Catching and the Ropes
A stunning display of acrobatics by Angelo Mathews a few years earlier prompted yet another rule change in cricket.
The rules at the time of the incident were read as under:
“A boundary shall be scored and signalled by the umpire at the bowler's end whenever, while the ball is in play, in his opinion - a fielder, with some part of his person in contact with the ball, touches the boundary or has some part of his person grounded beyond the boundary.”
Though the effort was lauded by the MCC committee back then, the rule was still changed later that year.
The current rule reads as follows:
The first contact with the ball is by a fielder, not touching or grounded beyond the boundary, who has some part of his person grounded within the boundary or whose final contact with the ground before touching the ball was entirely within the boundary.
The interpretation of the change in rule is that the last contact with the ball has to be inside the ropes. If the jump is made from outside the boundary ropes and though the player is not grounded outside the ropes but jumps from beyond, it is still declared to have ‘crossed the ropes for a boundary’.
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