How to Play Cricket Effectively: Rules, Tips and Secrets to Cricket

A lot like baseball, cricket is a bat-and-ball sport played by two teams, called “squads.” Each squad has a total of eleven players. During each segment of the game, or innings, the two squads switch between fielding and batting alternately. The eleven players on each team are composed of strikers, called batsmen, fielders and bowlers. During the game, two referees or umpires maintain order in the game and make sure all players are following the rules. In an event of a mistake, the umpires call it and give out penalties and other consequences accordingly.

How to Play Effectively By Keeping Track of the Rules

Becoming an effective cricket player is achievable by first familiarizing oneself to the basic rules of the game. Like all other sports, every error made during the game has corresponding penalties. Not only that these penalties make the sloppy squad look bad, but penalties are also a great way to rack up the scores for the opposing squad. In order to prevent these, every player must have crystal clear understanding of the game and what these penalties are. The following are four good examples of penalties that gives the batting team extra runs whenever the fielding team makes an error:

• No ball

• Wide

• Bye

• Leg bye

If the bowler either does an inappropriate bowl or step out of his popping or return crease, he concedes a “no ball” penalty, which gives the batting team one extra. A “wide” happens when he bowls the ball to far from batsmen reach. In case the ball hits the batsman’s body or the wicketkeeper fails to catch the ball, the batting team gets one or more extra(s); these penalties are called “leg bye” and “bye.”

Tips and Secrets to Play Cricket Effectively

Aside from avoiding penalties, an effective player also knows how to steer clear of dismissals or outs. There are ten ways to get a batsman out during a game, but not all of them are present throughout the history of the game. Even so, an effective player has knowledge of the following rules:

• Bowled

• Caught

• Leg before wicket or LBW

• Run out

• Hit the wicket

• Hit the ball twice

• Obstructed the field

• Handled the ball

• Timed out

Among these rules, the latter half are more unusual and less popular to cricket players. For instance, “hit the ball twice” was introduced more as a safety measure than a rule to the game. Deliberately getting in a fielder’s way is called “field obstruction” and is another unusual rule that may cause the batsman to get dismissed. The batsman must never touch the ball, because if he does, it would result to him being called out with a “handled the ball” dismissal. Lastly, “time out” implies that another batsman failed to reach the wicket within 3 minutes after the first batsman was dismissed.

As a final tip, keep in mind that cricket games are usually held during the summer, when the temperatures usually reach 40. Drinking a lot of water could definitely help to maintain the stamina and performance of a player.