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Say the umpire at the non-striker's end has given an LBW, but the square leg umpire has observed that the ball is clearly too high to be hitting the stumps, can the square leg umpire override or advise the non-striker's end umpire's decision?

Does the square leg umpire in general have the same jurisdiction as the non-striker's end umpire?

Are there decisions the square leg umpire has more power on than the non-striker's end umpire, e.g. height wides/no-balls?

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Umpires may certainly consult each other and do maintain separate jurisdictions. The newest version of the Laws of Cricket, dated 1st October 2017, published by the MCC, has several clauses dealing with this (they haven't changed significantly in meaning since the last version):

2.11 Disagreement and dispute

Where there is disagreement or dispute about any matter, the umpires together shall make the final decision. See also Law 31.6 (Consultation by umpires).

and

31.6 Consultation by umpires

Each umpire shall answer appeals on matters within his/her own jurisdiction. If an umpire is doubtful about any point that the other umpire may have been in a better position to see, he/she shall consult the latter on this point of fact and shall then give the decision. If, after consultation, there is still doubt remaining, the decision shall be Not out.

Unfortunately the Laws themselves are somewhat less explicit about which umpire has jurisdiction for each decision, only sometimes explicitly assigning them to the bowler's end umpire or not. In my experience of the game, the bowler's end umpire would certainly consider an LBW appeal his or her job and give the final decision, but only a foolish umpire in a bad umpiring team wouldn't listen to information from his/her colleague if they had anything to say.

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  • That's true, I wonder if in club cricket, where there are no cameras, if the square leg umpire should have more input into the height of LBW decisions.. Dec 1, 2017 at 0:40

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