Introduction to Cricket

In this lesson you will meet the game of cricket in its simplest form. Cricket is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams, usually of eleven players each. One team bats and tries to score runs, while the other team bowls and fields and tries to stop them. Then the teams swap over. At the end of the match, the team that has scored more runs wins. That one simple idea sits underneath every format of the game, from a friendly family match to an international final. As you work through this module, keep coming back to it: score more runs than your opponents, and you win.

• Bat-and-ball game between two teams
• Usually eleven players per side
• One team bats while the other bowls and fields
• The team with more runs wins

In this lesson you will learn where the main action happens. In the middle of the field is the pitch, a strip of closely mown grass twenty-two yards long. At each end stands a wicket made of three wooden stumps with two small bails resting on top. The bowler delivers the ball from one end towards the batter defending the wicket at the other end. The ball is hard, with a raised seam around its middle, which is why proper protective equipment matters. Two batters are always on the pitch together, one at each end, and they work as a partnership to score runs.

• The pitch is 22 yards long
• Each wicket is three stumps topped by two bails
• Two batters are in at once, one at each end
• The hard ball makes protective kit important

In this lesson you will discover the ways a batting side scores. When a batter hits the ball, both batters can run to swap ends, and each completed run adds one to the score. If the ball reaches the boundary after touching the ground, four runs are scored automatically. If it clears the boundary without bouncing, that is six runs. The batting side can also receive extras, which are runs added for mistakes by the fielding side, such as wides and no-balls. Every run counts towards the team total, and that total is what decides the match.

• Running between the wickets scores one run each time
• Ball reaching the boundary along the ground scores four
• Ball clearing the boundary on the full scores six
• Extras are runs given away by the fielding side

In this lesson you will learn how the fielding side gets batters out. The most common dismissals are bowled, where the ball hits the stumps and removes a bail, and caught, where a fielder catches the ball after the batter has hit it and before it touches the ground. Other ways include leg before wicket, run out and stumped. When a batter is out, the next batter comes in. Because two batters must be at the crease, once ten batters are out the innings is over, even though one batter remains not out.

• Bowled and caught are the most common dismissals
• Others include LBW, run out and stumped
• A new batter replaces each one dismissed
• Ten wickets down ends the innings

In this lesson you will understand how bowling is organised. Bowling is divided into overs, and each over is six legal deliveries bowled by the same bowler from one end. When an over finishes, a different bowler bowls the next over from the other end. A bowler cannot bowl two overs in a row. In limited-overs cricket each innings has a set number of overs, and each bowler is limited in how many they can bowl. In a twenty-over match, for example, no bowler may bowl more than four overs.

• An over is six legal deliveries
• Overs alternate between the two ends
• No bowler may bowl consecutive overs
• In T20, each bowler bowls a maximum of four overs

In this lesson you will look at how a match ends. In a limited-overs match the side batting second chases a target, which is one more than the first side scored. If they reach it, they win by the number of wickets they still have in hand. If they fall short, the side batting first wins by the number of runs between the totals. If the scores finish level, the match is a tie. Sometimes weather stops play altogether and there is no result. Each competition decides how these outcomes earn league points.

• The chasing side needs one more run than the target
• Win by wickets when chasing, by runs when defending
• Level scores at the end produce a tie
• Weather can lead to a no result

In this lesson you will meet the main formats of the game. Test cricket is the longest format, played over up to five days with two innings per side. One Day cricket gives each side a single innings of up to fifty overs. Twenty20, often called T20, gives each side a single innings of twenty overs and usually lasts around three hours. The Winn Family T-20 League plays twenty overs a side, so T20 is the format you will see most at Winnston Park. You will study T20 in more detail later in the Cricket Foundations pathway.

• Test cricket: up to five days, two innings each
• One Day cricket: up to 50 overs per side
• T20: 20 overs per side, about three hours
• The Winn Family T-20 League plays 20 overs a side