LBW in Cricket – Rules, Types, and Records

LBW is the acronym for ‘leg before wicket’ and it is one of the modes of dismissals in cricket, or in much simpler terms, it is one of the ways by which a batsman gets out.

Now, this mode of dismissal is not as direct or clear to the eyes as other modes of dismissals like bowled, caught out, run out, and so on, because there is a checklist that needs to be ticked before a batsman is given out lbw.

For someone who is new to the world of cricket, or someone who is not completely aware of all the boxes that need to be ticked in an lbw decision, it may get confusing to figure out when and how a batsman is given lbw out for almost whenever the ball hits the any of the two legs of the batsman, the bowler and the fielding team appeals to the umpire and sometimes the umpire declares out and sometimes declares not out.

Here in this article, is going to be detailed information related to all the things about this rather cryptic mode of dismissal called ‘LBW’.

The 3 criteria for lBW

For a batsman to get out LBW, 3 criteria need to be fulfilled:

1. Pitching in line/outside off
2. The impact
3. Hitting wickets 

So, there is a ‘50% rule’ in each of the 3 criteria mentioned above.

1. ‘For Pitching in line/outside off criterion – This means when the ball touches the pitch, the ball must not touch the pitch outside the leg stump of the batsman by more than 50% of its size. Either the ball should land on the off side of the batsman or in line of the wickets or by less than 50% outside the leg stump.
2. The impact criterion is about the immediate point of contact between the ball and the batsman’s leg, which must be ‘in line with the wicket. That is more than 50% of the ball size has to be in line with the wicket at the point of contact with the batsman’s leg.
3. For wicket hitting – The ball must go on to hit the wicket had the ball not hit the leg of the batsman and more than 50% of the ball has to be hitting the wicket.

If according to the on-field umpire, all the 3 conditions are met, that is the ball is pitching outside off or in line with the wicket by more than 50%, and the impact is in line with the wicket by more than 50%, and more than 50% of the ball should go on to hit the wicket, then the umpire will give the batsman out lbw.

Now, the batsman, if he wants can review the decision taken by the umpire, a detailed guide to the decision review system has been covered in this article.

That’s all that goes behind the lbw rule in cricket, here are top the 10 bowlers who took the most wickets as lbw –

Most wickets as LBW in cricket (Combined Test, ODI, and T20I cricket)

Sl. No.	Bowler	Country	Span	Matches	Total Wickets	Total Wickets as LBW	% of Wickets as LBW
1	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	1992 – 2011	495	1347	216	16.03%
2	Wasim Akram	Pakistan	1984 – 2003	460	916	211	23.03%
3	Anil Kumble	India	1990 – 2008	403	956	210	21.96%
4	Shane Warne	Australia	1992 – 2007	339	1001	186	18.58%
5	Waqar Younis	Pakistan	1989 – 2003	349	789	183	23.19%
6	Chaminda Vaas	Sri Lanka	1994 – 2009	439	761	171	22.47%
7	Glenn McGrath	Australia	1993 – 2007	376	949	161	16.96%
8	Kapil Dev	India	1978 – 1994	356	687	152	22.12%
9	Shaun Pollock	South Africa	1995 – 2008	423	829	145	17.49%
10	Daniel Vettori	New Zealand	1997 – 2015	442	705	140	19.85%

FAQs on LBW

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