Wide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses of the word or acronym, see WIDE.
In the sport of cricket, a wide is one of two things:
- The event of a ball being delivered by a bowler too wide or high to be hit by the batsman, and ruled so by the umpire.
- A run scored by the batting team as a penalty to the bowling team when this occurs.
A wide does not count as one of the six balls in an over, nor does it count as a ball faced by the batsman.
When a wide is bowled, a number of runs are awarded to the batting team, the number varying depending on local playing conditions in force. In Test cricket the award is one run; in some domestic competitions, particularly one-day cricket competitions, the award is two runs. These runs are scored as extras and are added to the team's total, but are not added to any batsman's total.
A batsman can not, by definition, be out bowled, leg before wicket, caught, or hit the ball twice off a wide, as a ball cannot be ruled as a wide if the ball strikes the batsman's bat or person. He may be out handled the ball, hit wicket, obstructing the field, run out, or stumped.
If the wicket-keeper fumbles or misses the ball, the batsmen may be able to take additional runs safely, and may choose to do so. The number of runs scored are scored as wides, not byes.
If the wicket-keeper misses the ball and it travels all the way to the boundary, the batting team immediately scores five wides, similarly as if the ball had been hit to the boundary for a four on a no ball.
If a ball qualifies as a no ball as well as a wide, the umpire will call it a no ball instead of a wide, and all the rules for a no ball apply.
Wides are considered to be the fault of the bowler, and are recorded as a negative statistic in a bowler's record. However, this has only been the case since the early 1980's - the first Test to record wides (and no-balls) against the bowler's analyses was India vs Pakistan in September, 1983.
Wides are not uncommon. A typical number occurring in a game might be in the range 5-20.
The baseball equivalent of a wide is a called "ball", in the sense that each is judged to be an "unfair" or "unhittable" delivery by the umpire.
