Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket (a set of three wooden stumps) at each end. One team bats, attempting to score as many runs as possible, whilst their opponents field.
At the start of each game, two batsmen and eleven fielders enter the field of play. The play begins when a member of the fielding team, known as the bowler, delivers the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, towards the wicket at that end, in front of which stands one of the batsmen, known as the striker. The striker "takes guard" on a crease drawn on the pitch four feet in front of the wicket. His role is to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps by use of his bat, and simultaneously to strike it well enough to score runs. The other batsman, known as the non-striker, waits at the opposite end of the pitch near the bowler. A dismissed batsman must leave the field, and a teammate