A tie is a result

Law 16 is the Law on what a match was for. It defines a win twice, once for each format, defines a tie and a draw, and then spends its second half on the moment the match ends and the moment the result becomes permanent.

A win

Clause 16.1, for a two-innings match: "The side which has scored a total of runs in excess of that scored in the two completed innings of the opposing side shall win the match." Clause 16.2 says the same for one innings. Completed is the word that matters. A side leading on runs with the other side still batting has not won anything yet.

A tie, and a draw

Clause 16.5.1: "The result of a match shall be a Tie when all innings have been completed and the scores are equal." Clause 16.5.2: a Draw is what remains when the match "is not determined in any of the ways stated" in the clauses before it, or when Law 42.6.2 is applied.

The order is the point. A tie is a determination. It sits with the wins, in the list of ways a match is decided, and the draw is defined as everything that list does not cover. Equal scores with all innings complete is not an absence of a result. It is one.

What the Law does not contain is anything beyond that. There is no clause for separating two sides whose scores are equal. The 2019 final was decided by something else, and that something was a condition of the competition rather than a Law. Law 16's answer to equal scores is a tie, and it stops there.

The match is at an end

Clause 16.6.1: as soon as a result is reached, the match is at an end. Not at the end of the over, not when the players leave. At the ball. Two clauses then say what that ball is worth.

Clause 16.6.3: "If a boundary is scored before the batters have completed sufficient runs to win the match, the whole of the boundary allowance shall be credited." A side needing one run that hits a four is credited with four, and the total on the card says so.

Clause 16.6.2 is the mirror. The side batting last "will have scored enough runs to win only if its total of runs is sufficient without including any runs completed by the batter before the completion of a catch". A run taken while the ball is in the air does not count towards the win if the catch is then completed, which is Law 33 again, applied at the one moment it matters most.

Awarded, conceded, refused

Clause 16.3 covers the match that ends without being played out: "a match shall be lost by a side which concedes defeat or refuses to play". It is the clause the timed-out Law hands over to when no batter comes to the wicket.

Clause 16.3.2 adds a step. If an umpire considers an action "might constitute a refusal", the umpires together "shall ascertain the cause" before it is treated as one. The Law does not let one umpire read a refusal into a delay. Two of them find out why first.

By agreement

Clause 16.4 covers matches played under an agreement about the number of innings, under Law 13.1.2, and says that if none of the other clauses produces a result, "the result shall be as laid down in that agreement". It is the Law making room for competitions to decide their own ends, and it is the one clause in Law 16 that points outside the Laws.

Permanent

Clause 16.8 makes the correctness of the scores the umpires' responsibility. Clause 16.9 provides for play to resume if a scoring mistake affecting the result is found after the players have left. And clause 16.10 closes the door: once the umpires have agreed the scores with the scorers at the conclusion of the match, "the result cannot thereafter be changed".

So there is a window. Between the last ball and the umpires' agreement with the scorers, the result is provisional and a mistake can reopen play. After that, it is what the card says, whatever anybody later finds. The Law makes the record final by naming the moment at which the match stops having authority over itself.

Law 16, The result: MCC Laws of Cricket, 2017 Code →

Law 33, Caught: MCC Laws of Cricket, 2017 Code →

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No. 15 in By the Book, a series of 17.

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