Complete Guide to Cricket: Everything You Need to Know

Cricket is a team and noncontact kind of sport that is a part of that sports family uniting games with bat and ball. Although the given kind of sport is currently popular in a few countries, it is gaining worldwide popularity, which makes it quite reasonable to understand what cricket is before it becomes extremely popular in your country.

The rules of the sport are created and changed by the Maryland Cricket Club. Besides, the International Cricket Council has developed standard playing conditions for test and one-day international matches. It is up to national cricket federations whether to create and use additional conditions and requirements for cricket events under their auspices. According to the rules, there are a few formats of matches including that with a limited number of overs. The system supposes a match being organized with one or two innings that can be limited either in time or in a number of overs. Below are general rules of the given sport.

Players and Referees

A cricket team consists of eleven players including a captain. When it comes to unofficial competitions, the number of players can be increased when agreed by the parties. In all official events, however, it is forbidden for a team to have more than 11 players on the field simultaneously.

In cricket, it is possible to substitute injured players but the substitutes cannot bat, bowl, keep wicket, and act as a captain. If an injured player is getting better and a referee agrees, the player can be back on the field. The batsman who is unable to run can have his own runner who will make runs while the batsmen will deal with batting exclusively. If a player enters the field without the referee’s permission and touches the ball, it is said to immediately become dead, and a defensive team gets five runs.

Matches are served by two referees who watch the abidance by the rules, take appropriate decisions, and inform appropriate officials about them. Although the official rules do not require the third referee, he can be present at particular matches, especially it refers to very significant events.

Field and Equipment

The cricket ball is made of cork and covered with leather. Its circumference should be 22.4-22.9 cm. The item should weigh 155.9-166 g. As a rule, only one ball can be used for a single inning. Exceptions arise when the ball is lost. In this case, it should be replaced by another one. In addition, a field team can initiate the ball change after a certain number of overs (80 for test and 34 for One Day International cricket events).

The bat should have the following dimensions: 97 cm long and 10.8 cm wide. A bare hand or a hand in a glove is said to be a part of the bat. Its blade should be wooden.

The pitch is a rectangular area of the field with dimensions of 20 m long and 3 m wide. It should be covered with very short grass. There is a special service that is in charge of preparing the pitch but it is up to referees to monitor its quality during a match. In addition, it is also up to the referees to decide whether the field is suitable for a match. If it is considered to be out of order, the referees with the assent of both captains can choose a different pitch.

Wickets consist of three wooden stumps with 71 cm high each. The stumps are placed alongside a narrow side of the pitch with equal intervals between them. A wicket section is then 22.86 cm. The bars also bear two unsecured wooden items that are known bails. In some cases, for example, when it is extremely windy, the referees can make a decision to play without the bails.

The crease is a line that distinguishes this or that playing area from the rest of the pitch. The bowling crease is a line the center of which has the wicket bars. This crease denotes the back zone for a batsman being parallel to a narrow part of the pitch. The bowling crease is 2.64 meters. The popping crease denotes the front zone for a batsman. This crease is parallel to the bowling one, and there 1.2 meters between the two. In should be also mentioned that the popping crease is always longer than the bowling one. The return creases are perpendicular to the two mentioned above; they denote a movement corridor for a bowler. The return creases ends touch the popping crease, while their length is limited to 2.4 meters. The bowling crease ends, in their turn, touch the return creases.

While bowling, the ball almost always bounces from the pitch; that is why its direction depends mainly on the field surface quality. As a result, great attention is paid to the preparation and keeping the pitch in order including watering, haying, and so on.

The pitch is said to be covered when the stadium staff covers it with special items to prevent damaging from rain and dew. According to the rules, the coverage conditions should be previously accorded with both captains. The coverage significantly influences how the ball bounces from the surface. The area in front of the pitch where a bowler takes a run before bowling should be dry to minimize injuries. If necessary, this area can be also covered.

Match Structure

Before a match, teams arrive at a conclusion of how many innings their match will consist of: one or two. In addition, it is also possible to choose whether the innings will be limited in time or in the number of overs. More often, however, these conditions are determined by the regulations of this or that competition. If a match with two innings does not witness a follow on, the teams take turns to bat the ball. An inning is said to be over when all the batsmen of a defensive team are out of play, a captain declares his team refuses to participate in the inning, or when the time or overs limit expires. A match is preceded by a coin toss, a winner of which decides whether his team will bat or bowl first.

The rule of follow-on is applied to two-inning matches only. If the team that is the first to bat manages to get a much smaller number of runs, their opponents then have the right to announce the follow-on to make that team bat in the second inning immediately after the first one. In other words, the teams will bat according to the following order: one-two-two-one, while a standard schedule should look like one-two-one-two. For matches of five and more days, the gap in the score should be 200 runs, for 3- and 4-day matches – 150 points. Two-day games allow for 100 points, while a single-day match can witness the follow-on if the difference in the number of runs scored is 75 points.

The rule of the declaration can occur in two-inning matches. If the ball is considered to be dead, a captain of a defensive team can end the inning at any moment, which is known as the declaration. A captain makes it if he believes his team has managed to score the necessary number of runs to gain a victory. A caption can also refuse from an inning prior to its beginning. Such innings, however, are considered to be played.

Cricket matches imply a few kinds of intervals relating to their duration. The intervals between the innings last for 10 minutes. There are also lunch, tea, and drinks intervals. The intervals schedule should be conformed before a match. In some cases, the schedule can be changed.

“Play” is the referee’s order to continue the game after a break, while “Time” is the signal for the teams to stop the game. The last hour of the game should include at least 20 overs. If this condition fails to occur, the referee elongates the game until the necessary number of overs happens.

Scoring System and Results

Field boundaries are determined by the referees and captains before the match. It is better if the boundaries are clearly marked along their whole length. If a batted ball touches or crosses a boundary, a batsman’s team gets 4 runs. If the ball reaches a boundary without touches the field, a team gets 6 runs.

A team earns 1 run if its batsman successfully goes to one pitch end from the other. Consequently, the successful actions of the two batsmen generate two runs. A run is said to be performed if a batsman goes from his popping crease to his partner’s popping crease and touches the ground behind it with his bat or any part of his body. A starting position of a batsman is on the one pitch end, and that of his partner is on the other one. The batsmen can refuse from performing a run if they feel some danger for their wicket. If a batsman fails to perform a successful run, this phenomenon is called a short run. A team can obtain additional runs if their opponents violate some rules.

There is a particular set of rules dealing with the ways of how it is possible to determine the winner of a match. Teams’ scores are often represented in a form of m/n with m meaning a number of runs earned, and n denoting the number of wickets lost. For example, if a team has earned 100 runs and lost one wicket, the score will be 100/1. With this, a match is won by a team that has managed to reach the highest number of runs, which the quantity of wickets lost is not taken into account when determining winners.

If the ball disappears and it is impossible to take it because of other circumstances, this situation is known as the lost ball. Any field player may announce the ball to be lost. In this case, additional runs are given to his opponents. Besides, a defensive team gets the runs scored including those scored at the moment of announcing the ball to be lost or just 6 runs if they happened to earn fewer.

As it has already been mentioned, a match is won by the team that manages to earn the most runs. If it happens that the both teams earn the same number of runs, a tie is declared. When it comes to test cricket, if a team is late to perform its inning before the time expires, a draw occurs. In other words, a cricket match can end in a win of a team, tie (according to scores), and draw (according to time).

The ball enters the game when a bowler takes a run and it is said to be dead when all the players cannot do anything with it. For instance, when the ball happens to be dead, a defensive team cannot score runs and a batsman cannot be dismissed. There are a few reasons for the ball to become dead, with dismissing a batsman and touching the filed boundaries being the most popular ones among them.

The no-ball condition is declared if a bowler sends the ball from an illegal area, he unbends the elbow while bowling, the ball represents a threat, the ball touches the pitch twice or bowls along the pitch, and when some field players are in forbidden areas. The no-ball results in an additional run for a defensive team, while all the previously scored runs are preserved. In most cases, a batsman cannot be dismissed if there is the no-ball condition.

If the referee believes a batsman was unable to score runs because of inaccurate bowling, the wide-ball condition can arise. This phenomenon is declared when the ball goes above the batsman’s head after bowling. In this case, a team gets one run, while all the previously scored runs are preserved.

When the ball that is neither in no-ball nor in wide-ball conditions goes through a batsman, the scored runs will be called byes. If the ball touches batsman, but not his bat, the runs will be called leg-byes. The leg-byes are not counted if the batsman did not try to hit the ball or dodge it.

Dismissing the Batsman

If field players believe the batsman was dismissed, they can appeal to the referee with the question “How’s that?” before the start of the following run. Now, it is up to the referee to consider the appeal and to decide whether the batsman really must leave his position. Roughly speaking, field players should inform the referee about all the cases when a batsman is dismissed, including even the most obvious ones. When it comes to the obvious cases, however, batsmen usually leave their positions without the formal procedure.

Below are the most common conditions for a batsman to be dismissed:

• Destroyed wicket. If the wicket is destroyed by the ball or the batsman himself, the batsman is said to be dismissed. The wicket is said to be destroyed when at least one bail falls down.
• Batsman is out of his area. The batsman is said to be in his area when any part of his body or his bat touches the field behind the popping crease. In other cases, the player can be dismissed by opponents who destroy the wicket or by an opposing wicket-keeper. If the wicket was destroyed when the both batsmen were out of their area, the dismissal is granted to the player who was closer to the wicket.
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• Bowled. This situation arises when the ball destroys the wicket directly after bowling. This condition occurs when the ball did not touch either referees or players excluding the batsman before. It is allowed for the ball to touch the batman’s bat, glove or any part of his body.
• Timed-out. A new batsman must replace his predecessor in three minutes after the latter was dismissed; otherwise, the new batsman will be dismissed, too. Within the stipulated period of time, the batsman or his partner should be ready for bowling. If the batsman is replaced by his partner, the first one should be in his area.
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• Caught. This is the situation when the batsman hits the ball and a field player catches it before landing. For this, the field player should be in the field, which means that neither part of his body can touch the ground behind the field boundaries. Before catching, the ball should not touch any objects outside the field.
• Taking the ball with the hand. If a batsman intentionally touches the ball with his free hand without the preliminary consent of the opponents, he should be dismissed.
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• Double hitting the ball. A batsman is dismissed if he hits the ball twice without the intention to protect the wicket and without the preliminary consent of the opponents.
• Destroying the wicket. If a batsman happens to destroy the wicket with his bat or any part of the body after bowling started, he should be dismissed.
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• Foot before the wicket. If the bowled ball fails to destroy the wicket because it reaches the batsman and not his bat, the batsman can be dismissed other conditions are met.
• Hindrance. If the batsman intentionally prevents his opponents with either word or action from playing, he should be dismissed.
• Run-out. If the batsman is out of his area and his wicket is destroyed by his opponents, he is dismissed. The given rule is effective even when there is a no-ball condition.
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• Stumped. The batsman is dismissed when his wicket is destroyed by the wicket-keeper when the batsman is out of his area without intentions to make a run. This rule, however, is not effective when there is the no-ball condition.

It should be mentioned separately that the situation when the batsman is not dismissed in an inning is called the not-out situation.

Field Players

Any player who is taking a bowl is said to be a field player. The objectives of the field players are to prevent their opponents from scoring runs and dismissing ten opposing batsmen. A field player is allowed to receive the ball with any part of his body. Nevertheless, if a field player touches the ball in the moment of bowling, the ball is said to be dead and 5 runs go to the opponents. If the ball reaches one of the head guards laying on the ground, the ball is said to be dead and 5 runs go to the opponents. In some cases, however, the punishment can be canceled.

The wicket-keeper is a special field player who is behind the batsman’s wicket. He is the only player of the team who is allowed to wear gloves and shin guards.