What Is LBW in Cricket? The Five Questions, Answered in Order

If you have watched any cricket at all, you have seen a bowler spin round, both arms up, screaming at an umpire who is already shaking his head. That is an LBW appeal, and it is the one decision in the sport that regular viewers still argue about after twenty years of watching. So: what is LBW in cricket, and why does it look like a judgement call when it is actually a fixed sequence of yes-or-no questions?

Short answer: what is LBW in cricket

LBW stands for leg before wicket. A batter is out LBW when a fair delivery strikes their body without touching the bat first, and would have gone on to hit the stumps. Two things can save them: the ball pitching outside leg stump, or being struck outside the line of off stump while making a genuine attempt to play the ball. The fielding side has to appeal for it, because an umpire will never give LBW on his own.

That is the whole law in four sentences. Everything else is the order you check it in.

The five questions, in order

An umpire does not weigh up the appeal as one big impression. He runs five checks, and the first failed check ends it. Once you know the order, you can call most decisions from your sofa before the replay loads.

Was it a fair delivery? If the bowler bowled a no ball, LBW is off the table completely, no matter how plumb it looked.
Where did the ball pitch? On the stumps or on the off side, the appeal lives. Outside leg stump, it is dead instantly. This is the one check with no exceptions and no interpretation.
Did the ball hit the bat first? Bat first, then pad, is not out. Pad first, then bat, is still live. The order of contact is everything, which is why umpires listen as hard as they watch.
Where did it strike the batter? In line between the stumps, the appeal lives. Outside the line of off stump, it depends on the next part.
Would it have gone on to hit the stumps? If the ball was missing leg, or climbing over the top, not out.

The only genuinely subjective step is the one buried in question four: was the batter playing a shot? If the ball strikes them outside the line of off stump and they made a real attempt to hit it, they cannot be out. If they stuck a pad out and left the bat tucked behind their hip, they can be.

A case that confuses everyone

A ball pitches outside leg stump, cuts back, and thuds into the front pad directly in front of middle stump. It would have knocked over all three. Not out. The pitching check happens before the trajectory check, and it is absolute.

Reverse it. A ball pitches a foot outside off, the batter shoulders arms and lets it go, and it swings back into the thigh pad outside the line of off. That one is out, if the ball was heading for the stumps. Pitching outside off is not a shield. It never was.

The two myths that cost beginners their wicket

Myth one: padding up is safe. Plenty of club batters believe that if they do not offer a shot, they cannot be given. The opposite is closer to true. Offering no shot removes the protection you get from being struck outside off. Leaving a ball alone is only safe if the ball is also missing the stumps.

Myth two: a full toss cannot be LBW. The pitching check only applies if the ball pitches. A delivery that reaches the batter without bouncing and hits the pad in line, below waist height, is as out as anything. Low full tosses at the stumps are among the most productive accidents in amateur cricket.

What LBW means when you are bowling

LBW is the reason the oldest bowling advice in the game is still the best advice. Bowl at the stumps, and you are hunting two targets at once instead of one. Every delivery that would hit the woodwork is also a delivery that can win an appeal if the batter's pad gets there first.

Three things follow from that:

Length beats pace. A full length brings the pad into play before the batter has time to get the bat down. A short ball gives them time and takes the stumps out of the equation.
Straight beats wide. A ball drifting down leg can never be out LBW. A ball angled across to a fifth-stump line needs the batter to offer no shot. The stump-to-stump line is the only one where every outcome is working for you.
Movement into the batter is worth more than movement away. Away movement finds edges. Movement back in finds pads and stumps, and it finds them with the batter's weight going the wrong way. This is why the ball that pitches outside off and comes back is the most feared delivery in cricket and why the yorker is a cousin of the same idea.

What LBW means when you are batting

The defence is simpler than the law. Get the bat in front of the pad, not behind it. If your bat is the first thing the ball can reach, question three ends the appeal before the rest of the checks matter.

Beyond that, two habits:

Stop planting the front foot across towards off. A foot that lands outside the line of off stump drags the pad across with it, and if you then miss the ball, the trajectory check is the only thing left between you and a long walk back.
Only leave balls you have actually read. If you are not sure it is missing the stumps, play it. Judging that comes down to reading the bowler's length early, and it is a skill you build by facing deliveries, not by watching them.

Learning it by playing, not reading

Rules sink in slowly when you read them and quickly when a decision goes against you. That is the argument for actually bowling at someone rather than studying diagrams of the off-stump line.

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Create a free account when you want your results to count, browse the blog for the rest of the rules and tactics posts, or contact us if something in a match does not look right.

The law is not the hard part. The hard part is that it runs in a tenth of a second, in your head, while a ball is coming at your front pad.