T10
About 1.5 hours
10 overs a side
Like one set of tennis
A beginner’s field guide
Cricket 101
Cricket looks complicated from the boundary. The basics are simple: one team scores runs, the other tries to take wickets, and then they switch.
Think baseball’s innings, tennis’s timing and a full 360-degree field.
That comparison gets you started. The videos and guide below will do the rest.
2.5B+
Fans worldwide — the second-most followed sport on Earth
108
Countries where cricket is played under the International Cricket Council
$3B+
Estimated annual value of the global cricket economy
The old myth
“Cricket goes on for days.”
True only of five-day Test cricket. Everywhere else you pick the length first — one set, a three-setter, a five-setter — exactly as you would in tennis.
T20
About 3 hours
20 overs a side
Like a three-setter
One-Day
About 8 hours
50 overs a side
Like a five-set epic
Test
Up to 5 days
Two innings a side
Like a whole tournament
How long is a game?
Cricket, next to the games you already play
Circled in gold: cricket. T10 sits in the same window as a padel match or a five-game squash tie; T20 lands beside a baseball or NFL game.
Tennis, one set
About 60 min
Padel match
60–90 min
T10 Cricket
About 1.5 hours
Squash match, best of 5
60–90 min
NBA Basketball
About 2.5 hours
T20 Cricket
About 3 hours
MLB Baseball
About 3 hours
NFL Football
About 3.2 hours
Tennis, five sets
Up to 5 hours
Start here
Cricket in a few minutes
Four short primers chosen for people seeing the game with fresh eyes. Watch the first one and you will know enough to follow along.
Cricket and tennis are more fun together
When the racquet set picks up a bat
Tennis and cricket borrow from each other happily. Novak Djokovic went looking for a six at the Australian Open, Australia’s Steve Smith returned a tennis serve like it was a straight drive, and Andy Murray’s 130mph delivery gave a professional batter something to think about. That is exactly the spirit of Serve & Six.
Your first game
Put the basics into play
Serve & Six is a two-hour tennis-ball introduction made especially for adult racquet players. Join us Saturday, October 17 from 10 a.m. to noon.