15 Laws of cricket that you need to know

8. Bye and Leg Bye:

The law 26 of the rule book states that an umpire can call out a bye, if the ball, delivered by the bowler, not being a No ball or wide, passes the striker without touching his bat or person, any runs completed by the batsman from that delivery, or a boundary allowance shall be credited as Byes to the batting side.

The law 26 even states that an umpire can call out a leg bye if a legitimate ball comes off any part of the striker’s body except his bat or hand holding the bat, then the runs collected are known as leg byes provided that the umpire is satisfied that the striker was either trying to play the ball with his bat or was trying to avoid being hit.

There are many circumstances where a leg bye runs cannot be scored. If the umpire doesn’t think that the striker was either trying to hit the ball or was taking evasive action he will allow the batsman to attempt to run one not out of generosity, but to give the fielding side a chance to affect a run out, after that he will call and signal a dead ball and tell the batsman to return to their original ends by making sure that no runs are credited.

Byes and Leg Byes are added to the total runs of the team but not awarded to the individual batsman. Its neither recorded in the bowler’s records. The runs scored in this category are taken to another category called Extras.