How to Play Cricket

The rules of the game are described in the so-called (“Laws of Cricket”), which are officially “kept” by the English Marylebone Cricket Club.

Cricket is played by two teams, each consisting of 11 people, using a ball and a bat. The match is divided into periods called innings.

During the innings, one team bats, trying to score runs, and the other bowls and defends the field, trying to limit the score of the first and remove the batsmen from the game. The object of the game is to score more runs than the opponent.

Cricket is played in three different formats at international level - TEST, One Day International Cricket and T20 International Cricket. At club level, the shorter formats T20 and T10, with 20 and 10 overs respectively, are popular.

TEST matches are the most traditional format of cricket. They are played over 5 days, with two innings for each team. It is considered the highest form because it tests the strategy and endurance of the teams over a longer period of time.

One Day Internationals, also known as ODIs, are matches with a total of two innings, each of 50 overs. The key in them are the technique, speed and skill of the players. The ICC's biggest event - the Cricket World Cup, is played in this format every 4 years.

T20 International is the newest and shortest format of the game. It consists of only 20 overs and thanks to this, it sparked a new interest in the sport when it was introduced in 2005. It usually lasts about 3 hours and features precise bowling and incredible batting skills. The ICC World Twenty20 is the premier T20 tournament, which began in 2007.

The batting is one of the most exciting things in this sport. The batsman's goal is to hit the ball, scoring runs and keeping the wicket. There should always be two batsmen on the field. They take up positions at the two opposite ends of the field.

Runs are scored in two ways. The first is for the batsmen to hit the ball hard enough to make it go beyond the boundaries of the field. If the ball touches the ground, they score 4 runs. If it passes through the air, they score 6 runs.

The second way is for the two batsmen to run the distance of the pitch as many times as they can until the fielders return the ball. Each run by the two batsmen earns them one run. The batsmen can try to run one or more runs, or choose not to score any runs.

The bowler usually bowls the ball over his head without stepping on the bowling line. The bowler must bowl the ball within certain limits to be considered “correct”.

Players bowl in sets of 6 consecutive correct balls, called overs. At the end of each over, the side from which the ball is bowled changes. The main objective of the bowlers is to prevent the batsmen from scoring runs and to “burn” them.

Dismissal means that a batsman is removed from the game and replaced by another player. There are various scenarios in which this can happen. The main ones are:

• Bowled - the batsman misses the ball and it hits the wicket, causing the wicket-sticks to fall
• Caught - the batsman hits the ball, but it is caught in the air by the fielders
• Leg before wicket (LBW) - the batsman misses the ball and it hits his leg, just in front of the wicket
• Run out - the batsmen run between the wickets to score a run, but a fielder returns the ball before the batsmen have crossed the line and he or another player knocks the wickets
• Stumped - the batsman is in front of the batting line and misses the ball, the wicket-keeper catches it and knocks the wickets

Fielding is the defense of the field. It is performed by 9 fielders, 1 wicket-keeper and 1 bowler. One of the key positions is that of the wicket-keeper.

His main purpose is to stop and catch the balls that the batsman misses. The fielders aim to limit runs by catching the batted balls. They are positioned to cover the most important areas of the field.

Run-scoring is also possible in other ways than those described so far:

• Wide - if the bowler bowls the ball outside the boundaries of a "fair" ball, the batsman scores 1 extra run

• No ball - when the bowler breaks one of the following rules, the batsman scores 1 extra run:
  1/ crosses the bowling line when bowling
  2/ bowls the ball above the batsman's waist height without touching the ground
  3/ his back foot is outside the boundaries

• Bye - the batsman and the wicket-keeper miss the ball and both batsmen avoid the distance between the two wickets before the fielders catch it and return it

• Leg bye - the batsman misses the ball and it hits his leg but does not fall on the line in front of the wicket and both batsmen can run the distance between the two wickets before the fielders catch it and return the ball