Cheat Sheet

Here, SKTR gives you a quick guide to the rules of cricket. Not everything, but enough to get you out of trouble in any conversation or at a match.

The rules of cricket depend on the type of game involved, determined mainly by the number of overs (six balls) bowled. Twenty20 is 20 overs each, One Day games have 50 overs each and test cricket ... well, test cricket is dictated more by a side being bowled out than the number of overs, although the time limit on a test match is five days. (OK stay focused, now.)

Which side bats first is decided by the toss of a coin. One side tries to score as many runs as possible and the other side tries to bowl them out. Although there are eleven people in each team only ten people need to be bowled out as you cannot have one person batting alone. Batting is done in pairs. (A bit like girlfriends going to the loo!)

There are three main ways a batsman can score runs – hitting the ball and running between the wickets, hitting the ball to the boundary (four runs) or hitting it over the boundary (six runs). Other ways runs can be scored include no balls, wide balls, byes and leg byes. The rules state that the runs are awarded to the batting team rather than individual batters. See the full rules if you'd like to know more.

There are a number of different ways a batsman can get out . When a bowler gets a batsman out it is said that the bowler gets a "wicket". The following are more ways a batsman can get out:

Bowled – when the ball hits the wickets.
Caught – when the batter hits the ball and someone in the fielding team catches it on the full.
Leg before wicket (LBW) - if the ball is bowled and it hits the batsman first without the bat hitting it then an LBW decision is possible.
Stumped – when the wicket-keeper hits the wickets with the ball.
Run out – when a fielder throws the ball at the wicket while the batter is running between the wickets.
Hit wicket – When the batter accidently hits the wicket with the bat. Oops!