Distracting The Opposition
If a member of the fielding side deliberately distracts or attempts to distract the batsman on strike while he is preparing to receive or receiving a delivery, the umpire immediately declares the ball to be dead. The umpire also informs the fielding captain of the incident. The batsman may not be dismissed from the delivery, which must be repeated. If this happens again in the innings the same procedure is followed, but the batting team is awarded five penalty runs too.
It is also unfair for a member of the fielding side to deliberately attempt to distract or obstruct either batsman after the striker has received the ball by word or action. If this happens a procedure similar to the procedure for the first instance of ball tampering occurs, although the batting side also scores any runs that they have scored before the attempted (or actual) distraction or obstruction.
The case of a batsman obstructing the fielding side is covered by Law 37 of the laws of cricket rather than Law 42. A batsman contravening Law 37 may be given out (dismissed) obstructing the field.
Read more about this topic: Fair And Unfair Play
Famous quotes containing the words distracting and/or opposition:
“Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell!”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose.”
—Kimberly Crenshaw (b. 1959)