Cricket Games » Articles » Cricket - A Team Sport

Cricket is a team sport which is played outdoors. It is played with bat, ball and wickets by two teams of 11 players, each having a captain and a keeper. There are also two umpires who conduct the game and decide whether a player is out or not. The ground must have a particular 22 yard stretch in the middle where the batsmen will bat and the bowlers will bowl. This stretch is usually constructed by professionals and is called a pitch. The rest of the ground is used for fielding. There should be wickets on each end of the pitch. At a single point of time, there must be 13 players on the ground; 11 players from the fielding team and 2 batsmen who will bat at each end.

Before a cricket match starts, one of the umpires will flip a coin to decide the toss with the captains from both the teams. Which ever captain wins the toss decides whether his team will bat or field first. If he chooses to bat first, then two of his players will go to the ground to bat. Now, if he chooses to field first, his whole team will go to the ground and take up positions to field. A bowler will bowl and the keeper will stand behind the wickets on the other end. A bowler can bowl 6 balls which consist of an over. A bowler can only bowl 1 over at a time. After an over is finished the batsmen change sides and bat again.

A batsman will bat until and unless he gets out and is dismissed. Once dismissed, he cannot bat again in that innings. Each team has 10 wickets to play with. When a batsman is out, the team is said to have lost a wicket. That batsman is then replaced by another one. This goes on until 10 players get out.

The batsmen should score runs by running between the wickets and can also score a 4 or a 6. Once the batting team is out, the fielding team starts their batting and will have to get past the score of their opponent. If they can cross their opponents score, then the team batting second wins the match, and if they fail, then the team who batted first wins.