bye/leg bye/run?????

[viswajith]

deceived by a slower delivery,bat slips out of batsman's hand and made contact with the ball.....if runs attempted,where will the runs be credited? your views please................

[tippexii]

Law 6.8(a) implies that it can't be runs if a non-held bat gets hit by the ball. The ball also hasn't touched the batsman's person, so all that's left is byes.

Having said that, and depending on the precise circumstances, I might be tempted to call Dead Ball. Certainly if the batsman threw his bat at the ball, I'd think that was unfair, and dangerous for any close fielders.

[jaybee]

Have a look at this thread (Topic Wide):-

Nov 18, 2009 10:15:07 GMT colinball said:

Another question that caused some debate (We do have fun down here in Sussex)
The batting side need 4 to win off the last ball of the match. The bowler bowls a ball a long way wide of the off stump. In exasperation, the striker throws his bat at the ball. The bat hits the ball which is diverted past the slips and runs towards the boundary. What would you do?

[pennockp]

probably of little help, but I remember a dressing room conversation about an Australian test player (McCosker, Possibly) who, on a couple of occasions, when his side were battling for a draw, fished about outside the off stump and let go of his bat as the ball passed, his thinking was if the ball got an edge he couldn't be out because he wasn't holding the bat when the ball hit it! it backfired because a ball ran down to the boundary and the runs were recorded as byes!

[sillypoint]

A bat is a bat is a bat; see Laws 6.8, 28.1.a.ii, and definitions in Appendix D. But while the wicket can still be legally put the wicket down by a flying bat (28.1.a.ii), such cannot be said for runs. In these circumstances you cannot award runs to the striker (6.8), nor byes (26.1), nor leg byes (see definition of person in Appendix D). It is an oddity, and the safest course is to call Dead Ball and disallow any runs; if a run was actually attempted I would delay the Dead Ball call as in the case of leg byes (26.3). If the bat had been thrown at the ball deliberately a report for misconduct might also be in order.

[jaybee]

A bat is a bat is a bat
Physically that's true but let's look at Law 6.8 in detail:

In these Laws,
(a) reference to the bat shall imply that the bat is held in the batsman’s hand or a glove worn on his hand, unless stated otherwise.

(my emphasis).
That changes the interpretation of 'bat' in 6.8(b)(i) so that "the bat itself" is only a bat for the purposes of the Laws when it's held in the (gloved) hand.
With all due respect the qualifications in Law 28.1(a)(ii) [and (iii) for that matter] don't change the interpretation for any purpose other than deciding whether the wicket has been put down.
Nor does the definition in Appendix D override 6.8(a) - the expression "the whole of the bat itself" simply says that, where there's reference to a part of the bat, that reference covers a whole bat as well.
If runs accrue from a contact with a bat that had accidentally left the batsman's hands I'd say they are byes. They can't be leg-byes because the ball's not hit part of the batsman's person and they don't come from a hit. However in these circumstances the batsman might well decide to - and some will say he should - decline a run in the same way as if he'd accidentally deflected a throw from a fielder.
But - if the bat had been thrown at the ball - I think that's unfair play (see the thread referred to above).

[sillypoint]

The point you make about Law 6.8 (the bat is "only a bat for the purposes of the Laws when it's held in the (gloved) hand") is precisely the point I was trying to also make—albeit, badly it seems.
My reference to the other Laws was intended to make the point that the bat does not cease to exist just because it is no longer held by the batsman, and thus can't be disregarded completely. It is the irregularity of the incident which I think warrants an application of what we call in my part of the world "Law 43" (common sense).