In
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
, the term wicket has several meanings:
* It is one of the two sets of three
stumps and two
bails at either end of the
pitch. The
fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman
out
Out may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
* ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
* ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander
* ''Out'' (2002 film), a Japanese film ba ...
.
** The wicket is guarded by a
batsman who, with his
bat (and sometimes with his
pads
Pads (also called leg guards) are a type of protective equipment used in a number of sports and serve to protect the legs from the impact of a hard ball, puck, or other object of play travelling at high speed which could otherwise cause injuries t ...
, but see the laws on
LBW, leg before wicket), attempts to prevent the
ball from hitting the wicket (if it does, he is
bowled out) and to
score runs where possible.
* Through
metonymic usage, the
dismissal
Dismissal or dismissed may refer to:
Dismissal
*In litigation, a dismissal is the result of a successful ''motion to dismiss''. See motion
*Termination of employment, the end of employee's duration with an employer
**Dismissal (employment), ter ...
of a batsman is known as the ''taking of a wicket'',
* The
cricket pitch itself is sometimes referred to as ''the wicket''.
History
The origin of the word is from
wicket gate, a small gate. Originally, cricket wickets had only two stumps and one bail and looked like a gate, much like the wicket used in the North American game of
wicket. The third (middle) stump was introduced in 1775, after
Lumpy Stevens
Edward "Lumpy" Stevens (1735 – 7 September 1819) was an English professional cricketer who played first-class cricket in the 18th century. He was an outstanding bowler who is generally regarded as the first great bowler in the game's hi ...
bowled three successive deliveries to
John Small that went straight through the two stumps rather than hitting them.
Stumps and bails
The size and shape of the wicket has changed several times during the last 300 years; its dimensions and placing is now determined by Law 8 in the ''
Laws of Cricket'', thus:
* Law 8: The wickets. The wicket consists of three wooden stumps that are tall. The stumps are placed along the batting crease with equal distances between each stump. They are positioned so they are wide. Two wooden bails are placed in shallow grooves on top of the stumps. The bails must not project more than above the stumps, and must, for cricket, be long.
There are also specified lengths for the barrel and spigots of the bail. There are different specifications for the wickets and bails for junior cricket. The umpires may dispense with the bails if conditions are unfit (e.g., if it is windy they might fall off by themselves). Further details on the specifications of the wickets are contained in Appendix D to the laws.
Putting down a wicket
The wicket can be thought of as the target of the fielding team, as the
bowler and
fielders alike can
dismiss the batter by hitting the wicket with the ball, and in particular, can prevent run-scoring (off a ball that has not reached the boundary) by managing or threatening to
run out batters.
For a batsman to be dismissed by being
bowled,
run out,
stumped or
hit wicket, his wicket needs to be put down, potentially when neither batsman is in the
ground
Ground may refer to:
Geology
* Land, the surface of the Earth not covered by water
* Soil, a mixture of clay, sand and organic matter present on the surface of the Earth
Electricity
* Ground (electricity), the reference point in an electrical c ...
of the wicket. This generally occurs when a fielder throws the ball at the wicket, or hits it with ball in hand. What this means is defined by Law 29. A wicket is put down if:
* A
bail is completely removed from the top of the stumps
* A stump is struck out of the grounds by the ball, the striker's bat, the striker's person (or by any part of his clothing or equipment becoming detached from his person), a
fielder (with his hand or arm, and provided that the ball is held in the hand or hands so used, or in the hand of the arm so used).
* A 2010 amendment to the Laws clarified the rare circumstance where a bat breaks during the course of a shot and the detached debris breaks the wicket; the wicket has been put down in this circumstance.
The wicket is also put down if a fielder pulls a stump out of the ground in the same manner.
Special situations:
*If one bail is off, removing the remaining bail or striking or pulling any stump out of the ground is sufficient to put the wicket down. A fielder may remake the wicket, if necessary, to put it down to have an opportunity of running out a batsman.
*If both bails are off, a fielder must strike or pull any stump out of the ground with the ball, or pull it out of the ground with a hand or arm, provided that the ball is held in the hand(s) so used, or in the hand of the arm so used.
If the
umpires have agreed to dispense with bails, because, for example, it is too windy for the bails to remain on the stumps, the decision as to whether the wicket has been put down is one for the umpire concerned to decide. After a decision to play without bails, the wicket has been put down if the umpire concerned is satisfied that the wicket has been struck by the ball, by the striker's
bat, person, or items of his clothing or equipment separated from his person as described above, or by a fielder with the hand holding the ball or with the arm of the hand holding the ball.
Modern innovations
As per the ICC Playing Conditions, when using the
LED wickets, "the moment at which the wicket has been put down
..shall be deemed to be the first frame in which the LED lights are illuminated and subsequent frames show the bail permanently removed from the top of the stumps." The manufacturer is reviewing the LED wicket's performance after a number of international cricketers criticized the Zing bails during the
2019 Cricket World Cup.
Dismissal of a batsman
The
dismissal
Dismissal or dismissed may refer to:
Dismissal
*In litigation, a dismissal is the result of a successful ''motion to dismiss''. See motion
*Termination of employment, the end of employee's duration with an employer
**Dismissal (employment), ter ...
of a batsman is known as the ''taking of a wicket''. The batsman is said to have ''lost his wicket'', the batting side is said to have ''lost a wicket'', the fielding side to have ''taken a wicket'', and the
bowler is also said to have ''taken his'' (i.e. the batsman's) ''wicket'', if the dismissal is one of the types for which the bowler receives credit. This language is used even if the dismissal did not actually involve the stumps and bails in any way (for example, a catch). The other four of the five most common methods of dismissal (bowled, LBW, run out, and stumped) involve the stumps and bails being put down (in the case of LBW, theoretically).
The word ''wicket'' has this meaning in the following contexts:
Scoring
A team's
score
Score or scorer may refer to:
*Test score, the result of an exam or test
Business
* Score Digital, now part of Bauer Radio
* Score Entertainment, a former American trading card design and manufacturing company
* Score Media, a former Canadian m ...
is described in terms of the total number of
runs scored and the total number of wickets lost.
Bowling analyses
The number of wickets taken is a primary measure of an individual bowler's ability, and a key part of a
bowling analysis.
Batting partnerships
The sequence of time over which two particular batsmen bat together, a
partnership, is referred to as a specifically numbered wicket when discriminating it from other partnerships in the
innings. This can be thought of as saying "this was the number of runs scored while this team had lost
'n''-1wickets and had yet to lose their ''n''th wicket."
*The first wicket partnership is from the start of the innings until the team loses its first wicket, i.e. one of the first two batsmen is dismissed.
* The second wicket partnership is from when the third batsman starts batting until the team loses its second wicket, i.e. the time from when they have lost one wicket until the time they have lost a second wicket, which happens when a second batsman is dismissed.
* etc...
* The tenth wicket or last wicket partnership is from when the eleventh (last) batsman starts batting until the team loses its tenth (last) wicket, i.e. a tenth (last) batsman is dismissed.
Winning by number of wickets
A team can win a match by a certain number of wickets. This means that they were batting last, and reached the winning target with a certain number of batsmen still not dismissed. For example, if the side scored the required number of runs to win with only three batsmen dismissed, they are said to have won by seven wickets (as a team's innings ends when ten batsmen are dismissed).
The pitch
The word ''wicket'' is also sometimes used to refer to the
cricket pitch itself.
According to the ''Laws of Cricket'', this usage is incorrect, but it is in common usage and commonly understood by cricket followers.
The term ''
sticky wicket'' refers to a situation in which the pitch has become damp, typically due to rain or high humidity. This makes the path of the ball more unpredictable thus making the job of defending the stumps that much more difficult. The full phrase is thought to have originally been "to bat on a sticky wicket." Such pitches were commonplace at all levels of the game (i.e. up to Test match level) until the late 1950s.
In other sports
Even though it's a cricket term, the arches used in
croquet
Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court.
Its international governing body is the W ...
and
roque
Roque is an American variant of croquet played on a hard, smooth surface. Popular in the first quarter of the 20th century and billed "the Game of the Century" by its enthusiasts, it was an Olympic sport in the 1904 Summer Games, replacing cr ...
are sometimes referred to as ''wickets'', especially in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
. These arches descend from the ancestral game of
ground billiards (which may also be related to cricket), and were formerly called the ''hoop'', ''arch'' or ''port''. The port remained a prominent feature of indoor table
billiards until well into the 18th century.
In
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...
, the
strike zone is similar to the wicket, in that a batter who fails to hit a ball that is going towards the strike zone is at risk of being out.
See also
*
Cricket terminology
References
{{Cricket statistics
Cricket terminology
Cricket equipment
Cricket laws and regulations
Cricket