4 Less-common modes of dismissals in cricket

4. Timed out

Batsmen need to adhere to the 3-minute rule while coming out to bat

Law 31 of the MCC rules state that “After the fall of a wicket or the retirement of a batsman, the incoming batsman must, unless Time has been called, be in position to take guard or for his partner to be ready to receive the next ball within 3 minutes of the dismissal or retirement. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batsman will be out, Timed out.”

The rules of cricket initially mentioned the provision of 2 minutes to the incoming batsman after which the player would have been timed out – and the time was extended to 3 minutes in 2000. In the T20 version of cricket, the stipulated time to be at the crease is 90 seconds instead of 3 minutes to ensure that the game moves on at a brisk pace.

Till date, there hasn’t been any case of a player being dismissed for being timed out – however there was a close call in 2007 in a Test between South Africa and India, when there was some confusion over Sachin Tendulkar being allowed to come into bat because of leaving the field in South Africa’s innings. Ultimately Sourav Ganguly came out to bat, after 6 minutes of the previous batsman Wasim Jaffer’s dismissal.

There was a possibility that Proteas could have looked to appeal to get the incoming batsman dismissed as timed out. However, the umpires informed skipper Graeme Smith that because of the confusion caused by the rules, they wouldn’t entertain an appeal.

Till date, there have been 5 batsmen who have been dismissed for being timed out in first-class cricket. An amusing incident was when former West Indian international Vasbert Drakes was given out for South African domestic team Border in their game against Free State. Expecting the player to be available for the game, the side included him in the XI, but Drakes’ flight to South Africa was severely delayed and he couldn’t even reach the country when the game started.