How changing the LBW law would change cricket

The unscheduled hiatus to the game has brought reflection about all facets of the sport, even extending to the laws of the game. Earlier this month, former Australia captain Ian Chappell advocated drastic changes to the LBW law.

The law, Chappell wrote, should be reformed. “The new LBW law should simply say: ‘Any delivery that strikes the pad without first hitting the bat and, in the umpire’s opinion, would go on to hit the stumps is out regardless of whether or not a shot is attempted,’” he said. “Forget where the ball pitches and whether it strikes the pad outside the line or not; if it’s going to hit the stumps, it’s out.”

There is certainly some merit in changing one of cricket’s most confusing laws. If the ball hits the pad outside the line of off stump and the batsmen happens to be playing a shot, they are effectively rewarded for failure. Why does trying to hit the ball and missing it entitle a batsman to remain at the crease, yet not trying to hit the ball is evidence that they should be given out?

There are other bewildering aspects to the LBW law too. Why the bizarre double standards between the ball pitching outside the line of off stump (still possible to get an LBW) and one pitching outside the line of leg stump (impossible to get an LBW)? This law is a Victorian anachronism, a legacy of an age when it was considered ungentlemanly to score runs on the leg side, and it is hard to mount a case for its relevance to cricket in 2020.

So changing the laws on LBWs would have many beneficial effects. Ending these bizarre distinctions would be fairer. It could encourage more tactical innovation - think of round-the-wicket bowling to right-handers, of the type we saw from Jimmy Anderson during a mesmerising spell under the lights in the Adelaide Test in 2017; one such delivery trapped Steve Smith in front of his leg stump - only, because the ball had pitched fractionally outside leg stump, Smith was reprieved.

One of the least attractive aspects of the sport - a batsmen padding away deliveries, especially from left-arm spinners, in the knowledge that they can’t be given out leg-before if it has pitched outside leg stump - would end, with more attacking play encouraged. And simplifying the LBW laws would make the game more decipherable to new fans, including in new frontiers.

Without trialling the new rules we can’t be certain how they would play out, and what new strategies they would inspire. But CricViz's ball-by-ball tracking data of all forms of the game since 2006 suggests that enforcing Chappell’s desired changes would be a boon to bowlers - in what is already a golden age for Test bowling.

In all three formats, there would be a 167% increase in leg-before dismissals if the ball did not need to pitch or hit the batsman in line, the analysis suggests.

The upshot would be that a wicket would fall every 51 balls in first-class cricket, rather than every 61, and first-class averages would plummet a whole six runs. The average score for the loss of ten wickets in a first-class game would drop from 326 to 267.

Bowlers would also benefit, to a lesser degree, in one-day international and Twenty20 cricket.

The point is that, however desirable all these changes might be individually, collectively they could bring some unwanted effects to the fabric of the sport. This is not a reason why changes should not be explored - eroding the discrepancy between the off-side and leg-side in LBW decisions, for instance. But caution is needed, too, for any changes to the LBW law could affect the delicate equilibrium between bat and ball, on which the sport depends.