Angelo Mathews timed out, Steve Waugh handled the ball – and other unusual dismissals in Test cricket
There are eleven different ways to be dismissed in Test cricket.
We all know the common ones – bowled, caught, LBW, stumped and run out. After that it starts to become a little more obscure and unusual with hit-wicket, handled the ball, obstructing the field, retired out, hit the ball twice and timed out completing the set of available dismissals.
Some of these are so rare that they have never actually happened in a Test, while others have even been written out of the rule books.
Here’s a quick look at the five most uncommon methods of dismissal in Test cricket.
5. Handled the ball (seven times)
Handled the Ball is no longer an official way to be given out after it was incorporated into the rules under Obstructing the Field in 2017. Nevertheless, it has happened seven times in Test cricket.
The batsmen to be dismissed in this way are Russell Endean, Andrew Hilditch, Mohsin Khan, Desmond Haynes, Graham Gooch, Steve Waugh and Michael Vaughan.
Curiously South African wicketkeeper Russell Endean who was given out Handled the Ball at Newlands in 1957 was also a central figure in the Obstructing the Field dismissal of Len Hutton in 1951, when Hutton swatted the ball away from his stumps as Endean looked to complete a catch.
4. Retired out (twice)
It has happened twice in the history of Test cricket and curiously both times were in the same game. It was a 2001 Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in Colombo that saw the home side win by a massive innings and 137 runs.
It was carnage as a powerful Sri Lanka side scored 555 runs in their only innings. Marvan Atapattu (201) and Mahela Jayawardene (150) were the two baters who retired out – having filled their boots with runs they decided to call it a day and let some of their teammates enjoy themselves.
Their actions were not well received and were deemed to be outside the spirit of the game, and nobody has retired out since in a Test.
There was one other incident of a player retiring out. In 1983, West Indies‘ Gordon Greenidge retired out with his score on 154.
His motivation was slightly different to Atapattu and Jayawardene as he needed to go and visit his critically ill daughter in hospital. She died two days later and the powers that be agreed to leave Greenidge as retired not out.
3. Obstructing the field (twice)
This method of dismissal has happened twice in the long history of the game. Len Hutton was given out obstructing the field in a Test against South Africa in 1951 while Mushfiqur Rahim was given out the same way in 2023 when playing New Zealand in Mirpur.
In Mushfiqur’s case it would probably have been given out as handled the ball had that method of dismissal not been taken out of the rules of cricket and incorporated into Obstructing the field.
2. Hit the ball twice
So rare that it has never happened in a Test and only once in an international – and a very insignificant one at that, a T20I between Romania and Malta.
This is a complicated rule, because firstly a batsman is allowed to hit the ball twice if it is to stop the ball hitting his stumps and secondly because he doesn’t actually need to hit it all to be adjudged to have hit the ball twice.
Curious. In short, a batsman is deemed to have hit the ball if it hits his person or his bat. So theoretically if it hit his pads twice, he could be given out. The key element here is the second hit which needs to be intentionally making separate contact with the ball.
1. Timed out
A batsman is deemed to have been timed out if they willfully take longer than three minutes to be ready to face a delivery. Typically, this happens following the fall of wicket, but it could happen at any stage of a game if there is sufficient delay.
It has never occurred in a Test cricket match and has happened just once in an international – Sri Lanka‘s Angelo Mathews the culprit in a 2023 World Cup game against Bangladesh.
Read next: Did Chris Gayle get named in this West Indies’ best Test XI of the past 40 years?