About Cricket

Cricket is a ball game played by two teams consisting of eleven players on a pitch with two sets of three stumps (wickets). The bowler bowls the ball down the pitch to the batsman of the opposing team, who must defend the wicket in front of which he stands.

The object of the game is to score as many runs as possible. Runs can be scored individually by running the length of the playing strip, or by hitting a ball which lands outside the boundary (six runs) or which lands inside the boundary but bounces or rolls outside (four runs). The opposing team will bowl and field, attempting to dismiss the batsmen.

Each team plays under a captain. The captain should nominate his players before the match. The order in which the teams bat is determined by a coin toss. The two captains of each team will toss for the choice of innings before the match. The captain of the side winning the toss may elect to bat or field first. Once the winner of the toss notify his decision to bat or to field to the opposing captain thereafter the decision shall not be altered. All eleven players of the fielding team go out to field, two players of the batting team go out to bat. The remaining of the batting team wait off the field for their turn to bat.

There are various forms of cricket played today. Test match, the highest standard of first class cricket, is played for five days and consists of two innings. In Each innings unlimited number of overs are played. Innings ends when batting side is bowled out or when the captain of the batting team "declares" ends of the innings voluntarily. (Innings is a division of a game during which a side is in or batting).

In One day match, only one innings is played with each team bowling 50 overs. Unlike test match, One day match usually ends with a result.

T20 is a 20 over match and is gaining more popularity as it can encourage aggressive, fast, risky and entertaining batting and often ends with unpredictable finish.