Cricket Rules Trivia
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50 free Cricket Rules trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Cricket's rulebook is alone in sport in insisting on a capital L. The Laws run to 42, have been kept by a private London club since the 18th century, and still produce arguments every week: was the front foot behind the line, did the ball pitch in the right place, did the catch carry, and what exactly happens when a batter is not ready in time. These 50 questions stay on the Laws and the ICC playing conditions rather than records or history. They cover the ways of being out and which of them survive a no-ball or a wide, how lbw works, what the review system can and cannot overturn, fielding restrictions and powerplays in the white-ball formats, the follow-on and declarations in Tests, the limits on bats and stumps, and what the umpire's signals mean. Each answer carries a short explanation with a detail the scorecard never shows. Play it to test whether you could stand in the middle with a white coat on, use it to settle a dressing-room dispute, or print it as a round for a club quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A batter edges onto the stumps, breaking the wicket, before a fielder catches the ball: what dismissal is recorded?
Bowled
Bowled outranks caught: once the delivery breaks the wicket the batter is out bowled, and the fielder's catch simply never counts.
Q 02In white-ball cricket, what does the delivery after a front-foot no-ball become, with almost every dismissal suspended?
A free hit
A free hit leaves the batter safe from everything but a run out and the two wilful-act dismissals, so a top edge straight to the keeper counts for nothing.
Q 03A full toss reaching the batter above which body part is a beamer, an automatic no-ball under Law 41.7?
Waist
Waist height is the line, set by the Laws at the top of the trousers with the batter upright at the crease. A beamer judged dangerous brings a final warning, and a second bars the bowler for the rest of the innings.
Q 04Which tie-breaker, first used in T20 cricket in 2008, replaced the bowl-out for matches finishing level?
Super Over
A Super Over gives each side six more balls. After a tied one handed England the 2019 World Cup final on boundary count, the ICC ruled that semi-finals and finals would simply play another.
Q 05What shape does a cricket captain or batter make with the arms to request a DRS review of an umpire's decision?
A letter T
A letter T, made with the arms or with arm and bat, sends the decision to the third umpire, and a side can keep asking until its unsuccessful reviews are used up.
Q 06Which country's board long resisted DRS, doubting its ball-tracking, before agreeing to try it in a home Test series in 2016?
India
India played in the first DRS trial, against Sri Lanka in 2008, yet the BCCI then held out for eight years, agreeing to try it against England in November 2016 only after the ball-tracking had been upgraded to its liking.
Q 07Which substance, long used to polish one side of a cricket ball, did the Laws ban outright after the COVID-19 pandemic?
Saliva
Saliva was outlawed for good in the Laws' 2022 edition after MCC found the pandemic-era ban had made little or no difference to how much the ball swung, while sweat remains a legal polish.
Q 08Which dismissal, credited to the bowler, can only be made by the wicket-keeper and never off a no-ball?
Stumped
Stumped is a special case of run out that only the wicket-keeper can pull off, and it still counts off a wide, with the one-run penalty for the wide staying on the board.
Q 09Which DRS technology, first televised in 2001, predicts whether a delivery would have gone on to hit the stumps?
Hawk-Eye
Hawk-Eye began as a Channel 4 broadcast gadget at Lord's in 2001. Within a decade its predicted path was deciding lbw reviews, and from 2013 the same system judged the Premier League's goal-line calls.
Q 10The ball striking which of these during play earns the batting side five penalty runs under Law 28?
A fielder's helmet
A fielder's helmet left on the ground costs five runs if the ball hits it, and the Laws allow it in one spot only: directly behind the wicket-keeper, in line with the stumps.
Q 11Where must a delivery pitch for a batter to be immune from lbw, even when the ball would have hit the stumps?
Outside leg stump
Outside leg stump is the one place a ball can pitch and never win an lbw, a protection that survived the 1935 experiment that let balls pitching outside off count.
Q 12Which dismissal absorbed 'handled the ball' when the MCC's 2017 code trimmed cricket's list of ways out?
Obstructing the field
Obstructing the field now covers a batter who wilfully handles the ball, as Mushfiqur Rahim found in 2023: he shoved a defended ball away with his glove and became only the second Test batter ever out that way.
Q 13Law 34 lets a batter strike the ball a second time for what sole purpose?
Q 21In an international first, how was Angelo Mathews dismissed at the 2023 World Cup?
Timed out
Timed out means not being ready within two minutes under World Cup rules. Mathews' helmet strap broke before he faced a ball, he sent for another, and Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan refused to relent.
Q 22In one-day cricket, what applies during a powerplay, a name the ICC introduced in 2005?
Fielding restrictions
Fielding restrictions keep all but two fielders inside the 30-yard circle for an ODI's first 10 overs. Captains once chose when to take two further blocks and simply took them at once, so in 2008 the batting side was handed one.
Q 23Which T20 league trimmed the six-over powerplay to four overs in 2020?
To stop it hitting the stumps
To stop it hitting the stumps is the only purpose Law 34 names for a lawful second strike, and a batter who knocks the ball back to a fielder without being asked risks a different dismissal altogether.
Q 14What must the fielding side do before a cricket umpire can give a batter out, however obvious the dismissal looks?
Appeal
Appeal is the word: without a 'How's that?' the umpire stays silent, though a batter who knows they are out may simply walk.
Q 15Which type of camera lets Hot Spot show a faint edge as a bright mark where ball met bat?
Infrared
Infrared cameras at each end of the ground measure the heat of friction, using technology developed by the military for tracking tanks and jet fighters.
Q 16Which two resources does the Duckworth–Lewis rain rule say a batting side spends to make runs when rain cuts a match?
Overs and wickets
Overs and wickets in hand are the two resources, and the target is rescaled by how much of that combination each side gets, which is why early wickets hurt a rain-hit chase so much.
Q 17Which Australian statistician joined the rain rule's name in November 2014 after its two English creators stepped down?
Steven Stern
Steven Stern became custodian of the Duckworth–Lewis method and refined it for T20-era scoring, so since November 2014 it has been the Duckworth–Lewis–Stern method.
Q 18Some part of a bowler's front foot must land behind which line for the delivery to be legal under Law 21?
Popping crease
Popping crease is the line, four feet in front of the stumps, and the foot may land in the air behind it and then slide past without the ball being called a no-ball.
Q 19Leading by 274 at Kolkata in 2001, Steve Waugh chose which option, only to lose?
The follow-on
The follow-on is open to a Test side that leads by 200 or more. Waugh enforced it, VVS Laxman made 281, and it became only the third Test ever lost by the side that had made its opponents bat again.
Q 20What may a Test fielding captain claim once 80 overs have been bowled?
A new ball
A new ball suits fast bowlers, but a captain may hold it back while the worn one is still reverse-swinging.
The Big Bash
The Big Bash handed the two spare overs to the batting side as a Power Surge, to be called any time from the 11th over. It arrived with a mid-innings substitute and a bonus point, and both of those were scrapped in 2022.
Q 24Which replacement, allowed in all internationals from August 2019, may bat and bowl, unlike an ordinary twelfth man?
Concussion substitute
A concussion substitute must be a like-for-like player cleared by the match referee. The first in a Test, Marnus Labuschagne, came in for Steve Smith at Lord's in 2019 and made 59 to help Australia save the match.
Q 25Under Law 15, when may the captain of the batting side declare an innings closed?
Any time the ball is dead
Any time the ball is dead suits a captain chasing a win, but until 1889 the Laws allowed no declaration at all, and a side that wanted to bowl had to tell its batsmen to throw their wickets away.
Q 26What result is recorded when time runs out on a Test with the side batting last neither dismissed nor past its target?
A draw
A draw stands even with the scores level if the last innings is unfinished: in 1996 England's Nick Knight was run out going for the winning third run off the final ball, and the Test was drawn, not tied.
Q 27What is an over called in cricket when no runs come off the bat and the bowler concedes no wides or no-balls?
A maiden
A maiden still stands if byes or leg byes are run, since those are not charged to the bowler, and one that also takes a wicket is a wicket maiden.
Q 28In the 2019 World Cup final, whose diving bat deflected a fielder's throw to the rope for six runs?
Ben Stokes
Ben Stokes had not crossed with his partner when the throw was released, so the overthrow Law of the day allowed five runs, not six. Umpire Kumar Dharmasena later admitted the error, made in a final that ended level.
Q 29Runs off a batter's body count as leg byes only if the batter tried to play the ball or to do what?
Evade being hit
Evade being hit is the other licence, and a batter who does neither sees the ball ruled dead, so any run the pair scramble is wiped off.
Q 30Which delivery may a bowler send down only once an over in T20 internationals, with a second called a no-ball?
Bouncer
The bouncer was first rationed in 1991, when the ICC moved to curb intimidatory fast bowling. Tests have allowed two an over since 1994 and ODIs since 2012, leaving the shortest format with the tightest limit.