Dissecting the LBW

From S Giridhar and VJ Raghunath

This piece like earlier ones began as an animated discussion between the two of us. This time about umpiring in general and LBW in particular. The essence of the LBW Law has remained the same over time: a) to be LBW the ball must hit the batsman in line with the stumps and is likely to hit the stumps beyond any reasonable doubt; b) if the ball pitches outside leg you cannot be leg before even if that delivery was likely to hit the stumps; c) one can be LBW even if the batsman is struck outside the off stump provided the batsman is not offering a stroke in the opinion of the umpire (this rule was introduced around 1970).

The two significant changes that have occurred in the last twenty years are: a) the introduction of neutral umpires; b) use of technology for line decisions and referrals for clean catches.

So why are we seeing an increase in the percentage of LBW in recent years? Are the rules being interpreted differently? Are the umpires not applying benefit of doubt in the same manner as before? Since neutral umpires were introduced around 1990, we examined the LBW dismissals for the period 1930 to 1989 and for the period since 1990. The summary is given below:

In the period since 1990, LBW dismissals as a percentage of total dismissals have risen to 16.7% from 13% in the period 1930 to 1989. That is a 30% increase in the incidence of LBW dismissals in the last 20 years as compared to earlier years. When we looked for Test matches which had the maximum LBW dismissals, our search showed almost all the top entries are from post 1980 tests.

Next we stacked up 20 batsmen each from the pre and post-1989 period based on the percentage of their LBW dismissals. We found that 17 of the 20 pre-1989 era batsmen have the least percentage of LBW decisions. Don Bradman, Len Hutton and Sunil Gavaskar have been dismissed less than 10% of the time LBW while Garry Sobers, Colin Cowdrey, Gavaskar, Gundappa Viswanath and Zaheer Abbas have been dismissed less than 11.5 % of the time LBW. The only oldies in our sample with a higher percentage were Ken Barrington (20.7%), Javed Miandad (19.6%) and Vijay Manjrekar (15.9%). In contrast, the post-1990 era batsmen have the higher percentage LBW dismissals. Graeme Smith, Younis khan, Nasser Hussain, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Sachin Tendulkar have been dismissed LBW in excess of 20% of their innings; Ricky Ponting, Inzimam-ul-Haq, Chris Gayle and Alec Stewart have been dismissed LBW in over 18% of their innings and Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis, Mark Waugh, Justin Langer, Michael Atherton and Sanath Jayasuriya have been out LBW in over 16 % of their innings. Among the post-1990 players, Mahela Jayewardene is the sole exception with a lower LBW percentage (10.5%)

Back then, batsmen enjoyed a consistent and clear benefit of doubt on LBW with umpires. It was an unwritten rule for umpires that when a batsman played well forward, he would not be given out LBW. You wouldn’t want to be the one who gave a Sobers, Richards, Gavaskar or Miandad out wrongly and changed the course of the match. The batsmen of the sixties and seventies with great reputations like Cowdrey for instance, used this advantage well both in shot selection and risk taking. The old English adage-“when in doubt stretch forward” was employed by all great batsmen with little fear or uncertainty. Good batsmen made runs. When they got a start, they made big scores - the crowds came to watch their favourites hit centuries.

The downside was that batsmen could get away with a lot of pad play. In the fifties and sixties cricket was threatened by masters of pad play. The barracker at Sydney became immortal when he angrily asked an English batsman to tie his bat to his legs because he would score more runs that way! In 1967, at Chennai, when Charlie Griffith joined Sobers (with only Hall and Gibbs to follow), there were still 90 minutes left on the last day for India to seek victory. Sobers asked Griffith to stretch forward and take everything on his front pad - with complete confidence that he would not be given out. It is probably to neutralize such pernicious pad play that the rule change to penalize batsmen padding up outside off stump was introduced around 1970.

It is fascinating to note that for the period 1930-89, the higher percentage of LBW against visiting teams as compared to home team is sharply evident in the case of the sub-continent. In contrast there is hardly any difference in percentage of LBW decisions for the home team and opposition teams in England, Australia, South Africa and West Indies. In fact in New Zealand the percentage of home team LBW is greater than the guests.

The picture since 1990, i.e. the neutral umpire era is equally interesting. The difference in LBW for Home team and opposition team has been greatly reduced in the sub continent. On the other hand the percentage of opposition LBW has risen above home team LBW in the case of Australia. See table below.

In essence, neutral umpires meant two things: a) only the best umpires in the world would form an elite panel; b) it would serve to take away the long nursed grudge that home umpires tilted the game in favour of the home team.

While the overall increase in LBW since 1990 is evident, the numbers remain relatively lower in Australia and South Africa. One very strong and logical reason for this is that the wickets are bouncier and so often the ball would go over the stumps. The one caveat about neutral umpires is that sometimes they are not able to judge the bounce as well as a local umpire would do knowing the conditions better.

The current crop of top batsmen - Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis, Younis, Chanderpaul or Pietersen –unlike batsmen of the earlier era - are being given out LBW more often. The batsman plays half forward defensively or is trying to work the ball to leg, is rapped on the front pad, apparently in line with the leg stump (ball still has to travel 7 to 8 feet to the stumps). You are surprised to see the umpire raising the finger and stupefied to see Hawk-eye showing the ball kissing the legstump. The TV commentator who has played enough cricket to know that Hawk Eye is wrongly named then says with minimum conviction, “Hawk Eye says that would hit leg stump”. The Hawk Eye is positioned high up and has an inherent inability to extrapolate and predict the destination of the ball after pitching. Those who watched cricket before the seventies will remember that umpires in those days crouched low so that their eyes were almost at stump level.

Finally it all boils down to good umpiring – which means consistency in decision making. It does not matter that Dickie Bird or Venkataraghavan would make instant judgments or that others needed to play it over and over in their minds. From Chester to Buller in the early days to Dickie Bird, David Shepherd, S Venkatraghavan and Simon Taufel in recent times, the best umpires understood the essence of umpiring and displayed consistency and predictability in their rulings. In that split second of time an umpire has to look at the bowler’s landing foot, instantly look up and judge length, line, height, deviation, catch the sound of an inside edge and decide LBW or not LBW. Umpires used their judgment and applied the unwritten code of benefit of doubt consistently. The best umpires got most of their decisions right. Today, the pressure on modern day umpires is becoming unbearable with every decision being cruelly dissected by Slo-Mo, Hawk-Eye, Snickometer and Hot Spot.

Having written all this we took the opportunity to chat informally with Venkat about umpiring. We could not have gone to a person with better credentials – the only umpire in the world to have played over 50 Tests and also captained his country in Tests and the World Cup; on the ICC Elite panel of umpires, winner of the CEAT Award and adjudged one of the best umpires and one who earned the highest respect from all, both during his days as a player and later as an umpire. The essence of what Venkat said about umpiring and LBW decisions was: The good umpire, besides integrity needs concentration and competence to achieve consistency. The powers of concentration cannot be over emphasized, when one remembers that the umpires are there for 90 overs a day for all five days without a break. The din and noise from the crowd can make it very difficult. This concentration and consistency is what a good umpire demonstrates in the LBW. He will make the same decision whether the batsman is a No.1 or 2 or whether he is 9, 10 or jack. Though himself a bowler, Venkat said that one must bear in mind that when a batsman plays forward, even to a spinner, the ball is quite likely to bounce higher than stump height, unless it hits him below the shin. As an engineer, he says, he could appreciate the uncertainty of line and height over 8 to 10 feet of travel. This analysis and judgment of whether the ball would hit the stumps is the crux of competence in judging LBW.