Cricket Rules

If you are new to cricket you will need to understand the basic cricket rules first. There are many rules to learn about this fantastic game.
Cricket is a game played by two teams of eleven players. One side bats first and the other side fields. The goal of the team batting first is to score as many runs as possible and the goal of the team fielding is to take ten wickets (a wicket is when a player is out). This will leave one player in the batting side not out, as you can not bat without one of your team at the other end.
After both teams have batted the team with the most runs wins!
The Start of a Cricket Match
The captain that wins the toss (flipping a coin) gets to choose either to bat or bowl first.
Two players from the batting team go out to bat. Their other nine players support their team off the field of play waiting for their turn at bat.
The game is played by the bowler, bowling the cricket ball to try and get the batsman out. There are four way to do this:
- Bowled - this is when the bowler bowls the ball and the batsman missed it and it hits the wickets. - Caught - This is when the batsman hit the ball in the air and one of the eleven players in the field catches the ball before it hits the ground. - L.B.W. (Leg Before Wicket) This is when the ball hits the batsman on the leg and in the opinion of the umpire the ball would have hit the wickets. - Run Out - This is when the batsman runs between the wickets at each end and the fielding team break the wickets before he makes the other end.
Scoring Runs
The way the batsmen score runs is by either hitting the ball to the boundary. (which is the circle that is placed around the pitch about sixty yards away from the pitch) The ball has to be hit over this boundary to score four runs. If it is hit over the boundary on the full the batting team scores six runs. The other way to score runs is when the two batsmen run between the wickets. (22 yards apart) this counts as one run.
At the end of the game each team will pick a player of the day from their team.