Main Rules of Cricket

The rules of cricket can take some time to comprehend and much longer to fully appreciate. The game is very popular in England and many of that country's former colonial commonwealths. It is played on a circular field by two teams with 11 players each. Boiled down to its essentials, cricket play consists of a bowler hurling a ball at a batter. But from that simple beginning extends one of the most intricately devised games on the planet.

  1. Batting and Running

    • The rules of cricket play commence when the striking batter assumes a batting stance to receive the ball from the bowler. If the striker hits the ball, both he and a non-striking batter can choose whether to run or not. Choosing to run and crossing the boundary on the outer edge of the field with the ball counts as four runs. If the ball is hit over the boundary without having bounced within the field of play, this counts as six runs.

    Extras

    • Runs that are scored without the batter striking the ball are known as extras. Several different rules exist regarding the scoring of an extra. An extra is awarded if the bowler's delivery was deemed illegal. A bye is a type of extra awarded when the batting pair completes a run but the ball failed to touch the bat or the batter and the wicketkeeper errored in fielding. A leg bye is an extra that occurs when the batting pair completes a run without the ball having struck only the glove or bat of the batter. If the delivery is hurled out of reach of the batter when the batter is in a normal hitting stance, an extra called a wide is conferred.

    Dismissal

    • The batter, wicket and wicketkeeper

      Ten ways exist in which a batter can be dismissed. A dismissal is the equivalent of being called out in baseball. A few of these 10 forms of dismissal are very rarely called while others are far more common. Among the actions that can result in a dismissal are if the batter strikes the ball twice, if the bowler dislodges at least one bail atop the wicket, if the batter purposely obstructs or distracts the fielding team or if the batter takes longer than three minutes to reach the pitch.

    Leg Before Cricket Law 36

    • The Leg Before Cricket rule is know as Law 36 and is the most controversial rule in cricket because it is the one most susceptible to umpire subjectivity. If the ball hits the batsman without the bat hitting the ball first, the umpire has the right to call an out. The controversial room for subjectivity is based on whether the umpire believes that the batter made no attempt to play the ball even though there was a good chance of it hitting the wicket. The umpire also has the right to determine whether or not the projected flight path of a ball that hit the player would have gone over the top of the wicket or not.