Law 36d part ii
“or outside the line of the off stump, if the striker has made no genuine attempt to play the ball with his bat”

Now this is something that’s been bugging me for many years, and last night I saw the perfect example of why.

Sure it’s struck the pad outside the line of off, but if Ganguly was really playing a shot then his bat wouldn’t be hiding behind his freaking pad. I know these appeals usually go to the batsman (Aleem Dar’s randomness aside), and I know it’s not unique to Ganguly – all international batsmen use this as a way to negate spinners.

This sort of play is a blatant attempt to take advantage from the lbw law, and umpires should stamp out this behaviour.

To spell it out, “A genuine attempt to play the ball” is one whereby the batsman genuinely attempts to hit the ball. If the toe of the bat ends up in the arch of a batsman’s foot with the face of the bat completely hidden behind a pad, then no such genuine attempt has been made, and as such LBW should be back on the table. In the example shown the ball was on track to hit middle stump halfway up, which for me would be Sayonara Sourav.

Were the MCC to come out and announce that they were looking for this law to be interpreted as written, we would have a more exciting game of cricket, especially on 5th days of tests. Batsmen can no longer hide behind their pads for anything outside the line, more balls would be played at, more wickets would fall, and more tests would end with a result.

Oh, a little treat at the end is Zaheer Khan talking about raising his bar, something we should all endevour to do.