4 Less-common modes of dismissals in cricket

2. Handled the ball

Quoting the Law 33 in the MCC rulebook, a batsman is dismissed for handling the ball when “in the act of playing a ball delivered by the bowler, he wilfully strikes the ball with a hand not holding the bat. This will apply whether No ball has been called or not and whether it is the first strike or a second or subsequent strike.”

However, if the handling action was to avoid an injury, the batsman isn’t out as per the rules - the striker will not be out Handled the ball if the strike with a hand not holding the bat is in order to avoid injury.

The bowler doesn’t get the credit for the wicket when a batsman is dismissed for handling the ball either.

The first instance of such a dismissal in international cricket was in 1957 in a Test match between South Africa and England at Cape Town when the host batsman Russell Endean padded a delivery from Jim Laker, only to see the ball head towards the stumps. In an instinctive reaction to prevent the ball from hitting the wickets, Endean palmed away the ball and was given out.

Till date, there have been 9 instances of a batsman being given out for “handling the ball” – 7 in Tests and 2 in ODIs – with the most two recent dismissals being that of Steve Waugh and Michael Vaughan against India in Tests at Chennai and Bangalore respectively in 2001.

Former Indian batsman Mohinder Amarnath is the only batsman in international cricket to have been dismissed for obstructing the field and handling the ball, with both instances coming in ODIs.

There have been 59 instances of a batsman being dismissed for handling the ball in first-class cricket, with the most recent instance being Cheteshwar Pujara getting out when playing for Derbyshire vs Leicestershire in 2014.