7 Dismissals That Will Make You Question Everything You Know About Cricket

Cricket is the only sport where you can be dismissed without the ball touching you, without touching the ball, or without even facing one. The Laws have eleven ways to send a batter back to the pavilion, and every so often the game reaches into the darkest corner of the rulebook and pulls something extraordinary out.

1. Timed Out: Angelo Mathews, 2023 World Cup

He walked to the crease, took his guard, and then his helmet strap snapped. He called for a replacement, and in that brief moment of equipment failure, Shakib Al Hasan appealed, the umpires conferred, and Angelo Mathews was given out without facing a single delivery.

In 146 years of international cricket, no batter had ever been dismissed this way. On a November afternoon in Delhi, in a World Cup match already crackling with tension, it finally happened.

2. Handled the Ball: Graham Gooch, 1993

Gooch was 133 not out at Old Trafford, carrying England almost single-handedly in a match they were losing, when a delivery from Merv Hughes reared up off the pitch and lobbed dangerously toward his stumps. Instinct took over. He flicked it away with his hand, and as soon as he did, he knew. The next morning's papers were unanimous: Gooch hands the Ashes to Australia.

3. Handled the Ball: Steve Waugh, 2001

Same law, same score, different era. At Chennai in 2001, with Australia sitting comfortably at 340 for 3, Waugh missed a sweep off Harbhajan Singh and watched the ball loop up and spin back toward his stumps. He swatted it away with his hand before it could hit them. The appeal went up, the finger went up, and one of the most unbreakable batters of his generation walked off for exactly the same instinct that had cost Gooch eight years earlier.

4. Obstructing the Field: Ben Stokes, 2015

England were chasing 309 at Lord's in an ODI against Australia when Stokes pushed a defensive shot back at Mitchell Starc, who fired the ball straight at the stumps. Stokes turned away and dived back for his crease, but his outstretched hand stopped the throw. The Australians appealed immediately, the third umpire reviewed it in slow motion, and amid a chorus of boos from the Lord's crowd, Stokes was given out for 10. It was only the sixth such dismissal in the entire history of one-day internationals.

5. Hit the Ball Twice: Romania vs Malta

This dismissal has never happened in a Test match. It has never happened in an ODI. The only recorded instance in international cricket exists in a T20I between Romania and Malta, a match most of the world never watched, featuring a dismissal almost no one will ever see again. The law dates back centuries. The dismissal barely exists.

6. Retired Out: Atapattu and Jayawardene, 2001

Marvan Atapattu was 201 not out and Mahela Jayawardene was also in the middle when both men, fully fit and with runs on the board, chose to walk off the field voluntarily. They retired out, becoming the only two Test players in history to be dismissed this way, and they managed to do it in the same match.

7. Hit Wicket: Roy Fredericks, 1975 World Cup Final

The first ball of the very first World Cup final. Dennis Lillee steamed in, the whole of Lord's watching, and West Indian opener Roy Fredericks hooked it clean out of the ground for six. The crowd erupted. And then the bails fell.

Fredericks had lost his footing mid-shot and his leg had clipped the stumps on the way through. Six and dismissed, simultaneously, in a World Cup final. He walked off for 7, the ball still in the stands.

Cricket is a strange, beautiful, completely unreasonable sport.