Cricket is a bat-and-ball team sport. The rules of the game are known as the Laws of Cricket, maintained by the International Cricket Council (ICC); the governing body of cricket and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC); the club that has been the guardian of the Laws since it was founded in 1787.
A cricket match is played on a cricket field at the centre of which is a pitch. The match is contested between two teams of eleven players each.
Objective
The objective of each team is to score more "runs" than the other team and to completely "dismiss' the other team. In cricket, one team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible without being dismissed ('out') while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the other team's batsmen and limit any runs being scored. When the batting team has used all its available overs or has no remaining batsmen, the roles become reversed and it is now the fielding team's turn to bat and try to outscore the opposition.
Pitch, wickets and creases
The pitch is 22 yards (20 m) long between the wickets and is 10 feet (3.0 m) wide. The "condition" of the pitch has a significant bearing on the match and team tactics are always determined with the state of the pitch, both current and anticipated, as a deciding factor.
Each wicket consists of three wooden stumps placed in a straight line and surmounted by two wooden crosspieces called bails; the total height of the wicket including bails is 28.5 inches (720 mm) and the combined width of the three stumps is 9 inches (230 mm).
Four lines, known as creases, are painted onto the pitch around the wicket areas to define the batsman's "safe territory" and to determine the limit of the bowler's approach.
Bat and ball
The essence of the sport is that a bowler delivers the ball from his end of the pitch towards the batsman who, armed with a bat is"on strike" at the other end.
The bat is made of wood and has the shape of a blade topped by a cylindrical handle. The blade must not be more than 4.25 inches (108 mm) wide and the total length of the bat not more than 38 inches (970 mm).
The ball is a hard leather-seamed spheroid with a circumference of 9 inches (230 mm).
Umpires and scorers
The game on the field is regulated by two umpires, one of whom stands behind the wicket at the bowler's end, the other in a position called "square leg". When the bowler delivers the ball, the umpire at the wicket is between the bowler and the non-striker. Off the field and in televised matches, there is often a third umpire who can make decisions on certain incidents with the aid of video evidence.
Off the field, the match details including runs and dismissals are recorded by two official scorers, one representing each team. The scorers are directed by the hand signals of an umpire. In practice, they accumulate much additional data such as bowling analyses and run rates.
Innings
The innings is the term used for the collective performance of the batting side. The term "innings" is also sometimes used to describe an individual batsman's contribution.
When ten batsmen have been dismissed (i.e., are out), then the whole team is dismissed and the innings is over. The last batsman, the one who has not been dismissed, is not allowed to continue alone as there must always be two batsmen "in". This batsman is termed "not out".
Overs
The bowler bowls the ball in sets of six deliveries (or "balls") and each set of six balls is called an over.
Team structure
A team consists of eleven players. Depending on his or her primary skills, a player may be classified as a specialist batsman or bowler. Teams nearly always include a specialist wicket-keeper because of the importance of this fielding position. Each team is headed by a captain who is responsible for making tactical decisions such as determining the batting order, the placement of fielders and the rotation of bowlers.
A player who excels in both batting and bowling is known as an all-rounder.
Bowling
The fastest bowlers can deliver the ball at a speed of over 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) and they sometimes rely on sheer speed to try and defeat the batsman, who is forced to react very quickly. At the other end of the bowling scale is the "spinner" who bowls at a relatively slow pace and relies entirely on guile to deceive the batsman. A spinner will often "buy his wicket" by "tossing one up" (a parabolic path) to lure the batsman into making a poor shot. The batsman has to be very wary of such deliveries as they are often "flighted' or spun so that the ball will not behave quite as he expects and he could be "trapped" into getting himself out.
During the bowling action the elbow may be held at any angle and may bend further, but may not straighten out. If the elbow straightens illegally then the square-leg umpire may call no-ball.
Fielding
All eleven players on the fielding side take the field together. One of them is the wicket-keeper who operates behind the wicket being defended by the batsman on strike. He is the only player who can get a batsman out stumped.
The captain is the most important member of the fielding side as he determines all the tactics including who should bowl (and how); and he is responsible for "setting the field", though usually in consultation with the bowler.
Batting
At any one time, there are two batsmen in the playing area. One takes station at the striker's end to defend the wicket as above and to score runs if possible. His partner, the non-striker, is at the end where the bowler is operating.
Batsmen come in to bat in a batting order, decided by the team captain. The first two batsmen – the "openers" –; usually face the most hostile bowling, from fresh fast bowlers with a new ball. The top batting positions are usually given to the most competent batsmen in the team, and the non-batsmen typically bat last. The pre-announced batting order is not mandatory and when a wicket falls any player who has not yet batted may be sent in next.
Runs
The primary concern of the batsman on strike (i.e., the "striker") is to prevent the ball hitting the wicket and secondarily to score runs by hitting the ball with his bat so that he and his partner have time to run from one end of the pitch to the other before the fielding side can return the ball. To register a run, both runners must touch the ground behind the crease with either their bats or their bodies (the batsmen carry their bats as they run). Each completed run increments the score.
If an odd number of runs is scored by the striker, the two batsmen have changed ends and the one who was non-striker is now the striker. Only the striker can score individual runs but all runs are added to the team's total.
Running is a calculated risk because if a fielder breaks the wicket with the ball while the nearest batsman is out of his ground (i.e., he does not have part of his body or bat in contact with the ground behind the popping crease), the batsman is "run out".
Extras
Additional runs can be gained by the batting team as due to errors made by the fielding side. This is achieved in four ways:
- No ball – a penalty of one extra that is conceded by the bowler if he breaks the rules of bowling either by (a) using an inappropriate arm action; (b) overstepping the popping crease; (c) having a foot outside the return crease. In addition, the bowler has to re-bowl the ball.
- Wide – a penalty of one extra that is conceded by the bowler if he bowls so that the ball is out of the batsman's reach; as with a no ball, a wide must be re-bowled
- Bye – extra(s) awarded if the batsman misses the ball and it goes past the wicketkeeper to give the batsmen time to run in the conventional way (note that the mark of a good wicketkeeper is one who restricts the tally of byes to a minimum)
- Leg bye – extra(s) awarded if the ball hits the batsman's body, but not his bat, and it goes away from the fielders to give the batsmen time to run in the conventional way.
Dismissals
There are ten ways in which a batsman can be dismissed. The most common forms of dismissal are "bowled", "caught", "leg before wicket" (lbw), ";run out", "stumped" and "hit wicket". The unusual methods are "hit the ball twice", "obstructed the field", "handled the ball" and "timed out".
Before the umpire will award a dismissal and declare the batsman to be out, a member of the fielding side (generally the bowler) must "appeal". This is invariably done by asking (or shouting) the term "Howzat?" which means, simply enough, "How is that?" If the umpire agrees with the appeal, he will raise a forefinger and say "Out!". Otherwise he will shake his head and say "Not out". Appeals are particularly loud when the circumstances of the claimed dismissal are unclear, as is always the case with lbw and often with run outs and stumpings.
Innings closed
An innings is closed when:
- Ten of the eleven batsmen are out (have been dismissed); in this case, the team is said to be "all out"
- The team has only one batsman left who can bat, one or more of the remaining players being unavailable owing to injury, illness or absence; again, the team is said to be "all out"
- The team batting last reaches the score required to win the match
- The predetermined number of overs has been bowled (in a one-day match only, most commonly 50 overs; or 20 in Twenty20)
- A captain declares his team's innings closed while at least two of his batsmen are not out (this does not apply in one-day limited over matches)
Results
If the team that bats last is all out having scored fewer runs than their opponents, the team is said to have "lost by n runs" (where n is the difference between the number of runs scored by the teams). If the team that bats last scores enough runs to win, it is said to have "won by n wickets", where n is the number of wickets left to fall. For instance a team that passes its opponents' score having only lost six wickets would have won 'by four wickets".
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