Explainers
Cricket rules and methods explained plainly. Net run rate, Duckworth-Lewis, the follow-on, and the ones people argue about.
Bad light in cricket, and how it is actually measured
There is no published light level that stops a cricket match. The meter records what the umpires decided, so play can resume at the same reading later.
Ball tracking, and how confident it actually is
Half of a ball-tracking graphic is filmed and half is a prediction, and umpire's call is the system stating exactly where its confidence runs out.
Slower balls explained: cutters, knuckle balls and the carrom ball
Four ways to take pace off a delivery without changing the arm speed, plus the one on the list that is not a slower ball at all and never was.
Cricket ground dimensions, and why no two are the same
The pitch is fixed to the inch and the boundary is a range of twenty-five yards, which is why the same shot is six at one ground and caught at another.
Death bowling, and why it is the hardest job in cricket
The last four overs cost roughly three runs more per over than the middle, and the bowler is asked to do it with five fielders out and a set batter swinging.
Dew, and why it decides more night matches than rain
Dew makes the ball wet, the spinners harmless and the outfield fast, and it appears on no scorecard. At some grounds it is worth more than the toss.
Extras explained: byes, leg byes, wides and no-balls
Four kinds of extra, and the only distinction that matters is whether the bowler is charged for it. Two of them are, two are not, and the reason is fault.
Home advantage in cricket, measured rather than assumed
Home sides win around half of all Test matches and lose about a quarter, and the gap grew through the 2010s while it shrank in almost every other sport.
How a cricket pitch is prepared, and what green really means
Grass, moisture and rolling are the three variables a groundsman controls, and green on television tells you almost nothing about which of them is present.
How the ICC rankings actually work, and what they measure
Ratings out of 1,000 rather than points for wins, weighted by who you beat and how recently, which is why a side can win a series and lose ground.
Left-right batting pairs, and why bowling sides hate them
Every single a left-right pair takes mirrors the whole field and moves the bowler's line by a stump and a half. It costs the fielding side; it costs the batters nothing.
Net run rate, and the two rules almost everyone gets wrong
Net run rate decides more qualifications than any other number in cricket, and most explanations of it skip the two rules that actually change the answer.
What counts as an all-rounder, and the four definitions in use
Four definitions are in circulation and only one of them is testable: does the batting average exceed the bowling average. Very few players in history clear it.
The concussion substitute, and why it is unlike any other rule
It is the only rule in cricket that lets a replacement bat and bowl, and it exists because the alternatives were a concussed player continuing or a side playing with ten.
A tie is not a draw, and the difference is not pedantry
A tie means the scores finished level with the match complete. A draw means time ran out. One has happened twice in Test cricket; the other happens constantly.
The forward defensive, and why every coach teaches it first
It is the least glamorous shot in cricket, and every attacking shot on the front foot turns out to be a version of it with the hands released through the ball.
The free hit rule, and why it costs far more than one run
A no-ball in white-ball cricket hands the batter a delivery on which only a run out can dismiss them, and in the last two overs it is worth several times the penalty run.
The run out at the bowler's end, and why it was renamed
It has been legal since 1947 and moved out of the unfair play section in 2022. The objection has never been to the Law, only to the manners around it.
The second new ball, and why captains do not always take it
A new ball becomes available at 80 overs and taking it straight away is frequently the wrong decision. What the captain is weighing is reverse swing against hardness.
Over rates, and the penalties that finally changed them
Sides bowled slowly for forty years because fines were cheaper than the advantage. It stopped when the penalty became points and fielders rather than money.
What an opening batter is actually for, format by format
The only position in cricket defined by what it faces rather than where it bats, and the job reverses completely between a Test match and a T20.
The sweep, the reverse sweep and the switch hit explained
Four shots that start from the same position and end up in four different places, all invented to send the ball where the fielders are not.
What a wicket is actually worth in each format
Ten wickets and a fixed number of balls produce completely different economies. In a Test a wicket is the only currency; in a T20 the tenth one is nearly worthless.
The yorker, and why the best delivery is the hardest to land
The target is a strip of ground about a foot deep at the base of the stumps. A foot either side and it is the easiest ball in cricket to hit.
What a cricket ball is made of, and why it matters
Cork, wound string, four quarters of leather and six rows of stitching. Every behaviour a bowler relies on comes from one of those four components.
The declaration, and the arithmetic behind when to make one
A captain ending their own innings is not asking whether they have enough runs. They are asking whether there is enough time left to bowl the other side out.
The doosra, and why it has been argued about for twenty years
An off-spinner turning the ball the other way requires a wrist position that makes straightening the elbow very hard to avoid, which is where the whole argument comes from.
Kookaburra, Dukes and SG: why the ball changes the cricket
Three balls with identical dimensions behave completely differently, and the reason is the seam. It decides how long a bowler can swing it and which bowlers get picked.
The maiden over, and why it means three different things
Six balls without a run is routine in a Test, notable in an ODI and close to extinct in T20 — and it is worth about eight runs when it happens.
The nightwatchman, and whether it actually works
Sending a tail-ender in late in the day protects a better batter from twenty minutes of danger, and costs a wicket most of the time it is used.
What a wicketkeeper is judged on, and what the card misses
Catches, stumpings and byes are the four numbers on the card, and three of them mislead. What a side actually watches is chances taken and whether they can stand up.
Why a cricket bat has a sweet spot, and where it is
A bat is a spring made of willow, and one place on the blade returns most of the energy. Modern bats did not get heavier — the good part got bigger.
Why run rates rose in every cricket format at once
Test cricket scores twenty per cent faster than it did in the 1990s and nobody changed a rule. Six causes arrived together and the bats are only one of them.
Duckworth-Lewis-Stern, explained without the table
Why a side chasing in 34 overs is not chasing two thirds of the target, and why revised targets that look harsh are usually correct.
A batting average is not runs divided by innings
The most misread number in cricket. Why not-outs are subtracted before the division, and what that does to a finisher's career figure.
Strike rate means nothing without the format beside it
A strike rate of 75 is exceptional in one format and unplayable in another. What the number measures, what it ignores, and the only way to read it.
The history of cricket in ten moments that actually changed it
Not a list of famous matches. Ten points where the sport itself became something different, from the first Test to the T20 money that rewrote the calendar.
How lbw actually works in cricket, decision by decision
Leg before wicket is four questions asked in a fixed order, and most arguments about it are really arguments about which question the umpire stopped at.
Every way a batter can be out, including the ones nobody sees
Ten methods exist in the Laws. Four account for almost everything, three are rare, and three have been given so seldom they are trivia.
The Decision Review System explained, step by step
What happens between a player tapping out a T and a decision appearing on the screen, including why umpire's call exists and who really owns a review.
Bowling economy rate explained, and why part overs mislead
Runs per over sounds like the simplest statistic in cricket. The arithmetic trips people up, and the number means three different things in three formats.
What counts as a no-ball, and the five ways to bowl one
The front foot is the famous one and the least interesting. Height, bounce, fielding positions and the ball reaching the batter on the full all qualify.
Every kind of wide, and why they differ by format
A delivery that is legal in a Test can be a wide in a T20. The Law is the same; what changes is how strictly it is applied and where the lines are painted.
What the follow-on is, and why captains stopped enforcing it
A 200-run lead lets you make the other side bat again. Three teams in history have lost after enforcing it, and that is enough to have changed the tactic.
Powerplays explained, format by format and phase by phase
The fielding restrictions that shape every white-ball innings, why they exist, and what each phase is actually asking a captain to decide.
What the super over is, and how cricket settles a tie
Six balls, two wickets, one team each. The rules are simple; what happens when the super over also ties has changed twice and once decided a World Cup.
Reverse swing explained, and the conditions it needs
Why an old ball swings the wrong way, why it took decades to be believed, and why two new balls in one-day cricket nearly removed it from the format.
How to read a cricket scorecard properly, line by line
Every number on a scorecard is answering a question. Once you know which, the card tells you what happened without anyone having to describe it.
Cricket fielding positions, named and explained
Forty-odd names that sound arbitrary and are not. The whole system is three words combined, and once you know the grammar you can name any position on the field.
The googly explained, and why it is so hard to pick
A leg-spinner's delivery that turns the other way, bowled with the same arm action from the back of the hand. What it does, how to spot it, and why it changed spin bowling.
Why cricket overs are written in base six, and the maths it breaks
34.3 overs is not 34.3. It is 34.5. Every hand-calculated bowling figure and run rate in the world is slightly wrong because of this one notation.
The cricket toss, and how much it is actually worth
A captain wins a coin and makes one decision. In some conditions it is worth almost nothing; in others it is worth more than any player in the side.