I was watching the one day match between Sri Lanka and Australia on TV last night (actually, I happened to flick past it, but didn’t watch to the end), and one of the Sri Lankan bowlers was bowling heaps of no-balls, some of which were hit for runs.
Now I know that the batting team gets a run for the no ball as a penalty against the bowler, plus the ball is bowled again. Who gets credited with the runs? Does the batsman get them added to his total, or do they go down as extra extras? Is it denoted on the score cards in any special way?
What about wides? I assume if the batsman hits it, it isn’t wide, but what if it goes for byes or legbyes? Are they denoted in any special way?
Also how are wides/no-balls scored if runs/byes are also scored - do you get the one run penalty for the wide/no-ball plus whatever runs/byes are scored from that ball or do you get the runs/byes instead of the penalty?
The batsman is credited with any runs they score from hitting a no ball (from the Law 24 )
The position with wides seems to be similar (see law 25.6 at the same site). Note that a ball is no longer a wide if the batsman moves far enough to “bring the ball sufficiently within his reach to be able to hit it with his bat by means of a normal cricket stroke” (Law 25.2(a)(ii)).
The batting team always receives a penalty run for a no ball or wide, regardless of any other runs scored.
And imagine one of you limeys complained that a football headline was not English. The above could have been in Singhalese for all the sense I could make of it.
I think I now understand the runs off a no ball, but I read the laws and then what Caught@Work said about wides, and I’m still confused.
I got it that byes/runs/whatever scored off a wide go down on the scorecard as wides (so you can get 4 wides for example), but is that in addition to the 1 run penalty for the wide itself or instead of?
What’s a 5 run penalty when it’s at home? I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of that happening.
Are the rules about no balls and wides and stuff different for one day cricket than for test cricket? I vaguely recall something about two run penalties for wides or no balls but I don’t see that happening in any of the matches this summer…
There’s a surprisingly large number of ways to get a five run penalty, see law 42.17 here
The most common example is where the ball hits any spare equipment on the field (usually the helmet used by close in fielders). This happened in one of the recent India- New Zealand games. I think the Indian keeper missed a tough catch and the ball glanced off the helmet so NZ were awarded five penalty runs.
I’ve never seen any penalty runs awarded for any of the other reasons listed in the Laws.
An interesting aside to the 5 runs for hitting the helmet. The reason that the helmet, if not in use, is placed behind the 'keeper is due to English spinner Phil Edmonds. He used to place the helmet in positions where he wanted to encourage the batsman to hit, usually obliging them to hit against the spin in an attempt at the 5 runs. His other innovation was bowling Mike Brearley to “embarrass out” the batsman, who would feel obliged to hit every ball for 6.
