Wicket

In cricket, a wicket is:

• An object made up of three sticks (called stumps) stuck into the earth, with two small sticks (called bails) balanced on them. They are like a target for the fielding team, and can be hit with the ball to try to get batsmen out.
• A batter getting out, meaning they can't bat anymore. A team that has "lost 5 wickets" has had 5 of its batters get out.
• The cricket pitch itself.

There is one wicket in each of the two batsmen's grounds. The fielding team can hit a wicket with the ball to run out a batsman, but only if there is no batsman in the ground of the wicket.^[1] In addition, when delivering the ball to the batsman, the bowler can hit the wicket in the striker's ground with the ball to bowl the striker out.^[2]

The wicket is said to have been "put down" when any of its 5 sticks fall to the ground because it was hit by the ball or a player holding the ball.^[3] The sticks can be put back in place and then hit back off to put the wicket down more than once.

The field can be defined as having two halves: the "off side" and the "leg side"/"on side", with these being separated by an imaginary line connecting the middle stump of both wickets. The off side of the field is the right side of a field for a right-handed batsman who is looking at the bowler, and the leg side is the left side. (This is reversed for a left-handed batsman.)^[4]

A batsman is said to have "lost his wicket" when he gets out.^[5]

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