Yep, trying to break the habit of saying innings and pitches and outs.
I haven’t quite figured out the deal with “wide” pitches. Like, clearly it’s ok that the bowler (see?!) wings it way to the side of the stumps. But sometimes it’s too much, and I’m not sure exactly what the strike zone is. Also it seems like they can still swing at the wild pitches and if you get runs you keep them plus a penalty wide run, AND get a free ball which feels very OP (see that USA#1 super overtime inning).
But yeah, I can’t quite figure out how high is too high and how wide is too wide.
In front of the batter there’s a line in the pitch that determines if it’s too far outside (although the bowler gets extra leeway if the batter moves forward in the bowlers run-up).
The ball passes passes over the batter’s head (and not due to the batter ducking).
In all cases for it to be a wide it can’t have touched the batter or their bat.
The stumps (the 3 sticks behind the batter) are your strike zone.
The area on the “off” side (I.e.) the side where the batters legs are facing between these stumps and a white guideline marked on the pitch is a fair delivery. Deliveries that land further than that are “wides” as are deliveries that bounce too high “clearly above the head”.
A wide is a penalty run (called an extra) for the batting side and the ball doesn’t count.
Bowlers will often aim to bowl so that the ball is just inside that guideline so that it’s as far away from the batter as possible and thus making it hard to hit with power while still being a legal delivery. At times they will fail but strategically it might be better at times than bowling something that gets hit for 4 or 6.
Edit: even if it lands beyond the white line, it’s not a wide if the batter does manage to hit it.
Also meant to reply to the thread in general. Apologies @Mendoza
In terms of running (and also the ball going to the boundary) a wide is no different than if the ball goes off the bat or pad or is a legal delivery that misses everything.
I’m sure it’s true of every sport, but watching a match come down to the last balls was a whole different experience. Seems like the T20 format must be good for generating more close matches.
Catcher → wicket keeper
And exactly right, if he’d gathered the ball cleanly, they probably don’t risk the extra run and if they do he might have been in a position to run the batter out by throwing down the stumps.
Cricket fielding positions for me are like certain grammatical structures in a language you are learning: reading or listening I grasp the meaning most of the time but I have zero confidence to get it right on my own.
I assume this isn’t an actual thing that happens in cricket. I’ve seen plenty of spots for this type of strat in group-based competitions but nobody ever seems to do it so I assume it’d be a sportsmanship faux pas here too.
West Indies has had a few players in recent years opt out of playing much international cricket because their board is completely broke and it was far more lucrative for them to focus on playing as many T20 franchise leagues as they could.
(Each cricketing country, USA included, has a league that lasts a few months so there’s at least one going on pretty much year round except when a world cup is happening.)