Out of sight, out of time

[talksport]

Dileep Premachandran at Cape Town January 5, 2007 The sudden loss of two wickets on the fourth morning left India in an embarrassing position. Virender Sehwag and Wasim Jaffer departed in quick succession, and with Rahul Dravid in the middle, the South African fielders and the two umpires had an interminable wait. For a while no one knew what was going on, with all eyes trained on the Indian dressing room. South Africa's fielders got increasingly agitated as time wore on. The three-minute interval after which a played can be timed out came and went, though by then the Indian team management had informed the umpires that there was a problem. Rajan Nair, the media manager, informed Cricinfo later that the delay had been the result of the time Sachin Tendulkar spent off the field on the third day. Tendulkar was padded up and ready to emerge when Jaffer's wicket fell at 10:43am, but Murray Brown, the fourth umpire, informed him that he wasn't supposed to be out there till after 10:48. In the resulting pandemonium, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly were asked to pad up. Out on the field, Daryl Harper informed Graeme Smith that the delay was a result of unforeseen circumstances and not a deliberate tactic. In the spirit of the game, he requested Smith not to appeal for a Timed-Out dismissal. Smith agreed. But by the time Ganguly finally made it to the middle, the clock has just ticked over to 10:49am. No batsman has been Timed-Out in international cricket but four have suffered the fate in first class games - Andrew Jordaan (Eastern Province v Transvaal at Port Elizabeth in 1987-88), Hemulal Yadav (Tripura v Orissa at Cuttack in 1997), Vasbert Drakes (Border v Free State at East London in 2002) and AJ Harris (Nottinghamshire v Durham UCCE at Nottingham in 2003). Law 31 (Timed out) (a) Unless Time has been called, the incoming batsman must be in position to take guard or for his partner to be ready to receive the next ball within 3 minutes of the fall of the previous wicket. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batsman will be out, Timed out. ( In the event of protracted delay in which no batsman comes to the wicket, the umpires shall adopt the procedure of Law 21.3 (Umpires awarding a match). For the purposes of that Law the start of the action shall be taken as the expiry of the 3 minutes referred to above. 2. Bowler does not get credit The bowler does not get credit for the wicket. Dileep Premachandran is features editor of Cricinfo ? Cricinfo