Cricket is a sport that’s relatively unfamiliar to most people around the world — but if you’re from East Asia, or you already know baseball’s rules, you’ll notice cricket actually has a lot in common with it. Cricket has a reputation for being complicated, so this piece walks through cricket’s rules side-by-side with baseball’s to make them easier to grasp, and covers over, wicket and innings — the three terms that matter most — to show the whole system is simpler than it sounds: one side bats to score runs, the other bowls trying to get them out, and whoever scores more within the allotted balls wins.

The core game: like baseball, one side bowls to get batters out, the other bats to score

Cricket and baseball are quite similar — both split into a batting side, which scores runs, and a bowling side, which plays defense and tries to dismiss the batters. The biggest difference from baseball is that cricket has no bases or baserunners — you don’t need to round the bases to score. Instead, two batters run back and forth between the ends of the pitch, and each completed run counts as one point. That’s why cricket scores run so high, and combined with the longer match length, scores easily climb into the hundreds — a completely different scale from baseball.

With the core gameplay covered, let’s get into the key terms.

Term one: Over

An over is the basic counting unit of bowling, and cricket’s fundamental unit of time: one over equals six consecutive legal deliveries. After six balls, a different bowler takes over from the other end — that’s why broadcasts talk about “the 15th over,” which is somewhat like baseball’s inning count, though not quite the same, since cricket’s turn-taking isn’t measured by overs but by innings — the next term we’ll cover.

The core difference between the three formats (T20/ODI/Test) really just comes down to how many overs each side gets: T20 is 20 overs, ODI is 50, and Test cricket has no fixed limit — it plays until a side is dismissed or time runs out.

Term two: Innings

An innings is a side’s complete batting turn — from the first batter walking out to the whole side being dismissed (or the overs running out, or the innings being declared closed). T20 and ODI matches have one innings per side; Test matches allow up to two innings per side, which is exactly why a Test can stretch over five days.

So the baseball-like concept of “which inning” in cricket really needs Over and Innings combined — where baseball talks about the top or bottom of an inning, cricket’s equivalent phrasing is “which over of which innings.”

And speaking of innings, that brings us to how cricket scoring actually works — there are three ways to score:

  • Runs: the two batters swap ends, and each completed run counts as 1.
  • Fours: the ball hits the ground and rolls past the boundary — an automatic 4, no running required.
  • Sixes: the ball clears the boundary without touching the ground — an automatic 6, similar to a home run in baseball, and one of the most exciting moments in the sport.

Having covered scoring and timing, the next thing to cover is dismissals — just like three outs end a baseball half-inning, cricket has its own way of ending a turn, which brings us to our third term: Wicket.

Term three: Wicket

Before getting into wicket, one thing needs clarifying first: the word has two different meanings in cricket, depending on context:

  1. The three stumps on the field — knock them over and the batter is out.
  2. A dismissal itself — the more common broadcast usage, and the one we mean here, as in “they’ve lost 5 wickets.”

There are four main ways a batter can be dismissed:

  • Bowled: the ball hits the stumps directly, similar to a strikeout in baseball.
  • Caught: the batter’s shot is caught by a fielder before it touches the ground, similar to a caught fly ball.
  • LBW (Leg Before Wicket): the ball hits the batter’s leg, and the umpire rules it would have gone on to hit the stumps had the leg not been in the way — cricket’s most contentious call, and the one that most tests an umpire’s judgment. It’s a bit like a batter in baseball being called for a strike on a ball they didn’t swing at, except cricket is stricter about it — you’re ruled out outright.
  • Run Out: while the batters are running between ends, a fielder throws the ball and hits the stumps before the batter reaches safety, similar to a baserunner being thrown out.

Once you’ve got these three terms down, you basically understand cricket’s core rules and have what you need to follow a match. Next time you watch cricket, try checking two things: which side is currently batting, and how many overs are left in this innings. Once those are clear, the tactical debates — whether to swing for a six, whether the bowler should play it safe — actually make sense; without that context, the score alone can be hard to follow.

For more on how the pace differs across T20, ODI and Test cricket, and the common cricket bet types, check out Cricket Betting Basics.