A fast full toss flashes over the top of the stumps, pitches just in front of the wicket-keeper and bursts through his gloves, hits the keeper’s helmet (correctly placed on the ground behind the keeper, in line with the stumps), then careers on to crash into the sightscreen.
No ball (full toss, above waist height).
Five penalty runs (ball strikes protective helmet belonging to the fielding side, on the ground)
…then what? Four (more) no balls?
I stood in a Colts’ game a couple of weeks ago, when this happened. I am not a qualified umpire; nor was my colleague. We conferred, scratched our heads, thought about running off to find a copy of the Laws…then my colleague pulled out his smartphone, googled “helmet penalty runs”, and got the answer back in seconds.
I know the professionals (and all qualified umpires) would never need to resort to Google, but it worked for us!
oh, the answer – the ball was dead as soon as it struck the helmet on the ground (Law 41, paragraph 3), so 1 no ball plus 5 penalty runs (plus a warning to the bowler).
The Teesra 