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Ian Rumfitt, Ricky Ponting and the judges, Analysis, Volume 70, Issue 2, April 2010, Pages 205–210, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anp168
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Extract
In the first innings of the final Ashes Test of 2009, Ricky Ponting faced a ball which was deflected, off something, into the wicket-keeper’s hands. The English XI appealed, and in the agonizingly long time that it took Asad Rauf to decide, Jonathan Agnew (commentating on Test Match Special) reasoned as follows: ‘Either the ball hit Ponting’s bat or it hit his pads. If it hit his bat, he is out caught behind. If it hit his pads, he is out lbw. So, either way, he is out’. Rauf, however, appeared to disagree with Agnew’s reasoning, and Ponting stayed at the wicket.
Readers of Analysis with long memories will have had their interest piqued at this point, for in 1985 Colin Radford presciently invited us to consider a case where
As Radford observes, though, the umpire cannot use this dilemmatic argument to justify a decision to give the batsman out. For there is no way of being out ‘lbw or caught’, a batsman has to be out one way or another (110). Radford suggests that this casts doubt on the validity of an argument such as Agnew’s. Oddly, he seems to think that the case might support switching to intuitionist logic, even though intuitionists accept dilemmatic arguments. But whatever the proposed remedy, the case raises questions: Is Agnew’s reasoning valid? If it is valid, why is an umpire precluded from using it to justify giving a batsman out?the bowler delivers a ball which strikes the batsman on his pads and then carries through to the wicket-keeper, who catches it. Bowler and wicket-keeper appeal ‘How’s that?’ The difficulty for the umpire is that he is not sure whether the ball made contact with the batsman’s bat before striking his pads. If it did, the batsman is out caught; if it did not, he is in this case out lbw. So it seems clear that he is out one way or other, the only difficulty is which. (Radford 1985: 110)
