60 free Cricket trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
58 free Cricket trivia questions with answers. Cricket trivia for everyone from the casual fan who knows what an over is to the tragic who can recite Bradman's average. This quiz covers the basics of the game (players, pitch, stumps, overs, dismissals, the umpire's raised finger), the history (Hambledon, MCC and the Laws, the first Test in 1877, the birth of the Ashes), the World Cups from 1975 to the boundary-count final of 2019, and the great names: Bradman, Tendulkar, Lara, Warne, Muralitharan and Jim Laker's 19 wickets. It also takes in the grounds (why Lord's slopes, what the MCG hosts every Boxing Day), Twenty20 and the IPL, timeless Tests, pink balls and the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method. Easy questions come first, and the harder ones will test anyone at a club quiz night. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the game, its Laws, its tournaments and its players, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many players are on each side in a cricket team?
11
Thirteen people are on the field at once during play: two batters, eleven fielders, plus two umpires.
Q 02How long is a cricket pitch, from wicket to wicket?
22 yards
That is one chain, an old surveyor's measure of 66 feet.
Q 03How many stumps make up a wicket?
Three
Two bails sit on top of them; the three-stump wicket only became law in the late 18th century.
Q 04How many legal deliveries make up an over?
6
The word comes from the umpire's call of 'Over!' when the six balls are done and the bowling switches ends.
Q 05How many ways are there for a batter to be dismissed under the Laws?
Nine
The common ones are bowled, caught, lbw, run out and stumped; the rare ones include hitting the ball twice.
Q 06What does the umpire do to signal that a batter is out?
Raises a forefinger
The fielding side must appeal first; without an appeal the umpire cannot give a batter out.
Q 07Which of these is one of the four rare methods of dismissal?
Timed out
A batter who takes too long to walk to the crease can be given out without facing a ball.
Q 08What does 'lbw' stand for?
Leg before wicket
It entered the Laws in the late 18th century, after batters started using their legs to stop pitched deliveries.
Q 09How is the decision on which team bats first made?
A coin toss
The captains toss; 'innings' is the term for each phase of play that follows.
Q 10What colour is the traditional cricket kit?
White
Coloured clothing arrived with limited-overs cricket and was first used at a World Cup in 1992.
Q 11The rules of cricket are formally called what?
The Laws
There are 42 of them, always written with a capital L, and the private MCC still owns the copyright.
Q 12Which private London club has owned and maintained the Laws since 1788?
Marylebone (MCC)
MCC handed governance to the ICC but remains the only body that can change the Laws.
Q 13Why is the maximum width of a cricket bat fixed at four and a quarter inches?
A 1771 player used a bat as wide as the wicket
Thomas White of Chertsey turned up with the monster bat against Hambledon; the width has been unchanged since.
Q 21Where does the original Ashes urn permanently reside?
The MCC Museum, London
It has been to Australia only three times, most recently for a 2019 exhibition at the State Library of Victoria.
Q 22What happens to the Ashes if a series is drawn?
The current holder retains them
Series usually run to five Tests, hosted in turn by England and Australia about every two years.
Q 23What was Don Bradman's career Test batting average?
99.94
Four more runs in his final innings would have taken him to 100; instead he was bowled for a duck by Eric Hollies' googly.
Q 14Roughly how much does a men's cricket ball weigh?
5.5 to 5.75 ounces
The weight has been unchanged since 1774; the circumference is 8.81 to 9 inches.
Q 15The earliest definite reference to cricket, from the mid-16th century, places it in which region?
The South East
It spread worldwide with the British Empire, with the first international matches in the second half of the 19th century.
Q 16Which Hampshire village club was the focal point of English cricket in the 1760s and 1770s, before MCC?
Hambledon
Its dominance ended when MCC formed and Lord's Old Ground opened in 1787.
Q 17What was the first Australian cricket team to tour overseas, in 1868, made up of?
Aboriginal stockmen
They toured England six years after the first English team had toured Australia.
Q 18Where and when was the first-ever Test match played?
Melbourne, 1877
England faced Australia at the MCG in a match only later recognised as a Test; the same ground hosted the first ODI in 1971.
Q 19The Ashes takes its name from a mock obituary for English cricket published in which paper in 1882?
The Sporting Times
It followed Australia's first Test win on English soil, at The Oval, and declared the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.
Q 20The tiny Ashes urn is reputed to contain the ashes of what?
A wooden bail
It was a personal gift to England captain Ivo Bligh, and it has never been the official trophy of the series.
Q 24As a boy, Bradman practised alone by hitting a golf ball against a water tank with what?
A cricket stump
The story is part of Australian folklore; he went from bush cricket to the Test team in just over two years.
Q 25What was the name of the controversial tactic the visitors used in the 1932-33 Ashes to curb Bradman?
Bodyline
Bowling at the batter's body with a packed leg-side field caused a diplomatic row between the two governments.
Q 26Bradman's post-war Australian side that toured Britain unbeaten in 1948 is known as what?
The Invincibles
He came out of an enforced wartime hiatus to captain the record-breaking tour.
Q 27Sachin Tendulkar is the only batter to have scored how many international centuries?
100
He also holds the records for the most international runs and the most player-of-the-match awards.
Q 28How old was Tendulkar when he made his Test debut in Karachi in 1989?
16
He went on to play for over 24 years, retiring after his 200th Test in November 2013.
Q 29Which award, India's highest civilian honour, was Tendulkar the first sportsperson to receive?
Bharat Ratna
It was announced by the Prime Minister's Office after his final match; he remains the youngest recipient.
Q 30Which nation hosted the first three Cricket World Cups?
England
They were officially the Prudential Cup and were played over 60 overs a side in whites with a red ball.