Pad Before Wicket: 250 Years of the LBW Law and Its Rewrites

Few laws of cricket have been argued over as long as leg before wicket. It is the dismissal that asks an umpire to judge something that did not happen: where a ball would have gone had the batter’s body not got in the way. That judgement has been reworded again and again since the 18th century, and each rewording has changed how batters play and how bowlers bowl.

1774: the law appears

Leg before wicket entered the Laws of cricket in 1774. The date commonly given for the meeting is 25 February 1774, at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall, London, where the London Cricket Club met. The original idea was about intent: a batter was out if he deliberately stopped the ball from hitting the wicket with his leg, or another part of his body that was not his bat.

The first rewrite came in 1788. Intent was dropped, because it is nearly impossible for an umpire to read a batter’s mind, and in its place came a geometric test: the ball had to pitch in a straight line. In 1839 the MCC clarified that a batter was out if the ball pitched between the wickets and would have hit the stumps. That wording survived for nearly a century.

The failed reform of 1902

In 1902 Alfred Lyttelton proposed removing the requirement that the ball must pitch in line. The proposal needed a two-thirds majority and failed.

1935: out even if it pitches outside off stump

The next change came as an experiment in 1935. A batter could now be given out if the ball pitched outside the off stump, provided it struck him in line with the wickets and would have gone on to hit them. The experiment was made permanent two years later, in 1937.

Critics of the change argued that it encouraged negative bowling at the expense of leg-spin, since a bowler could now attack the pads from outside off stump.

1970 to 1972: the shot rule

The next episode was shorter and odder. Trials of a variation began in Australia and the West Indies in the 1969-70 season, and took effect in England in 1970. Under it a batter could not be out lbw to a ball pitching outside off stump if he offered a shot, even if the ball struck him in line.

The current form arrived in 1972, adopted worldwide. A batter struck outside off stump can be out only if he made no genuine attempt to play the ball with his bat. The MCC added this wording to the printed Laws in 1980.

What Law 36 says now

Today the conditions are written out in Law 36. The fielding side must appeal. A no-ball means the batter cannot be out lbw. If the ball bounces, it must pitch in line with the wickets or on the off side, and a ball pitching outside leg stump can never be out. The ball must strike the batter in line with the wickets, or outside off stump if no genuine stroke was offered, and must be going on to hit the stumps. The umpire assumes the ball would have carried on along the same trajectory after striking the batter.

The law has therefore moved, over two and a half centuries, from asking whether a batter meant to block the ball to asking only where the ball pitched, where it hit and where it was going.

Technology and the modern game

The latest change is not in the wording but in how it is applied. Hawk-Eye first appeared on UK television in 2001. The Decision Review System, with ball-tracking included, was introduced in international cricket in 2009.

Why the argument never ends

The reason the law keeps being rewritten is built into it. Every version has to balance two goals, both of them sensible. One is to stop batters from using their legs as a second bat. The other is to avoid giving out a batter on the evidence of a ball that did not reach the stumps. Each rewrite moved the balance a little. A batter who plays a good stroke and is struck on the pad is protected only to the extent that the law says so, and what the law says has changed more often than most players realise.