Rare Cricket Dismissals Explained: Timed Out, Hit the Ball Twice, Retired Out and Retired Hurt
A guide to cricket's rarest dismissals — timed out, hit the ball twice, obstructing the field, and the important difference between retired out and retired hurt under the Laws of Cricket.
Most cricket fans can name the common dismissals: caught, bowled, LBW, run out, stumped. But the Laws of Cricket recognise ten ways a batter can be dismissed, and the rarest ones go innings, seasons or even decades between occurrences at any level of the game. Understanding these unusual dismissals illuminates the Laws' historical origins, the edge cases they were written to cover, and occasional flash-points in modern cricket when they have been invoked — or nearly invoked — under pressure.
Timed Out, Hit the Ball Twice and Obstructing the Field
A batter is out Timed Out if they fail to be ready to face the first ball within three minutes (in Tests and first-class cricket) of the previous batter being dismissed — an extremely rare dismissal typically invoked only when a team is running out of time to bat legitimately. In 2023, Angelo Mathews of Sri Lanka became the first batter given out timed out in international cricket history, dismissed by Bangladesh when the strap of his helmet broke and he was unable to replace it within the three-minute window. Hit the Ball Twice exists to prevent a batter from gaining unfair advantage by deliberately striking the ball a second time (other than to protect their wicket). The first strike ends the ball in play; a second deliberate strike before the fielding side has touched it again is out. Obstructing the Field (which absorbed the old 'handled the ball' dismissal in the 2017 law revision) covers any deliberate physical obstruction of a fielder by the batter, including deliberately handling the ball without the fielding side's consent.
Retired Out vs Retired Hurt: A Critical Difference
Retired hurt and retired out are superficially similar — in both cases a batter leaves the pitch mid-innings — but they are treated very differently under the Laws. Retired hurt (or retired ill) allows a batter to resume their innings later in the same innings if their side's captain decides it is appropriate and they have recovered. Crucially, they are not out: if they never return, they are recorded as 'retired hurt' and their innings simply ends without a dismissal. Retired out is a formal declaration by the batter that they are voluntarily ending their innings — they are recorded as dismissed, and they cannot return. In franchise T20 cricket, some teams have experimented with retiring a batter who has reached a dominant position and sending them back later in the innings, though the tactical utility of this is disputed.
Frequently asked questions
What are all the ways a batter can be dismissed in cricket, and which are so rare they have never occurred in international men's cricket?
Cricket's Laws recognise ten distinct modes of dismissal, ranging from the everyday (caught, bowled, LBW) to the extraordinarily rare (hit the ball twice, timed out). Understanding each one illuminates both the Laws' internal logic and how they were designed to handle edge cases that could otherwise cause disputes. Caught is by far the most common dismissal at all levels of cricket, accounting for roughly 55–60% of all wickets in Test cricket. The batter hits the ball and a fielder catches it before it touches the ground. Bowled accounts for approximately 15–20% of Test dismissals. LBW (Leg Before Wicket) — where the ball strikes the batter's pad in circumstances where it would have hit the stumps — accounts for a further 15–18%, though the precise percentage fluctuates with pitch conditions. Run Out occurs when a fielder breaks the stumps with the ball while the batter is out of their crease during a run, and Stumped is a specific variant restricted to the wicketkeeper, who removes the bails when the batter is out of their crease and has missed the ball. Hit Wicket — where the batter dislodges the stumps with their bat, body or clothing while playing a shot or setting off for a run — is uncommon but does occur in international cricket perhaps once or twice a year across all formats combined. Retired Out is rare in official cricket but has begun appearing in franchise T20 competitions. Obstructing the Field (which subsumed Handled the Ball in 2017) has been invoked on a handful of occasions in international cricket. The most notable Handled the Ball dismissal was Michael Vaughan, who handled the ball against India in 2001, and Mohinder Amarnath in earlier decades. Under the new merged law, any deliberate physical interference by the batter with a fielder attempting to field the ball constitutes the dismissal. Timed Out entered the international record books for the first time in 2023 when Angelo Mathews of Sri Lanka was given out for failing to be ready to face within three minutes in a 2023 World Cup group match against Bangladesh. The circumstances — a broken helmet strap, a disputed appeal from Shakib Al Hasan, and Mathews's visible distress — made it one of the most discussed incidents in World Cup history. Hit the Ball Twice remains, to this author's knowledge, the only dismissal that has never been recorded in men's international cricket. It exists to prevent a batter from deliberately hitting the ball a second time to gain advantage — for example, hitting a ball heading toward the stumps a second time to deflect it away. In practice, batters occasionally make unintentional contact with the ball twice, but umpires typically treat this as not out unless the second contact was deliberate.