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cricket2

Pronunciation: /ˈkrɪkɪt/
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Definition of cricket

noun

[mass noun]
  • an open-air game played on a large grass field with ball, bats, and two wickets, between teams of eleven players, the object of the game being to score more runs than the opposition: [as modifier]:a cricket bat

Cricket is played mainly in Britain and in territories formerly under British rule, such as Australia, South Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand, and the Indian subcontinent. The full game with two innings per side can last several days; shorter single-innings matches are usual at amateur level and have become popular at professional level since the 1960s

Phrases

a cricket score

British informal
(in sports other than cricket) an unusually high score:England looked set to run up a cricket score when they went four tries ahead

not cricket

British informal something contrary to traditional standards of fairness or rectitude: an appeal by the Crown against too lenient a sentence is simply not cricket

Derivatives

cricketer

noun

cricketing

adjective

Origin:

late 16th century: of unknown origin

cricket in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of cricket in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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