What is LBW in cricket? How does umpire’s call work?

LBW is one of the main ways for bowlers to dismiss batters in cricket and it's something you are going to hear about a lot this year.

The Ashes is about to get underway, meaning Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc will all be hunting for LBWs.

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What is LBW in cricket?

LBW stands for 'leg before wicket' and means a batter is out if they fail to make contact with the ball and the delivery is adjudged to be crashing into the stumps.

Basically, if their leg wasn't in the way, the bowler's delivery would knock the bails off.

However, it is more complex than that and a lot actually goes into the process.

A batter is out LBW if the bowler doesn't ball a no ball.

There are 15 types of no ball, but the most common comes from the bowler stepping over the crease at the non-striker's end or firing in a delivery that doesn't bounce and arrives at the batter over waist height.

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The ball must then pitch in line with the stumps or to the off side of the batter.

The batter's off side is determined by their position in the crease and switches depending on which hand they predominantly use.

For a right-handed batter, the off side is to the right; for a left-handed person, it's the other way around.

This means a delivery that pitches to the left of the wicket for a right-handed batter and to the right of the stumps for a left-handed batter can't be an LBW.

The delivery must then avoid the bat and hit any part of the leg.

It must also be hitting a part of the stumps.

If the ball hits bat and then pad, it can't be LBW, while if the delivery strikes both at the same time, the batter also can't be out.

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What is umpire's call?

Umpire's call only comes into play when the DRS [Decision Review System] is used for an LBW.

The batter could be given out, or the bowling team might think they have got the striker LBW, but the umpire disagrees.

The decision would then be reviewed and sent to the TV umpire.

The third umpire would then use the ball tracking technology available to determine whether the batter was out LBW.

Should the technology prove inconclusive due to the tightness of the decision, the result would be umpire's call.

This means the decision stays on field even if the ball is shown to be just clipping the stumps.

This leaves some LBW decisions open to interpretation, but alternative solutions have yet to be found.