Tranent and Preston Village Cricket Club News story


TPVCC Game Features on BBC's TMS Podcast

04 Aug 2019

Though the team was not mentioned by name, a bizarre event from a recent Tranent and Preston Village midweek friendly game featured briefly on the "Ask the Umpire" section of the BBC's Test Match Special podcast this week.

Against our friends E=MCC last week, TPV player Sam Booker bowled a wide ball which pitched on the uneven edge of the artificial wicket and cut back in sharply to bowl the unfortunate batsman on strike around his legs. This was signalled "dead ball" by the umpire, but because of the resulting confusion he decided to email in to John Holder's podcast section to ask what the correct decision should be.

You can hear what Holder and the TMS team had to say on the matter at the link below (skip forward to 26:00 in). However it appears that even professional umpire's get it wrong sometimes, as Holder's opinion that the batsman should have been out was quickly corrected on Twitter after consultation of the rulebook, specifically the following law:

"The umpire shall call... No ball if a ball... pitches wholly or partially off the pitch... When a non-turf pitch is used, this will apply to any ball that wholly or partially pitches off the artificial surface."
Here's the link to the Ask the Umpire podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07jlxhg