Game arrangement

Test cricket is a game that spans more than two innings. This means that one team needs to basin the other players out twice and makes more runs than them to win the match. Another key dissimilarity between test cricket and other forms of cricket is the length of the innings. In test cricket there is no limit to the innings length. Whereas in one day cricket & Twenty20 cricket there are a positive amount of over’s per innings. The only restrictions in test cricket are a 5 day length. Before the game begins an official will toss a coin. The captain who guesses the correct side of the coin will then choose if they want to bat or field first. One team will then bat while the other will bowl & field. The aim of the batting team is to score runs while the aim of the fielding team is to bowl ten people out and close the batting teams’ innings. Although there are eleven people in each team only ten people need to be bowled out as you cannot have one person batting alone. Batting is done in pairs. Once the first team has been bowled out the second team would then go into bat. Once the second team is then bowled out it would normally revisit to the first team batting again. However there is an omission to this in the cricket rules, it is call the follow-on. The follow-on is when the first team makes at least 200 runs extra than the second team completed (in a 5 day test match). This then gives the first team the alternative to make the second team bat yet again this is predominantly useful if the game is progressing slowly or affected by bad weather and there might not be an adequate amount of time for both teams to play a full innings. Should this be the case the batting team’s captain also has the precise to forfeit their innings at any time. This is called a declaration. Some may wonder why a captain would forfeit the opportunity for his team to bat. However if the game is coming close to a close and it looks like they will not be able to bowl the other team out again this could be an option. If one team is not bowled out twice and a champion determined in the five days of play the game is stated a draw. Therefore it may be worth declare an innings to create the opportunity of a win rather than a draw.