Taking to the crease at number six for Sri Lanka, a team in desperate need of a good game in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup to keep semi final qualification potential alive, Angelo Mathews was ready to make his statement on the game. The team were 135-4 at the start of the 25th over in a must win game so clearly it was going to be a crucial and intense innings for the 35-year old.
However, in one of the most bizarre and surprising turn of events, Mathews didn’t even face one ball. Having taken too long to prepare at the crease, captain of the Bangladesh side Shakib Al Hasan had signalled to the umpires that he wanted to appeal Mathews for a timed out. This is one of those obscure cricket rules that exist but on the peripheral of everyone’s understanding of the game. The umpires reviewed and, for the first time in international cricket history, gave Mathews out by timed out.
The rules for being timed out in a limited overs game are in place to try and keep the game moving. It’s the same reason teams are restricted to a certain length of time per innings in a bid to keep the fast-flowing disciplines of the game fluid. Usually in ODI cricket, the ruling is that a batsman has three minutes to get to the crease and prepare to face the next ball after a dismissal. In the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, that changes to two minutes:
ICC MCWC 40.1.1 – After the fall of a wicket or the retirement of a batter, the incoming batter must, unless Time has been called, be ready to receive the ball or for the other batter to be ready to receive the next ball within 2 minutes of the dismissal or retirement. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batter will be out, Timed out.
The incident brought up a lot of questions, mainly because it is a type of dismissal that has only been seen six times previous and never before on the international stage, but it also brought up questions of the spirit of cricket and whether it was in the name of the game for Al Hasan to appeal the delay. This debate was strengthen at the time of the dismissal as it had seemed Mathews’ delay had been due to the chin strap on his helmet breaking as he got his guard from the on-field umpire.
To walk you through exactly what happened, Mathews walked out onto the field and took up his position at the on-strike end of the wicket. He spoke to the on field umpire to take his guard, and as he scrapped the crease with his stud he adjusted his chin strap which caused the material to fall away at one side, no longer securing the helmet to the Sri Lankan batsman’s head. He instantly took the helmet off, gesturing to the twelfth man to come onto the pitch with a new one before he was ready to face Sakib’s next ball.
It’s at this point Mathews noticed Al Hasan talking to the umpires and rushed over to explain the delay is because of his helmet. Al Hasam held his hands up, indicating for the batsman to talk to the umpires, but they did not deem this as a good enough excuse for exceeding the two-minute preparation window at the crease.
“When it comes to timed out, the incoming batter has to be in position to receive the ball within two minutes.” Fourth umpire of the game Adrian Holdstock explained on the world feed during the innings break as Bangladesh prepared to chase down 280. “The TV umpire monitors the two minutes and he will then relay the message to the standing umpire.
“In this instance, the batter wasn’t ready within those two minutes even before the strap became an issue for him. The two minutes had already elapsed.”
At the time of the incident, uproar about the spirit of the game surrounded Al Hasan’s decision not to retract the appeal whilst others questioned why Mathews didn’t just play on with the broken headgear, getting a new one either after his first ball or four balls later at the end of the over. This was an option because, bogglingly in RTS’ opinion, headgear is not mandatory when batsmen are facing spin bowlers. Players from Australia and India have been seen at the crease in this competition wearing caps rather than the protective helmets when facing spin attack because of the heat.
In a topic slightly off tangent to Mathew’s dismissal, it’s a curious ruling that allows protective headgear to be removed when facing any ball. The ECB set helmets as mandatory whenever one of their batsmen is at the crease, so even though the ICC dictate it is optional you will never see an English cricketer without one. It’s most surprising that Australian players will stand without a helmet considering the circumstances of Phillip Hughes death in 2014.
It’s also mind bending to RTS that stem guards, the small plastic protectors clipped onto the back of batsmen’s helmets, are optional across the board. Considering some of the nasty blows that have been seen in the past, notably two from the 2019 Ashes Series on Ben Stokes and Steve Smith, the latter of which caused Smith to miss a game of that series due to severe concussion.
Of course, a controversial dismissal is always going to open up the discussion of the spirit of cricket, just as the Jonny Bairstow stumping in this year’s Ashes series did. For the team making the controversial call, they’re defended by the fact that it’s the letter of the law of the game, and batsmen need to be more conscious of the basics when they’re at the crease. For those on the losing side of the fight, the decision in their opinion is always damaging to the overall game of cricket.
Mathews’ decision to not want to bat feeling uncomfortable or unsafe is a valid one, and very nearly brought into this conversation where safety lies in the ‘spirit of cricket’. But as it has since been revealed that, even before the helmet malfunction, Mathews’ was out of time, this argument wears a little thin. A bit like Bairstow walking from his crease before checking the ball was dead, it’s a lesson hard learnt for Mathews’ to make sure he’s to the crease in good time in the future.
Angelo Mathews is the first man to be timed out in an international game, but there have been other reported instances in first class cricket. ⏰
— Test Match Special (@bbctms) November 6, 2023
There are some bizarre ones here! #BBCCricket #CWC23 #BANvSL pic.twitter.com/ZQa7TvAwTT
The game was always going to be tightly fought between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh because for both it was a must win for different reasons. Whether Al Hasan knew the time had elapsed before Mathews’ chin strap broke or not doesn’t matter; he had made the appeal after the incident had happened and this is why the spirit of the game has been brought back into the limelight. When a competitive advantage comes along to dismiss a destructive player, a lot of teams would be hard pushed to not lean on the rules for their own benefit.
There was nothing wrong with the decision Al Hasan made, even if it did leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth and a hollow stomach. It’s up to you if you think it was or wasn’t the right thing for him to do.
The real question should be why had the umpires not declared the timed out before Al Hasan appealed they had been waiting too long? If the TV umpire was monitoring the two minutes, should they have not signalled to the standing umpire that the time had elapsed? Is it the case now that these slightly obscure rules are being left to the players to know and call out, and if that is true, are these rules becoming obsolete?
It makes sense to want to keep the shorter formats of the game moving, and it’s common knowledge to the batters that they have two minutes to get to the crease. But is two minutes enough, when usual ODI stipulates three? Should the umpires be more strict on these rules to be the ones declaring if the preparation time has elapsed? Or does everyone just need a refresher course on the weird and bizarre small print of cricket?
