Bowling, in cricket, is the action of propelling the ball toward the wicket defended by a batter. A player skilled at bowling is called a bowler; a bowler who is also a competent batter is known as an all-rounder. Bowling the ball is distinguished from throwing the ball by a strictly specified biomechanical definition, which restricts the angle of extension of the elbow. A single act of bowling the ball towards the batsman is called a ball or a delivery. Bowlers bowl deliveries in sets of six, called an over. Once a bowler has bowled an over, a teammate will bowl an over from the other end of the pitch. The Laws of Cricket govern how a ball must be bowled. If a ball is bowled illegally, an umpire will rule it a no-ball. If a ball is bowled too wide of the striker for the batsman to be able to play at it with a proper cricket shot, the bowler's end umpire will rule it a wide.
Fielding in the sport of cricket is the action of fielders in collecting the ball after it is struck by the striking batter, to limit the number of runs that the striker scores and/or to get a batter out by either catching a hit ball before it bounces, or by running out either batter before they can complete their current run. There are a number of recognised fielding positions and they can be categorised into the offside and leg side of the field. Fielding also involves trying to prevent the ball from making a boundary where four "runs" are awarded for reaching the perimeter and six for crossing it without touching the grass.
The Laws of Cricket is a code that specifies the rules of the game of cricket worldwide. The earliest known code was drafted in 1744. Since 1788, the code has been owned and maintained by the private Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in Lord's Cricket Ground, London. There are currently 42 Laws, which describe all aspects of how the game is to be played. MCC has re-coded the Laws six times, each with interim revisions that produce more than one edition. The most recent code, the seventh, was released in October 2017; its 3rd edition came into force on 1 October 2022.
This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of cricket. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Certain aspects of cricket terminology are explained in more detail in cricket statistics and the naming of fielding positions is explained at fielding (cricket).
In cricket, a no-ball is a type of illegal delivery to a batter. It is also a type of extra, being the run awarded to the batting team as a consequence of the illegal delivery. For most cricket games, especially amateur, the definition of all forms of no-ball is from the MCC Laws of Cricket.
Cricket is a sport that generates a variety of statistics.
In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter regardless of whether batting is their particular area of expertise. Historically, batsman and batswoman were used, and these terms remain in widespread use. Batters have to adapt to various conditions when playing on different cricket pitches, especially in different countries; therefore, as well as having outstanding physical batting skills, top-level batters will have quick reflexes, excellent decision-making skills, and be good strategists.
In cricket, an extra is a run scored by, or awarded to, a batting team which is not credited to any individual batter. They are the runs scored by methods other than striking the ball with the bat.
In cricket, a scorer is someone appointed to record all runs scored, all wickets taken and, where appropriate, the number of overs bowled. In professional games, in compliance with Law 3 of the Laws of Cricket, two scorers are appointed, most often one provided by each team.
The Australia national cricket team landed in England on 6 June 2005. Over the course of the summer, they played one Twenty20 International, a triangular ODI tournament with both Bangladesh and England, a one-day tournament with England, and five Test matches, the outcome of which would decide The Ashes. With Australia the top-ranked team in the World Test table, and England the second-ranked, this was the most eagerly anticipated Ashes series since the 1980s.
A delivery or ball in cricket is a single action of bowling a cricket ball toward the batter. Once the ball has been delivered, batters may attempt to score runs, with the bowler and other fielders attempting to stop this by getting the batters out. When the ball becomes dead, the next delivery can begin.
The 2005 Ashes series was that year's edition of the long-standing cricket rivalry between England and Australia. Starting on 21 July 2005, England and Australia played five Tests, with the Ashes held by Australia as the most recent victors. The final result was a 2–1 series win for England, who succeeded in their biennial attempt to win the urn.
The Bangladeshi cricket team toured Sri Lanka for three One Day International cricket matches and two Test cricket matches in August and September 2005. The Bangladeshi team was coming off a moderately successful tour of England, as they had pushed Australia close in one ODI and beat them in another. However, they had still lost five out of six matches in the NatWest Series, both of the Test matches, and remained at the bottom of both the ICC Test Championship and ICC ODI Championship. The hosts Sri Lanka, meanwhile, were undefeated in home ODI tournaments since February 2004, and in home Test series since March 2004, both against top-ranked Australia. Their win in the Indian Oil Cup a month before this series saw them into second place in the ODI Championship, but they are only ranked sixth in Tests.
The English cricket team toured India during February, March and April 2006. The English cricket team was aspiring to maintain the form that took them to second place in the ICC Test Championship and helped them to win the 2005 Ashes series at home to Australia. This goal was substantially hindered by an injury to the captain Michael Vaughan; the swing bowler Simon Jones and the absence of Ashley Giles who missed the tour for an operation. As well as this, stand-in captain Marcus Trescothick flew home for "personal reasons", not wishing to divulge further, leaving Andrew Flintoff, who missed the birth of his son, to take on the title of skipper for the first time having to captain two maiden international cricketers on the English side: Alastair Cook and Monty Panesar. Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla and Munaf Patel made their debuts for the home team.
Mitchell Guy Johnson is a former Australian cricketer, who played all forms of the game for his national side. He is a left-arm fast bowler and left-handed batsman. He represented Australia in international cricket from 2005 to 2015. Johnson is considered to be one of the greatest fast bowlers of his era and is referred as the most lethal bowler of all time. With his time representing Australia, Johnson won multiple ICC titles with the team: the 2007 Cricket World Cup, the 2015 Cricket World Cup, the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, and the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy.
Armchair cricket is a card game that is inspired by the bat and ball sport cricket. It is played by either two or four people. Depending on the version of the game being played, a game can last a few minutes to several hours. It was produced commercially in England but is no longer made.
The 2006–07 cricket series between Australia and England for The Ashes was played in Australia from 23 November 2006 to 5 January 2007. Australia won the series and regained the Ashes that had been lost to England in the 2005 series. The five Tests of the series were played at Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. In winning, Australia completed a 5–0 "whitewash", the first time this had happened in an Ashes series since 1920–21. The series was also notable for the retirement of four significant Australian players, namely Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Ricky Ponting was named Player of the Series.
This Border-Gavaskar Trophy was composed of seven first-class matches, including four Tests. India also participated in an ODI tri-series with Australia and Zimbabwe. The Test series was drawn 1–1, and India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy because of their victory in the Trophy's previous contest. In the 2003–04 series' Adelaide Test, Rahul Dravid scored a double century, securing a famous win for India. Sachin Tendulkar scored 241* in Sydney, which up until that point in his career was his highest score in a Test match. Captain Sourav Ganguly made his first test century against Australia, a 144 in Brisbane that gave his team a lead of 86 after they were in trouble. VVS Laxman played consistently well throughout this series, most notably his contribution in the Adelaide test is well remembered. This series was also the last for Steve Waugh, who had captained Australia to a record equalling 16 consecutive test match victories and had 41 victories in 57 Tests.
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field, at the centre of which is a 22-yard pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. Two players from the batting team, the striker and nonstriker, stand in front of either wicket holding bats, while one player from the fielding team, the bowler, bowls the ball toward the striker's wicket from the opposite end of the pitch. The striker's goal is to hit the bowled ball with the bat and then switch places with the nonstriker, with the batting team scoring one run for each of these exchanges. Runs are also scored when the ball reaches the boundary of the field or when the ball is bowled illegally.
Bernard James Tindal Bosanquet was an English cricketer best known for inventing the googly, a delivery designed to deceive the batsman. When bowled, it appears to be a leg break, but after pitching the ball turns in the opposite direction to that which is expected, behaving as an off break instead. Bosanquet, who played first-class cricket for Middlesex between 1898 and 1919, appeared in seven Test matches for England as an all-rounder. He was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1905.
