Rules
Following rules are for traditional form of cricket (e.g. Test matches). For 20’s and 50’s there is slight difference
Firstly
Cricket: 2 teams – 11 players each. Reserve player, "twelfth man" is used if a player is injured. The twelfth man is not permitted to bowl, bat, wicket keep or captain the team. Their sole responsibility is to act as a replacement fielder. The original player can return to the game as soon as he or she has recovered.
There are 2 umpires on the field when the game is on. They are the decision makers and let the scorers know the decision. A third umpire is off the field and is in command of video decisions. This is where the on field umpires cannot decide due to visual ambiguity and call for the third umpire to replay and review the play from the video.
Game structure
- Official tosses a coin before game begins
- Captain who won the toss decides on whether to bat or bowl first
- Batting team is to score runs
- Fielding team is to bowl ten people out and shut the other team's innings
- Out of eleven people in each team, ten people need to be bowled out – 1 person left cannot bat alone
- Once the first is out, the second team goes into bat
- As the second team is out, normally the first team would bat again.
However an exception of the "follow-on" can be made
Follow on is when the first team scores 200 runs more than the second one in the 5 day period. The first team captain has the option of getting the other team to bat. This is due to slow game, bad weather or lack of time to complete the innings. If this is the case the batting team's captain CAN surrender their innings any time. This is referred to as declaration.
Some may wonder why the captain would do that (lose the chance to bat) however if the game is soon to end and the team realises that it can’t bowl out the other team again hence If a team is not bowled out twice and the winner not declared on the fifth day................