Mondo Knows Facts
Leg before wicket dates from 1774
The rule was added to stop batters blocking the ball with their legs The 1774 revision of the Laws of Cricket introduced leg before wicket, so a batter could no longer pad away a ball heading for the stumps. The same set of revisions fixed the pitch at 22 yards and limited the width of the bat to 4.25 inches. The lbw law has been rewritten many times since. It sits in Mondo's sports collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: cricket, rules, 1774
Leg before wicket dates from 1774: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The rule was added to stop batters blocking the ball with their legs. The figure is taken from Marylebone Cricket Club, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a sports fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Sports shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.