“Wickets” and “dismissals” are often interchangeable terms but have a distinct meaning in cricket statistics. Wickets are when the bowler is credited with ending a batter’s innings. Dismissals are when a wicket keeper or fielder also gets credit.
In general use, “wicket” and “dismissal” are two of the ways of describing a batter’s innings ending: they “lose their wicket”, are “dismissed” or simply “are got out.”
However, the two terms do have specific meanings when it comes to scorecards and statistics.
Wicket
A “wicket” is an achievement by the bowler. They will get a certain number of wickets in a game (five is considered a notable achievement) and this will also count towards their total number of wickets in a series of games, a tournament, a year or a career. It also counts towards the calculation of their bowling average.
Bowlers are credited with a wicket when they bowl and a batter is out by four of the five most common ways of being out, namely bowled, caught, LBW and stumped, plus the less common hit wicket. The bowler’s name will be listed on the scorecard, for example “b Jones” means Jones was the bowler and the batter was out by being bowled.
Bowlers do not get credit for a batter being run out or the less common retired, hitting the ball twice, obstructing the field (including handling the ball) or timed out. The logic is that with most dismissals by these methods, the batter’s actions or failures are far more significant to the outcome than the bowler’s actions.
(“Wicket” is a particularly versatile word in cricket as it can also describe the stumps and bails as in “the bowler targeted the wicket.” It can be another word for pitch, the area between the stumps, particularly its condition as in “the dry weather and deterioration made it a good wicket for spinners.” It can even describe a period of the game: the “fourth wicket” is the batting between the third and fourth occasions of a batter being out in the innings.”)
Dismissals
In scorecards and statistics, wicket keepers get the credit for a dismissal if they stump the batter or take a catch. Other fielders get the credit for a dismissal if they take a catch.
Dismissals are listed in the scorecard. For example “c Smith b Jones” means Jones was the bowler (and is credited with the wicket) and Smith took the catch (and is credited with a dismissal.)
While dismissal statistics aren’t considered as important as wickets, statisticians may calculate a player’s total dismissals during a career, or put together a table of which players took the most dismissals during a tournament or a season.
Run Outs
Run outs are not credited as a wicket for the bowler or a dismissal for the fielder when it comes to match statistics and they don’t count towards tables such as most wickets in a season.
Some match scorers will record who is responsible for a run out and include this in scorecards, but this is purely as additional information. To emphasize this, the name is listed in (parentheses). Which names are included this way can vary, with approaches including:
- Only listing a fielder who gets a run out with a direct hit (throwing the ball and it hitting the stumps.)
- Listing both names when a fielder throws the ball to a wicket keeper or other fielder who then removes the stumps.