Cricket is a sport that has a known history starting from the late 1600’s. It originated from south-east England and has long since become not only their national sport but an international and globally recognized and appreciated sport loved by many and played all over the world. Let us look at the build of a cricket team to know how many players there are in a cricket team okaying for various tournaments and their variations. Check out our live cricket match betting rates.
If we speak about the perfect composition of a cricket team, it varies from format to format. But if we look at the workings of a team then there are 11 players on a single team. It is a game played between two teams, hence both teams have 11 players on each side. A game generally consists of 5 batsmen, 1 all-rounder, 1 wicket-keeper, and 4 bowlers. In test cricket, which is of the longest match duration, is it ideal to have a specialist in each field and the prime composition for a test match would be the same as stated above. However, in shorter spanning games with limited-overs like One Day Internationals (ODI’s) and T20Is, having more all-rounders is more of an advantage, an ideal composition would be: 4 batsmen, 3 all-rounders, 1 wicket-keeper, and 3 bowlers. Now that we are a bit familiar with the structure of a cricket team overall, let’s take a look at the four main essential positions and what they entail.
Batsman
In cricket, a batsman is the player of the team who stands in front of the wicket, and by the use of a cricket bat, hits the incoming cricket ball being bowled by a bowler. At any given ‘inning’ during a cricket match, there are 2 batters on the pitch from the batting team, one standing on each side of the pitch. A striker is a batsman who is facing the incoming ball from the batsman, and the one opposite to the striker on the other side of a pitch is a non-striker
Bowler
In cricket, a bowler is a person bowling the ball towards the striker (i.e. the batter standing on the other side of the pitch). Notice that bowling is not the same as throwing a ball. Bowling is the technical way in which a bowler throws the cricket ball with certain technicalities.
All-rounder
An all-rounder in cricket is a person simply good at both the batting position as well as the bowling position.
Wicket-keeper
In a cricket match, the wicket keeper is the player who stands being the wicket that is guarded by a batter, or more specifically the striker. The wicket keeper is in charge of catching the ball that gets neglected by the batsman or a ball that is thrown towards him.
These were all absolute basics about the composition of a cricket team and the working of each component in the teams.