The words, decoded
Glossary
Cricket has a vocabulary all its own. Here are the terms you will hear most, in plain English.
- All-rounder
- A player good enough to earn their place with both bat and ball.
- Bail
- One of the two small wooden pieces resting on top of the stumps; dislodging a bail is what breaks the wicket.
- Bouncer
- A short-pitched fast delivery that rears up around the batter's head.
- Boundary
- The rope marking the edge of the field; also the four or six runs scored by hitting the ball to or over it.
- Century
- An individual score of 100 runs or more — the benchmark of a great innings.
- Conventional swing
- The everyday swing of a newish ball, curving through the air the way its angled seam points. Swing, Part 3 →
- Crease
- The marked lines defining a batter's safe ground and where the bowler must deliver from.
- Death overs
- The closing overs of a limited-overs innings, when batters attack and bowlers defend the total.
- Declaration
- A captain voluntarily ending their team's innings, used in Test cricket to leave time to bowl the opposition out.
- Doctoring
- Preparing a pitch to favour the home side's bowlers beyond what is thought fair — the accusation tends to depend on who is losing. The Pitch, Part 9 →
- Drop-in
- A pitch grown off-site in a tray and craned into the ground for the match, so the stadium can host football or concerts the rest of the year. The Pitch, Part 4 →
- Duck
- Being dismissed for a score of zero. Out first ball is a 'golden duck'.
- Dukes
- The hand-stitched ball used in England and the West Indies; its proud, upright seam swings and seams for hours. Swing, Part 9 →
- Economy rate
- Runs a bowler concedes per over — the lower the better.
- Extras
- Runs added to the team total that aren't credited to any batter: wides, no-balls, byes and leg-byes.
- Featherbed
- A soft, flat, true pitch where the ball sits up to be hit — a batter's paradise. Also called a road or a belter. The Pitch, Part 4 →
- Googly
- A wrist-spinner's disguised delivery that turns the opposite way to the batter's expectation.
- Green top
- A grassy, often damp pitch that makes the ball seam off the surface and swing through the air; a fast bowler's friend. The Pitch, Part 4 →
- Hat-trick
- Three wickets taken by a bowler with three consecutive deliveries.
- Innings
- A team's or a batter's turn at batting. Used both ways: 'India's innings' and 'a fine innings of 90'.
- Inswinger
- A delivery that curves in through the air towards the batter's body and stumps. Swing, Part 4 →
- Kookaburra
- The mostly machine-stitched ball used in most countries; its flatter seam softens after 20–40 overs, and then the pitch has to do the work. Swing, Part 9 →
- Maiden
- An over from which no runs are scored off the bat.
- Minefield
- A pitch with dangerous, unpredictable bounce, where wickets fall to the surface as much as to the bowler. The Pitch, Part 4 →
- Nightwatchman
- A lower-order batter sent in late in the day to protect a better batter until the next morning.
- No-ball
- An illegal delivery (often overstepping the crease) that costs a run and usually a free hit.
- Outswinger
- A delivery that curves away through the air from the batter, towards the slip fielders. Swing, Part 4 →
- Over
- A set of six legal deliveries bowled consecutively from one end.
- Pitch
- The 22-yard strip of prepared ground between the two sets of stumps, where the ball bounces on its way to the batter. The Pitch, Part 1 →
- Powerplay
- An early phase of a limited-overs innings with fielding restrictions that favour the batting side.
- Reverse swing
- Late swing achieved with an old ball, typically by fast bowlers at high pace. Swing, Part 6 →
- Run rate
- Average runs scored per over — the pulse of a limited-overs chase.
- Seam
- The stitched ridge on the ball; 'seam bowling' uses it to deviate off the pitch. Swing, Part 1 →
- SG
- India's hand-stitched ball, with the most pronounced seam of the three; it scuffs up on dry pitches to feed spin and reverse swing. Swing, Part 9 →
- Sledging
- Verbal gamesmanship aimed at unsettling the batter.
- Spin
- Slow bowling that turns the ball off the pitch using finger or wrist. Swing, Part 1 →
- Sticky wicket
- A rain-soaked pitch baked by hot sun into near-unplayable glue; extinct in Test cricket since grounds began covering their pitches. The Pitch, Part 4 →
- Strike rate
- For a batter, runs scored per 100 balls — a measure of scoring speed.
- Stumps
- The three vertical posts that, with the bails, form the wicket; also the end of a day's play in a Test.
- Swing
- The ball curving sideways through the air on its way to the batter, before it bounces. Swing, Part 1 →
- Tail
- The lower-order batters, usually the bowlers, who bat last and least.
- Toss
- The coin flip before play that decides which side chooses to bat or bowl first. The Pitch, Part 7 →
- Turner
- A dry, crumbling pitch that grips and turns the ball sharply for the spinners; a big one is a 'Bunsen'. The Pitch, Part 4 →
- Wicket
- Three meanings: the set of stumps and bails, a batter's dismissal, and the pitch itself. Context decides which.
- Wobble seam
- A delivery bowled with the seam wobbling upright, so neither bowler nor batter knows which way it will move off the pitch. Swing, Part 8 →
- Yorker
- A delivery pitched right at the batter's feet — lethal at the death and hard to hit.