Which Dismissals Count for the Bowler? Wickets Explained

The principle behind the credit

The idea is simple once you see it. A wicket goes to the bowler when the bowler's delivery itself caused the dismissal. If the ball beat the bat and hit the stumps, or was edged and caught, the bowler did the work. If the batter was run out going for a quick single, the dismissal came from the running and the fielding, not from the delivery.

That is why a bowler can take a hat-trick only with dismissals credited to them. Three wickets in three balls where one is a run out is not a hat-trick for the bowler, though it may well be a memorable over for the fielding side.

Scorers need to get this right because bowling figures drive everything from the man of the match award to end-of-season averages. A run out wrongly added to a bowler's column is one of the most common errors in club scorebooks.

All ten ways to be out, at a glance

The 2017 Code, as updated in 2022, recognises ten methods of dismissal including retired out. Handled the ball no longer exists as a separate method; it was folded into obstructing the field years ago, so a batter who wilfully handles the ball without the consent of the fielding side is now out obstructing.

The table below is worth printing and keeping in the scorebook. The last column shows the dismissal you would write in the "how out" box.

The five that belong to the bowler

Bowled is the cleanest: the delivery breaks the wicket, even if it deflects off the bat or the batter first. Bowled takes priority over every other method, so a ball that clips the pad and hits the stumps is bowled, not LBW.

Caught requires a fair catch before the ball touches the ground, and the bowler shares the credit with the fielder. A caught-and-bowled is written as "c and b" followed by the bowler's name. Stumped goes to the bowler and the wicketkeeper together. LBW and hit wicket are credited to the bowler alone.

One quirk is worth knowing. A batter can be stumped or out hit wicket off a wide, and those wickets still count for the bowler even though the delivery was not legal. The wide run is also added to the bowler's figures.

Run outs, timed out and the other team-only wickets

A run out goes in the fall-of-wickets column and the team's wicket count, but the bowler's wicket tally does not move. Name the fielder who threw or broke the wicket in brackets so the fielding record is accurate. Running out the non-striker for leaving the crease early, which now sits in Law 38, is also a run out and is not credited to the bowler, even though the bowler is the one who breaks the wicket.

Timed out happens when the incoming batter is not ready to face, or for the other batter to receive, within three minutes of the previous dismissal. Many competitions use two minutes, as the ICC does in men's internationals. Hit the ball twice and obstructing the field are rare at club level but do occur, especially with nervous juniors who pick the ball up to hand it back.

Off a no-ball, the only possible dismissals are run out, hit the ball twice and obstructing the field. None of those is credited to the bowler, so a bowler can never take a wicket with a no-ball.

Retired out vs retired not out

Law 25.4 covers retirements, and local cricket uses them constantly. A batter who leaves the field through illness, injury or another unavoidable cause is retired not out. That is not a dismissal. They can resume their innings later, at the fall of a wicket or another retirement, and their score continues.

A batter who retires for any other reason, such as giving others a turn in a friendly, can only come back with the opposing captain's consent. If they do not return, they are recorded as retired out, which counts as a wicket for the team but not for any bowler.

House rules often say a batter must retire on reaching 25 or 30. That is a retirement for another reason. Decide before the match whether those batters can return once everyone else has batted, and write the rule on the scoresheet so nobody argues at the end.

• Retired hurt: write "retired not out", do not add to the wickets total.
• Compulsory retirement in a friendly: "retired not out" if they may return, "retired out" if they may not.
• If the innings ends and a retired not out batter never returns, they finish as not out.

What else goes into bowling figures

Bowling figures are written overs, maidens, runs, wickets. Runs conceded include every run off the bat plus wides and no-balls. Byes and leg byes are not charged to the bowler, because the keeper or the batter's body is responsible for those, not the delivery.

Penalty runs under Law 41 are never charged to the bowler either. They go in the extras line as penalties. If you use Cricket Score Counter, choosing the dismissal type when you record a wicket means the bowler's figures and the team total update correctly on their own, which removes most of the arithmetic errors described above.