Backyard Cricket Rules

Backyard cricket rules are as diverse as backyards, the equipment and the players themselves. Family traditions dictate some rules, friendships dictate others. Most rules make the game easier for the less skilled to join in. Some would say there are no rules, just traditions, for the genuine backyarders. The location can be the front yard, the street, a park or beach.

Equipment

True backyarders use a tennis ball. It's softer, easier to catch bare-handed and makes protection unnecessary; so no pads, gloves, helmet or groin protection. The tennis ball is harder to bowl fast. Windows are safer, too.
Backyarders use a cricket bat, but rarely an expensive one and sometimes a child's plastic one. It might even be a shaped piece of wood.
Stumps ( the wickets) are rarely regulation. Instead of the standard three stumps, backyarders will bowl at anything similar. An old apple crate is a traditional target but recent trends favor large wheeled rubbish bins, invariably at one end only.

Rules

Most rules keep the ball within sight and the game fair for all skill levels. Common ones are the 'first ball rule,' meaning nobody gets out the first ball they face. If the ball leaves the yard the batsman is out. The next batsman can be in rotation or whoever made the 'out.' A catch on the first bounce, made one-handed, may result in a half dismissal. This rule allows fielders to hold a drink. Tip-and-run or tippity runs means if you hit the ball you must run--to wherever local rules decide.
If a house is nearby, local rules about windows and ricochets off the house apply. Catches off the house or a tree must be taken one-handed to count, for example.
Scoring is haphazard and often kept in the head. It can follow these principals; hitting the fence on the bounce is four runs, six runs if on the full. Over the fence is six and out. Local rules apply to balls lost in thick shrubbery.

Beach

A beach is a great venue, best at low tide with plenty of packed, semi-wet sand for the pitch. Otherwise the bowling will be gentle "full tosses" only. A hit into the surf is out. Wickets can range from driftwood to a handy drinks cooler or a small surfboard. The crease is easy to mark in the sand, but needs remarking often.

Without Wickets

A great extempore game involves several players, one batsman, a cricket ball, large space and no stumps.The batsman tries to keep batting as long as possible. One player bowls to the batsman, who must hit the ball. If the batsman misses, the bowler takes over batting. Others--and they can number 30 to 40--gather round. Whoever fields the ball bowls next, from a reasonable distance. Whoever catches the ball bats next. It's fluid, fast and fun.

References

• Wisden's Wisdom
• Australian Backyard Cricket Rules

Resources

• Tournament in New Zealand

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