Timed out is a method of dismissal in the sport of

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

. It occurs when an incoming

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

is not ready to play within three minutes of the previous batsman being out. It is very rare to be out in such a fashion, and has never occurred in any international match.

Definition

Law 40 of the ''

Laws of Cricket The ''Laws of Cricket'' is a code which specifies the rules of the game of cricket worldwide. The earliest known code was drafted in 1744 and, since 1788, it has been owned and maintained by its custodian, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in Lond ...

'' provides that an incoming batsman must be in position to take guard or for his partner to be ready to receive the next ball within three minutes of the fall of the previous

wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batsman will be given out, timed out, on

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

. The "incoming batsman" may be any batsman who has not yet batted. There is no prescribed batting order in cricket. If no batsman has set foot on the field when the appeal is made, the batting captain may pick any player who has not yet batted as the one to be given out. As a result, if the next batsman was only slightly delayed, the captain would be expected to sacrifice his worst

—usually the No. 11. If there is protracted delay in which no batsman comes to the wicket so that the umpires consider that the batting team is refusing to play, the umpires will award the match to the other team. If, however, no player comes to the wicket because all eligible players are unable to bat (e.g. through injury or illness) then they are not given out ''timed out''; instead the innings is declared closed and "absent ill/injured/hurt" is noted next to those players' names as appropriate. The rules of

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

cricket stipulate that a batsman must be on the field within 90 seconds, rather than the three minutes specified in the Laws. As a result, rather than sitting in the

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

, the batsman next in is positioned on a bench on the boundary, in a similar manner to some other team sports such as association football and rugby.

Unusual dismissal

The purpose of the law is to ensure there are no unnecessary delays to the game. It is easily avoided and it is very unusual for a batsman to get out 'timed out'. , there have been no instances of this type of dismissal in

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

cricket and there have only been six instances in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

as a whole.

Batsmen dismissed 'timed out' in first-class cricket

# Andrew Jordaan – Eastern Province v Transvaal at

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...

in 1987–88 – Not out overnight, Jordaan was prevented from reaching the ground by flooded roads the following day. # Hemulal Yadav – Tripura v Orissa at

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka ) in Odia is the former capital and the second largest city in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised form of ''Kataka'' which literall ...

in 1997–98 – Yadav was in conversation with his team manager on the boundary and did not attempt to reach the crease. #

Vasbert Drakes Vasbert Conniel Drakes (born 5 August 1969 in Springhead, Saint Andrew, Barbados) is a former West Indian cricketer, who played Tests and ODIs. He was a right-arm medium-fast bowler and handy right-hand lower order batsman. Drakes featured fo ...

– Border v Free State at

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

in 2002 – Drakes was still on his way to the match by aeroplane from his native West Indies when he was due to bat. # AJ Harris – Nottinghamshire v Durham UCCE at

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

in 2003 – Harris was suffering from a groin strain and took too long to walk to the crease and was given out on appeal. #

Ryan Austin Ryan Anthony Austin, born 15 November 1981 in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago, is a West Indies cricketer. A lower-order right-handed batsman and a right-arm off-spin bowler, Austin played 22 first-class matches for Barbados between the 2000–01 an ...

– Combined Campuses and Colleges v Windward Islands at Kingstown, St Vincent in 2013–14 – Austin, the number 11 batsman, failed to reach the crease in the requisite amount of time. # Charles Kunje - Matabeleland Tuskers v Mountaineers at

Bulawayo Bulawayo (, ; Ndebele: ''Bulawayo'') is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council cl ...

in 2017-18.

Test cricket

The third

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

of the 2006–2007 series between

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

was played at the

Newlands Cricket Ground Newlands Cricket Ground (known as Six Gun Grill Newlands for sponsorship reasons) in Cape Town is a South African cricket ground. It is the home of the Cape Cobras, who play in the Sunfoil Series, Momentum 1 Day Cup and RamSlam Pro20 compet ...

. In India's second innings, two batsmen were quickly dismissed.

Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (; ; born 24 April 1973) is an Indian former international cricketer who captained the Indian national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the all time highest run-scor ...

was listed as the fourth batsman. As he had been replaced as a fielder for eighteen minutes at the end of South Africa's innings, he was ineligible to bat in the India second innings until another eighteen minutes had expired from its commencement. After a six-minute delay,

Sourav Ganguly Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (; natively spelled as Gangopadhyay; born 8 July 1972), affectionately known as Dada (meaning ''"elder brother"'' in Bengali), is an Indian cricket administrator, commentator and former national cricket team captain w ...

came in as the next batsman. South African captain

Graeme Smith Graeme Craig Smith (born 1 February 1981) is a South African cricket commentator and former cricketer who played for South Africa in all formats. In 2003, he was appointed captain of the national team, taking over from Shaun Pollock. He held th ...

did not appeal for a "timed out" dismissal of the incoming batsman.

History

"Timed Out" as a specific method of dismissal was added to the Laws in the 1980 code. It provided two minutes for the incoming batsman to "step on to the field of play". In the 2000 code, this was revised to three minutes for the batsman to "be in position to take guard or for his partner to be ready to receive the next ball". However, the first printed Laws of cricket, in 1775, already required the umpires "To allow Two Minutes for each Man to come in when one is out". In 1919,

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

cricketer Harold Heygate was given out by the umpire

Alfred Street Alfred Street is a street running between the High Street to the north and the junction with Blue Boar Street and Bear Lane at the southern end, in central Oxford, England.

as "timed out" in a first-class

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

match with

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

. MCC, then in charge of the Laws, later ruled that the umpire was correct in ending the Sussex innings when Heygate failed to appear within two minutes, but that the batsman should be marked as "absent", which is how it appears in the 1920 edition of

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

. Under present rules, Heygate would have been recorded as "absent hurt", and this is how his innings is now recorded in CricketArchive. The match ended in a tie.See th
CricketArchive Scorecard
Heygate was given out under Law 45 of th

.

Notes

References

*''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack''
The official laws of cricket

External links

* {{Methods of dismissal in cricket Cricket laws and regulations Cricket terminology