6 less known laws of cricket

#4 Restriction of injured player

An injured player’s return to the action is fraught with restrictions

We all know about the restrictions required when a fielder leaves the playing ground. A fielder needs to get permission from the umpire and notify them when they leave the field.

When a player fails to inform the umpire, a penalty of five runs will be awarded to the batting side. However, and this is where it starts to get tricky, if a bowler happens to be longer than 15 minutes off the field, they cannot bowl for the allocated time they were away for. Things get complicated when an innings passes by.

An example of this situation happened in 2007 between India and South Africa, where Sachin Tendulkar was off the field for 18 minutes at the end of the first innings of the Test match. India lost two quick wickets and Tendulkar, who was supposed to come in at number four, couldn’t, because his 18 minutes hadn’t passed.