As a relative North American novice to cricket, I have questions.
Is a bowler a designated position (like the pitcher in baseball) - i.e. he plays no other position and is rarely used as a batter?
A bowler can only bowl one over (6 balls) before a new one takes over. Do teams tend to go with two bowlers who alternate overs? Are there “relief bowlers” who take over if the regular bowlers are getting tired (as in baseball)?
Where do idle bowlers go? Can they be elsewhere in the field, or do they sit on a bench (or whatever) with other idle players (if any)?
(when I was in London in 2019, I was walking past Lord’s, and saw a sign announcing a game (two university or junior teams, I think) in progress at the moment, so for 5 pounds I got to enter one of the hallowed halls of cricket.)
When a game of cricket starts, regardless of the form (there are 3 forms of the game), there are 11 players named by the captain. Any of these 11 are allowed to bowl (although I”m not sure about the wicket-keeper, as I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen one take the gloves off and bowl). I’m not even sure if a substitute WK can be used in such a case. No bowler can bowl in consecutive overs, so 2 must be active at all times.
In limited overs cricket (the 2 shorter forms of the game), a bowler can only bowl in a total of 20% of overs, so each team must have at least 5 bowlers. Teams will field at least 1 (maybe more) players that can at least bowl a bit, in case there is an injury to one of the 5 bowlers.
Similar to baseball pitchers, most bowlers cannot hoot well and are generally positioned at the tail end of the batting order. That said, there are some players who are “all rounders” who are proficient at both, and these guys and gals are highly valued. Ben Stokes, Ravi Jadeja and Jason Holder are all examples of excellent all-rounders.
When a bowler is not bowling, he or she plays as a fielder. The only exception to the players being limited to the original playing 11 is that teams can being in substitute fielders if one of the starting 11 needs a break or has to leave for injury, bathroom, etc. However, I don’t think you can sub in a WK, so one of the starting 11 must play that position as well. And of course, no substitute player can bowl.
No. All bowlers bat, but not all batters bowl. There are many combinations of bowling and batting skill especially in long form cricket (four day and five day matches)
both bat and bowl as well as a specialist batter and bowler (extremely rare and often legends of the game)
bat as well as a specialist batter (a “top order batter”) and bowl more than usefully.
bowl as well as a specialist bowler (a “frontline bowler”) and bat usefully (“useful lower order batter”).
be a specialist bowler whose batting skills are 1/5 to 1/10 of that of a specialist batter (“genuine tail ender”)
be a specialist batter who can bowl semi-respectably in an emergency (“occasional bowler”) or
be a specialist batter who only bowls when the game has gotten out of hand already (“joke bowler” who can barely land it on the cut strip)
These are often sub-types. Some useful lower order batters are noted blockers, they can keep out the opposition bowlers while their higher-skilled batting partner tries to accumulate runs. Others are tonkers, who will go aggressively after the bowlers hoping to knock their stride (no one likes to be bashed by the lower order batters)
There is also the wicket keeper, sort of analogous to the catcher. Their expected batting prowess varies widely, but in general expected to be between 1/2 and 3/4 of a top order batsman. Again, there are exceptions who are full keeper-batsman who as as good at batting as any top order bat. And there are keepers who are just barely useful with the bat, who have to be very good keepers to compensate.
Usually a team will have 4 frontline bowlers and another two who are more than useful bowlers who are all-rounders. If the game gets long, batters will less and less bowling skill may be employed (see above). But bowlers often bowl in tandem for some time, especially at the start of the innings when two “new ball specialists” will be operating for 6-10 overs each, before the “first change” bowlers come on. Again these are examples from the long form of the game.
They can field anywhere. Generally you can only leave the field for very specific reasons, and if you leave for more than a very few minutes, you cannot bowl for a compensating interval after you return. So you bowlers cannot give it their all for 45 minutes and then “put their legs up” in the bar for 45 minutes and return for another spell.
All the OP questions have been answered so on a couple of points of order.
Any of the 11 can bowl.
There have been four Test innings where all 11 player have bowled.
Match
Country
Versus
Ground
Innings
Result
11/08/1884
England
Australia
Kennington Oval
1st
Match drawn
06/03/1980
Australia
Pakistan
Iqbal Stadium
1st
Match drawn
10/05/2002
India
West Indies
Antigua Recreation Ground
1st
Match drawn
29/04/2005
South Africa
West Indies
Antigua Recreation Ground
1st
Match drawn
The rules have changed allowing a substitute for the wicket keeper if injured, unavailable or indeed bowling. For most of history the keeper had to be one of the originally named 11. though this could be varied by agreement. eg ENG used 4 v NZ at Lord’s in 1986
In 2017 substitute players were allowed to take the gloves.
There is no rule that a team must play a wicket keeper.
3 keepers have taken a Test wicket (Boucher - SA, Taibu - ZIM and Kirmani- Ind)
In 1898 in a county game Derbyshire keeper Bill Store took the first 3 wickets to fall … Yorkshire were none for 554 at the time and finished with 662. He also took 3 catches as keeper later in the innings…
There are 32 different keepers who have, at one time or another, captured 4 or more wickets in an innings in First-Class cricket.
Thanks for all the clarifications. I’m surprised, then, that we don’t see more WK substitutions. For example, India’s Saha is generally considered be better at keeping wicket than Pant is, so I would think that India would bring him in during crucial situations. I also recently saw Mohammed Shahzad play some embarrassing wicket keeping in one of the T20 leagues, and they just seemed resigned to letting him stay in. The commentators were even laughing. He didn’t even try to dive a few feet to stop a ball, and let it go for 4 byes.
You can’t just substitute a wickie because he’s underperforming. He has to be injured, unavailable or bowling. Unavailable requires some legitimate reason as well (unwell, personal emergency, etc).
There have been occasions when teams have had more than one keeper, but one of them is there because as a batter they are one of the best five available bats, PLUS a better “pure” keeper is included. Alec Stewart and Adam Gilchrist might be the canonical examples. They were competing for the keeper spot with some of the best in the world (Jack Russel and Ian Healy). Note that both Russell and Healy were no slouches with the bat, but not nearly a full batters worth.
Taslim Arif took a wicket in Faisalabad in 1981 against Australia in which he was playing as keeper. Miandad took the gloves. It was so boring, I was tempted to stop watching and actually revise for my upcoming board exams.
During an ODI in the 90s v AUST one of the WI fielders missed a simple pick-up in the field that resulted in a boundary 4 off captain Viv Richards’ bowling.
Viv was ropeable and literally ordered the player to leave the field.
So they walked off, clearly embarrassed but unencumbered for about half the journey and then they suddenly started limping badly for the latter part.
I think even back then you needed to opposing captain’s permission for a substitute fielder. Though in those days any captain challenging his opposite number’s contention that a fielder was hurt would have been some kind of nuclear option. I’m saying “his” because I genuinely have no idea what women’s cricket was like 40 years ago. The only cricket I saw at that time was men’s.
Though in the mid 1980s my brother was put in the A&E by a girl who got one to rear off a full ish length on a very dodgy matting wicket. Copped it on the noggin, knocked unconscious and a nasty gash above the ear. But she was playing on a boys team, or probably more properly an open team.
I didn’t realize that a substitute can only come in if the fielder has to leave for a legitimate reason. Is the reason reported to the umpires? I feel like I’ve been watching cricket too long to not have noticed this. I would have sworn I’ve heard announcers say that a player was just taking a break.
Now with concussion protocols players replacing a concussed player can bat or bowl in their place.
Fielders are often substituted when they leave the field just because they feel unwell. In fact, in 2005 England regularly used a specialist replacement fieldsman, who wasn’t in the selected side, while their bowlers rested. This was despite complaints by Australian captain Ricky Ponting.