Cricket Trivia
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109 free Cricket trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 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 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which is the only cricket fielder allowed to wear gloves?
Wicket-keeper
Wicket-keeper: any other fielder who wilfully stops the ball with a cap or anything else that isn't part of the body hands the batting side five penalty runs.
Q 02The 22 yards of a cricket pitch equal exactly one of which old land-measuring unit?
Chain
Chain: surveyors measured land with Edmund Gunter's 22-yard chain of 100 links, handy because ten square chains make exactly one acre.
Q 03What did cricket add in 1775 after a bowler's deliveries kept passing clean through the wicket?
A third stump
A third stump: Lumpy Stevens beat batter John Small three times in one match, the ball slipping through the gap each time, and Small survived to win the game.
Q 04What is an over called when the bowler concedes no runs?
Maiden
Maiden: byes and leg byes don't spoil one, because those extras aren't charged to the bowler.
Q 05Which is the most common way for a batter to be dismissed in Test cricket?
Caught
Caught: it accounts for more than half of all Test dismissals, which is why close catchers such as the slips wait behind the bat for an edge.
Q 06What does the umpire do to signal that a batter is out?
Raises a forefinger
Raises a forefinger: but only once the fielding side has appealed, because an umpire cannot give a batter out unless asked.
Q 07In 2023 Sri Lanka's Angelo Mathews became the first batter in international cricket dismissed in which way?
Timed out
Timed out: his helmet strap broke as he took guard, and Bangladesh appealed when he wasn't ready to face a ball within the two minutes allowed.
Q 08What does 'lbw' stand for?
Leg before wicket
Leg before wicket: it became a way of being out in 1774, after batters began deliberately using their legs to stop balls that would have hit the stumps.
Q 09How is it decided which team bats first in a cricket match?
A coin toss
A coin toss: from 2016 to 2019 England's County Championship let the visiting captain skip it and simply choose to bowl first, a trial meant to encourage spin bowling.
Q 10What colour is the traditional cricket kit?
White
White: coloured team kits reached the modern game only in the late 1970s, first in Kerry Packer's breakaway World Series Cricket.
Q 11By what formal name is cricket's rulebook known?
The Laws
The Laws: there are 42 of them, always spelled with a capital L, and a private London club rather than the sport's governing body still owns the copyright.
Q 12Which sporting term for a feat of three began in cricket?
Hat-trick
Hat-trick: the name is said to come from the hat a bowler was given for taking three wickets with consecutive balls, and ice hockey and soccer later borrowed the term.
Q 13Which 1771 incident made cricket put a limit on the bat?
A bat as wide as the wicket
A bat as wide as the wicket: Thomas White walked out with it in 1771, and the rival team's written protest fixed the limit of four and a quarter inches still in force.
Q 21Where does the original Ashes urn permanently reside?
The MCC Museum, London
The MCC Museum, London: the urn sat on Ivo Bligh's mantelpiece until he died in 1927, when his widow gave it to the club at Lord's.
Q 22What happens to the Ashes if a series ends level?
The current holder retains them
The current holder retains them: that is how Australia kept the Ashes when the 2019 and 2023 series in England both finished 2-2, without winning either.
Q 23How did Don Bradman's final Test innings end?
A duck
A duck: four runs would have lifted his career average to 100, but England's Eric Hollies bowled him with the second ball he faced, leaving it at 99.94.
Q 14What material forms the core of a traditional cricket ball, beneath its string winding and leather case?
Cork
Cork: it is wound with string and stitched into leather, and fielders polish one side of that leather on their trousers so the ball will swing in the air.
Q 15Which bearded doctor, the greatest cricketer of Victorian England, is still known by his initials?
W. G. Grace
W. G. Grace: he kept playing into old age, and in the last innings he ever batted, aged 66 in 1914, he made 69 not out.
Q 16Which Hampshire village club was the focal point of English cricket in the 1760s and 1770s?
Hambledon
Hambledon: its captain Richard Nyren kept the Bat and Ball Inn beside the ground on Broadhalfpenny Down, where the village club hosted and beat sides billed as England.
Q 17The first Australian cricket team to tour overseas, in 1868, was made up of whom?
Aboriginal stockmen
Aboriginal stockmen: the 13 players sailed to England and played 47 matches in six months, ten years before any official Australian side made the trip.
Q 18The first-ever Test match, between Australia and England in 1877, was played in which city?
Melbourne
Melbourne: Australia won by 45 runs, and when the Centenary Test was staged on the same ground in 1977, Australia won by exactly 45 runs again.
Q 19The Ashes takes its name from a mock obituary for English cricket published in which paper in 1882?
The Sporting Times
The Sporting Times: its notice said English cricket had died at The Oval, adding that 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
A wooden bail: the urn was a personal gift to England captain Ivo Bligh on the 1882-83 tour of Australia, so the real one never changes hands whoever wins.
Q 24As a boy, Bradman practised alone by hitting a golf ball against a water tank with what?
A cricket stump
A cricket stump: the ball flew back off the tank's brick stand at speed and odd angles, and the solo game is credited with perfecting his timing.
Q 25Which controversial tactic did England use in the 1932-33 Ashes to curb Don Bradman?
Bodyline
Bodyline: England captain Douglas Jardine had his fast bowlers aim short balls at the batter's body, a plan that strained relations between the two countries and was soon banned.
Q 26Don Bradman's 1948 Australian touring side in England is remembered by which nickname?
The Invincibles
The Invincibles: Don Bradman's side went through its entire tour of England without losing a match, winning the Test series 4-0.
Q 27Sachin Tendulkar was the first batter to score how many international centuries?
100
100: the hundredth came against Bangladesh in March 2012, just over a year after his 99th, and India still lost the match.
Q 28Sachin Tendulkar, a Test player at 16, bowed out in 2013 with his 200th Test in which city?
Mumbai
Mumbai: it was not the city's turn to host a Test, but he asked for a farewell on his home ground and the Indian board made an exception.
Q 29Which award was Sachin Tendulkar the first sportsperson to receive?
Bharat Ratna
Bharat Ratna: India's highest civilian honour was limited to art, literature, science and public service until the rules were widened in 2011, two years before his final Test.
Q 30Which captain sealed India's 2011 World Cup final win over Sri Lanka by hitting a six?
MS Dhoni
MS Dhoni: out of form all tournament, he promoted himself up the order and made an unbeaten 91, sealing the win with a straight six.