Cricket writing, from our own data
Cricket records, rules explained and notes on the daily puzzles. Written from our own dataset, never rewritten from a news site.
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.
Twenty20 cricket explained, and why it took over
Twenty overs a side, invented by English counties to sell tickets, now the format that funds the sport. What actually changes when an innings is 120 balls long.
The IPL explained, and how it rearranged world cricket
Ten franchises, an auction, and a two-month window every board now schedules around. What the IPL actually is, and what it changed that was not the salaries.
Test cricket explained for someone watching their first day
Five days, two innings each, and a result that can be a draw. What is actually happening on day two when nobody appears to be trying to win.
One-day international cricket explained, and its identity problem
Fifty overs a side, the format that invented the World Cup and now sits awkwardly between the two everybody argues about. What it does that neither of the others can.
The first Test match, 1877, and why nobody called it that
Australia beat England by 45 runs at the MCG in a game neither side considered historic. The label came later, and so did almost everything else.
The first Cricket World Cup, 1975, and the format it proved
Sixty overs a side, in whites, with a red ball, and a final that finished after nine at night. It turned one-day cricket from a county gimmick into the sport's biggest event.