free printable
Backyard Cricket Rules Card
A one-page backyard cricket rules card: how to play, how to score, and how to set it up. Hit print, fold it, and keep it with your set. Want the full walkthrough? See the Backyard Cricket rules.
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rules card Backyard Cricket
Players2 to 12 (works great with small groups)
Ages6+
Setup5 min
SpaceAny backyard, garden, or driveway
What you need
- A cricket bat, ideally a cheap plastic or junior wooden one for the garden
- A soft ball, usually a tennis ball, since a hard cricket ball is dangerous and breaks windows
- Stumps or anything that stands in for a wicket: a real plastic set, a bin, a chair, or a cardboard box
- Two or more players, with one batting, one bowling, and the rest fielding
- An agreed boundary, like a fence, a wall, or marked spots, so everyone knows what counts as four or six
Scoring
- Score runs by running between the marks after a hit, with each completed run worth one
- A ball that reaches the boundary on the bounce is worth four; clearing it on the full is worth six
- Outs come from being bowled (ball hits the wicket), caught, or run out, plus any house rules you add
- Tippity-run (common in small games): any touch of bat on ball means the batter must run, which speeds everything up
- Track each player's run total; highest score when you stop wins, or play proper innings if you have the numbers
How to play
- Set up the wicket and crease. Stand your stumps, bin, or chair at one end as the wicket the batter defends. Mark a rough crease line in front of it with chalk, a stick, or a shoe. If you have room for two wickets, set one at each end; in a tight yard, one wicket and a bowling spot is fine.
- Pick a fair boundary. Agree on what counts as a boundary before the first ball. A ball that reaches the fence on the bounce is usually four runs, and one that clears it on the full is six. Settle the awkward cases now, like the ball going down the side passage or into a flower bed, to save the arguments later.
- Bowl it in. The bowler delivers underarm or overarm toward the batter, aiming to hit the wicket. In the garden you usually bowl one bounce on a hard surface or a gentle full toss on grass. Keep it fair and at a sensible pace, especially with younger kids batting.
- Bat and run. The batter defends the wicket and tries to score by hitting the ball into a gap and running between the wicket and a marked point, or by finding a boundary. With few players you often play tippity-run, where any contact with the bat means you must run, which keeps the game fast.
- Take wickets to get outs. A batter is out bowled if the ball hits the wicket, caught if a fielder catches it, or run out if the wicket is broken before the batter makes their ground. Garden games add their own outs, like one-hand-one-bounce catches and the over-the-fence auto-out below.
- Rotate the batter. When a batter is out, the next player comes in, and often the bowler or the fielder who took the wicket takes a turn batting. Keep a running tally of each player's runs. Play to a set time, a set number of overs, or just until tea is ready.
Set it up
There is no fixed garden pitch length, so set the bowling spot a comfortable distance from the wicket, often around 10 to 15 paces, shorter for little kids and longer for teens and adults. Mark a crease in front of the wicket for the batter and a running point to sprint to and from. The boundary is whatever your yard gives you, like a back fence for a six and a side wall for a four. Agree on the distances and the boundary before you start so nobody can dispute a six after it lands in the neighbor's tomatoes.