What is Cricket?

Flow of a Typical Cricket Match

A coin is flipped -- the team that wins the coin toss decides if they'd rather bat first or field first.

The team that bats first sends in two batsmen. The rest of the batting team sits outside the playing area. The fielding team positions their players all around the field -- in cricket, there is no "foul territory." The entire field is available for the batsmen to play their shots.

The two batsmen stand at opposite ends of the cricket "pitch", which is a 22-yard long strip of turf in the center of the cricket ground.

At each end of the pitch are a set of "stumps" -- three wooden stakes, 27" in height.

The small pieces of wood sitting atop the stumps are called the "bails."

It is the batsman's job to prevent the bowler from "breaking" the stumps. If the bowler can hit the stumps with the ball, dislodging at least one of the bails -- then the batsman is out. Once a batsman is out, he cannot return to the game.

The bowler delivers the ball to the batsman in a very different way than in baseball:

  • The bowler begins his delivery by running towards the batsman.
  • The bowler keeps his elbow straight throughout the "release."
  • The bowler will -- most of the time -- try to bounce the ball once before it gets to the batsman.

This video will give you a good overview of the job of the bowler and the different kinds of bowling:

The batsman can choose to swing at the ball or he may choose to leave it alone. As long as the ball doesn't hit his stumps, it's safe to leave the ball alone. However, you can't score runs if you don't hit the ball -- so a good batsman will decide wisely which balls he should hit and which ones he should leave.

The bowler must give the batsman a fair chance to hit the ball, so there are a few rules in place to ensure that.

  • The bowler must not bowl the ball so that it bounces very high over the batsman's head: this is called a "no-ball." The batting team is awarded one run and the bowler must bowl the ball again.
  • The bowler must bowl the ball so that the batsman can reach it from his normal batting stance; in other words, the batsman should not have to chase the ball in order to hit it. If the bowler breaks this rule, it is called a "wide." The batting team is awarded one run and the bowler must bowl the ball again.

If the batsman hits the ball, he can choose to run or to stay. If he thinks that he (and his partner) can successfully swap ends of the pitch, then they will set off for a run. If they both make it safely to the opposite side of the pitch, one run is scored for the batting team.

What do we mean by "safe?" If the fielding side can catch the ball and use it to "break the stumps" while the batsman or his partner is running, then one of the batsmen is out. This is called "being run out." If the batsmen do not believe they can score a run without "being run out", then they do not have to run.

Once the bowler has bowled six legal deliveries (not counting wides and no-balls), then one "over" has been completed. A bowler cannot bowl two overs in a row, so a new player comes in to bowl the next over.

This continues until one of two things happen:

  1. All of the batsmen except for one are out. (One batsman cannot play by himself -- he must always have a partner.)
  2. All of the "overs" have been played. For example, a match might be "20 overs", "25 overs", or "50 overs." This is determined before the game begins.

Once the first team has completed their batting, the second team comes in to bat and the first team becomes the fielding team. The second team bats until one of three things happen:

  1. All of the batsmen except for one are out.
  2. All of the "overs" have been played.
  3. They score more runs than the first team scored while they were batting.

Getting Out
We've already discussed the bowler hitting the stumps with the ball. This is called "getting bowled." We've also mentioned that if the stumps are broken when the batsmen are running (and haven't made it to the other side), one of the batsmen is out ("run out.") But there are a few more ways to get out that are worth covering:

  • "Caught": just like it sounds. If the batsman hits the ball in the air and a fielder catches it without it hitting the ground first, the batsman is out.
  • "Stumped": if the batsman leaves his safe area ("crease") in the process of hitting a shot and the wicketkeeper breaks the stumps before he gets back into his safe area, the batsman is out.
  • Leg Before Wicket": this is a complicated one. To put it simply: if the batsman uses his body to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps, he's out.

Scoring
When the batsmen are running and they both successfully run to the other side of the pitch, one run is scored. They can do this as many times as they feel they can -- safely. There are two other ways a batsman can score runs:

  • If the batsman hits the ball and it crosses the boundary line of the field without bouncing first, six runs are scored.
  • If the batsman hits the ball and it crosses the boundary line of the field but it bounces inside the ground first, four runs are scored.

And those are the basics of the game! However, I've omitted a lot of details. You can study those and learn them as you get deeper into the game.

Cricket is a game that is best learned while you're actually watching it. So where can you watch games?

Houston Cricket

World Cricket

  • Willow TV -- internet streaming of live matches from around the world.
  • ESPN 3 -- another internet streaming service. They don't have much cricket right now, but have recently signed deals to bring thousands of matches to the Internet in the next several years.