What are the dimensions of a cricket pitch?

The size of the field on which cricket is played varies from ground to ground. The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), or ‘The G’ for short, is the largest cricket ground in the world with a total capacity of over 100,000. Situated in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, The G has a playing area with an area of over six acres with the better part of a hundred yards to the nearest boundary.

Nevertheless, the dimensions of the cricket pitch in Melbourne are exactly the same as they are anywhere else in the world. According to the Laws of Cricket, owned and maintained by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the pitch is always a rectangular area measuring 22 yards in length by 10 feet in width. A bowling crease – that is, the line from behind which a bowler delivers the ball – marks each end of the pitch and the wicket at each end, which measures 28 inches high by nine inches wide, is set along the bowling crease. The batting, or popping, crease is marked four feet in front to the wicket each end and the return creases, between which the bowler must deliver the ball, are marked four feet and four inches either side of the middle stump at each end, at 90° to the bowling crease.