Law 37.3 : Obstructing a ball from being caught

[Mayur Wankhade Deshmukh]

Hi, this is Mayur Wankhade from India.

This is my first discussion thread on this forum.

In ongoing ashes ( 1st test, day 2), on one of the spinner's delivery Cook defended on back foot . The WK was trying to attempt a catch near the stumps and simultaneously Cook was in action to make legitimate second strike to guard his wicket. Luckily he strikes the ball with his pad after the ball was grounded.

Could Cook be a victim of obstructing a ball from being caught , if he would have made second strike before ball touched the ground ? Since WK was in action to take the catch ( Of course the appeal must be made for umpire to consider it ).

I am not sure that Cook had made contact with the ball with his bat . But what if , he had not touched the ball with bat ? did he was still liable for Law 37.3 ?

waiting for a discussion on this and other personal on field experience regarding Law 37.3

Thanks
Mayur Wankhade

[sillypoint]

I didn't see the incident, but make the following general observation.

A catch must be available to the fielding side for this provision to come into consideration. In other words, the first strike of the ball would have to have been with the bat AND the ball must not have touched the ground at the time the second strike (whether with bat or person) is attempted. It is worth noting also that the striker would not have had to make contact with the ball in order to cause an obstruction; you would only have to judge, if in fact a possible catch was missed (or dropped) by the wicketkeeper, whether his actions caused the keeper to miss (or drop) the catch.