Reference at the time of writing this article: MCC’s The Laws of Cricket, 2017 Code (3rd Edition–2022), ICC Men’s Twenty 20 World Cup 2022 Playing Conditions.
During the final over of India vs Pakistan game in the ongoing T20 world cup, the ‘Free Hit’ delivery was missed by Virat Kohli; the ball delivered put the wicket down at the striker’s end and the ball went toward the deep third man boundary. The batters ran 3 runs before the ball became dead by way of the ball finally settling in the hands of the wicketkeeper.
If you read the above paragraph carefully, the word ‘bowled’ has been intentionally omitted and the phrase ‘wicket down’ has been used instead. And, it has also been mentioned when the ball actually became dead.
Let us see, why.
As we all know of a free hit delivery, dismissals like ‘bowled’, ‘caught’, ‘LBW’, and ‘hit wicket’ are not valid dismissals. If in a free hit delivery, an incident related to the above-mentioned dismissals occurs, then it is simply ignored, and also the ball will not be considered to have become dead when the incident related to the above dismissals occurs. The ball will continue to remain in play and it can become dead only by any other possible means.
All these dismissals have to be treated in the same way as when ‘no ball is called on the field’.
So, coming back to the above incident, the umpire signaling ‘bye’ (as the ball did not make any contact either with the striker’s bat or the person) and 3 runs being scored is absolutely correct as per the playing conditions.