Cricket's Time Out

Law 31. Timed Out

(a) Unless "Time" has been called, the incoming batsman must be in position to take guard or for his partner to be ready to receive the next ball within three minutes of the fall of the previous wicket. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batsman will be out, Timed out.

(b) In the event of protracted delay in which no batsman comes to the wicket, the umpires shall adopt the procedure of Law 21.3 (Umpires awarding a match). For the purpose of that Law the start of the action shall be taken as the expiry of the three minutes referred to above.
( source: The Laws of Cricket, Wisden Cricketers' Almanac 2006)
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At 10:43 am local time, today in the 3rd cricket test between India and South Africa, Wassim Jaffer got out. India had just lost its other opener just a while back. Tendulkar, the official no.4 was all padded up with nowhere to go - because of yet another Law of Cricket ( Law 2.5, fielder absent or leaving the field) Tendulkar was eligible to bat only at a point of time after 10:48 am. Together, all these were sufficient to create pandemonium in the Indian dressing room.

If Graeme Smith had been as much a stickler of the rules as Stephen Fleming had been a while back in Newzealand, we could have seen international cricket's first case of Timed Out today. India's next batsman, Suarav Ganguly, came into bat only at 10:49 am - 3 minutes after the legal deadline. The Indian manager had however sent a message earlier and convinced Graeme Smith not to press for a Timed Out dismissal. Thank you, Mr. Smith for keeping the spirit of cricket alive.

A couple of interesting questions do come to mind:

- Cricket's Law 31 is not very clear about who would have been given out. Would it have been Sachin, the official number 4 or VVS Laxman/Ganguly, the next eligible batsman?

- For the above I have assumed that the umpires go by the official player list, given in order by the team management before start of play. In the current test, India's opening pair changed - does the captain give out a new list at the beginning of the second innings? Else, the batsman to be given timed out may have already been out!!

- Why did Saurav Ganguly step in? Where was VVS Laxman? The official version is that he was under the shower - in their post match remarks on Star Sports, Messers Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar rubbished the official position. The experience duo (they a combined experience of more than a 1000 days of international cricket) was pretty sure that VVS Laxman was not under the shower at all, though very, very close to it. What shit is that!!