor design or batsman, and so there’s no credit in taking a run when a ball has flown into a gap as a result of ineptitude.
And while a bye might also be the consequence for a wicketkeeper whose skills fail him, a leg bye is not. The ball evades the field because it’s rebounded off the failing batsman, not because the keeper has forgotten to stay down.
“Oh,” I hear you snivel, “but the leg bye is a vital part of our game. It’s traditional, it’s a cherished element that it would be heresy to tamper with!”
I don’t actually hear you snivel that, of course. In fact, I assume that you are probably people of reasonable adult intelligence and so would not talk such abominable nonsense at all.
The leg bye is, at best, a cricketing appendix. It serves no purpose and it never has, unless you count the encouragement of incompetence to be a purpose. The only argument in its favour is that it’s always been there, and besides the fact that this is also the argument in favour of Eric Abetz, the fact is that when people sit down to wax lyrical over the rich history and boundless beauty of cricketing culture, none of them are speaking reverently of long summer days on the village green, rejoicing in the gentle pleasure of the leg bye.
PG Wodehouse never wrote a story about his love of leg byes, and neither did Neville Cardus. The leg bye is merely a disreputable hanger-on to the joys of cricket, not a member of them.
I’m not saying the leg bye is the only change cricket needs to make. We could also do with bat thickness restrictions, a resolution to stop calling every ball a millimetre outside leg stump a wide, and an end to the dumb rule where if you touch the boundary rope and the ball at the same time, it’s four. But baby steps, as they say: let’s deal with the long-festering issue of the leg bye before we put the finishing touches to cricket’s perfection.
I am begging the authorities in charge of the game to move immediately to abolish this unsightly blemish on cricket’s face. I am begging all who love the game to lobby and harangue those authorities until they do so.
We must give cricket the purity it deserves, and stop giving batting teams the runs they don’t.
Anthony Condon
Roar Pro
The leg bye is the *fielding* failing.
Chris Love
Guest
Sorry Ben, but the whole purpose of the leg bye is the same as why the leg side wide is much tighter than the off side and why balls pitching outside leg stump cannot be out LBW. The way a player takes guard to protect himself and his stumps it means leg side bowling is often defensive and negative part of the game. Want to bowl down leg? then fine but you also better have a fielder there ready to cover balls going down that way also. There needs to be every incentive not to invite negative leg side blowing and the leg bye is critical to that.
eddy
Guest
I stopped reading early on based on the half definition of a leg bye in this article. The batsman's error in padding the ball is compounded by the fielding team's inability to stop it, usually the wicket keeper's. At best I can see it being counted for half the number of runs
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Cricket is one of the few sports where a player from one team can totally beat the other yet end up the worse off for it. ie The number of times a bowler completely beats the batsman with a good ball only for the ball to fly to the boundary off the edge of the bat or something like that. Unfortunately that's just part of the game. It happens. Leg Byes are no worse in that. Going by your argument, a bowler beating the batsman's edge is worse batting than getting the edge and getting caught behind is. Though, there can be definite technique in managing to keep the bat inside the ball and miss it when it beats you rather than following it and getting the knick. Similar with leg byes, it can be part of good technique to get something behind the ball so that if it misses the bat you still get some pad on it and have a chance of getting some runs.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
I'm guessing he's an AFL fan. I'm pretty sure in that they can have their entire body outside the boundary as long as they are holding the ball inside the boundary. But I could be wrong about that as I really can't stand AFL and therefore don't watch any of it.
Eski
Guest
amazingly Paul it appears Ben is serious While attempting to mock people's intelligence on here all he has done is show own lack of cricket knowledge He wants eliminate the leg bye because it's "rewarding batting error" but then wants to reward fielding errors by allowing fielders to go into or over boundary with the ball Doesn't seem to understand that leg byes can occur from "bad bowling" not just "bad batting" And if this rule came in the numerous problems it causes in close games, batsmen getting out on wrong called extra deliveries , tailenders getting off strike or kept on strike because if wrong calls , batsmen being denied rotation of the strike because of wrong calls , sides denied fair runs , pointless pauses in the game as everyone waits for the ball to be collected at least 30 plus times a game How adding these problems to the game would benefit to it I would like to know ( keeping in mind leg byes happen from bad bowling as well)
Eski
Guest
So if there is a ball way down leg the batsmen tries to hit it can't reach flings his foot out clips the foot goes to fine leg Is that the bowler " beating the batsmen" or a crap delivery that the bowler otherwise would've got away with if it wasn't for a leg bye
Eski
Guest
Ben I never said the bowler only ever bowl at the stumps I pointed out if they don't hit the required zones for a lbw then they have "missed". Also " leg byes result from bad batting not bad bowling" so if a ball is missing leg by a foot the batsmen still tries to hit it and the result is it clips the batsmen and rolls down to fine leg Basically u have said that is bad batting not bad bowling can you explain how
Eski
Guest
a batsmen can still nick the ball and get caught when it is bowled at the stumps I can go further into detail if you need as it appears u have never seen this happen before
Paul D
Roar Guru
Well at least you'll feel at home amongst your equals then.
Ben Pobjie
Guest
Because bowlers obviously only ever bowl to hit the stumps, as there is no mode of dismissal besides bowled and lbw.
Ben Pobjie
Guest
Nah the comments have just shown how dumb the average commenter is.
Ben Pobjie
Guest
If the keeper misses, that's an error by the fielding team that is punished. A leg bye doesn't involve a fielding error - it is actually caused by the bowler beating the batsman.
JGK
Roar Guru
Is this Pobjie's first serious article on The Roar. Must be April Fool's Day. As to the question - I go the other way, leg byes should be awarded to the batsman.
Chancho
Roar Rookie
I agree the leg bye is something that does annoy me, simply due to the distortion on the scorecard... "12 extras! What were the bowling side doing?!?! Oh, 8 of those are from leg bye boundaries" But without trying to trivialise you Ben, the game has faaaaaaaaaar more problems ahead of the leg bye: - match fixing - poor governance at the ICC, which has lead to... - the betterment and increased power amongst the big three, which has lead to... - the detriment to the remaining nations and associate nations - the channel 9 commentary situation - commercial rights situation that precluded ABC covering the T20 World Cup - how the DRS is used - why India do not use DRS, surely it should be standard across all nations - front foot no ball - in fact, balance the ledger to give a bit back to the bowlers
spruce moose
Guest
Keep digging Paul...you'll reach China in no time.
Paul D
Roar Guru
Another great counterpoint. Who wants to see endless hotspot referrals to determine whether or not the batsmen are allowed to bludge a single off a ball trickling down to fine leg? And as you say, disputes in close finishes would become commonplace, particularly when you've got tailenders trying to get anything on the ball and take off in a last over clutch end to a game. "The leg bye is, at best, a cricketing appendix. It serves no purpose" I think the comments have shown that this statement is very much misplaced - it serves a pretty important purpose, which is to simplify and nullify what would quickly become a contentious and time-consuming issue. Anyways Ben, I don't know if you were serious or satirical in penning the article (probably a bit of both) but it's good to see some measured response and defence of the humble leg bye on its merits. It's a necessary evil in the game, for lack of a better term.
Eski
Guest
Yes Ben umpires decide what is a leg bye but it isn't scrutinised because they go to the team total. If you eliminate leg byes and teams start losing runs because an umpire missed an inside edge and thought it was leg byes this is going to start to create a different issue in the game
Paul D
Roar Guru
So what happens if the batsmen set off for a run and the umpire signals with his leg while they're halfway down the pitch - in terms of run outs? Is the ball dead immediately? Can they turn around and stroll back to their crease? or is the ball still live? Can they run through and make their ground at the opposite end, wait for the throw to be returned, then wander back to their respective ends afterwards? It sounds like a great way to add a lot of pointless running and meandering to the game, but I can't see any glaring reason why the game needs more of that.
Paul D
Roar Guru
Which happens what - once a year? How often does a batsman just stand there and play no shot? Whereas leg byes happen 20,30 times an innings. It's a facile comparison to draw between the two.