 The earliest known written version of the Laws of Cricket , dating from 1744 , does not include an lbw rule . At the time , batsmen in English cricket used curved bats , which made it unlikely that they would be able to stand directly in front of the wickets . However , a clause in the 1744 laws gave umpires the power to take action if the batsman was " standing unfair to strike " . Cricket bats were modified to become <unk> over the following years , allowing batsmen to stand closer to the wickets . Subsequently , some players deliberately began to obstruct the ball from hitting the wickets . Such tactics were criticised by writers and a revision of the laws in 1774 ruled that the batsman was out if he deliberately stopped the ball from hitting the wicket with his leg . However , critics noted that the umpires were left the difficult task of interpreting the intentions of batsmen . The 1788 version of the laws no longer required the umpires to take account of the batsman 's intent ; now a batsman was lbw if he stopped a ball that " pitch [ ed ] straight " . Further clarification of the law came in 1823 , when a condition was added that " the ball must be delivered in a straight line to the wicket " . The ambiguity of the wording was highlighted when two prominent umpires disagreed over whether the ball had to travel in a straight line from the bowler to the wicket , or between the wickets at either end of the pitch . In 1839 the MCC , by then responsible for drafting the Laws of Cricket , endorsed the latter interpretation and ruled the batsman out lbw if the ball pitched in between the wickets and would have hit the stumps . 
