In thesport ofcricket, abail is one of the two smaller sticks placed on top of the threestumps to form awicket. The bails are used to determine when the wicket isbroken orput down, which in turn is one of the critical factors in determining whether abatter is outbowled,stumped,run out orhit wicket.
The wicket is considered to be broken if one or both of the bails fall from the stumps, or a stump is struck out of the ground, by:
This means, for example, that if the ball hits the wicket directly from thebowler's delivery, thebatter is only out bowled if a bail falls off, so a ball can actually brush or rest against the stumps without the batsman being dismissed (as long as the bail remains in its groove).
If a bail falls off the stumps for any other reason while the ball is still in play, and a later incident such as a ran out attempt requires the wicket to be broken, then the other bail can be removed (if it has not yet fallen off), or a stump can be struck out of the cricket ground or pulled up, as described above.
Each bail is made of a singlecylindrically shaped piece of wood which has two smaller cylinders of wood protruding from each end. The large central cylinder is called thebarrel and the smaller protrusions are thespigots. The spigots are of unequal length: the longer rests alone on one stump, while the shorter rests on the middle stump together with the short spigot of the other bail.
Special heavy bails made of denser wood (usuallylignum vitae) are sometimes used in windy conditions if the normal light bails are likely to be blown off the stumps. Theumpires can decide to dispense with the bails completely (for example, where strong gusts of wind would remove even the heavy bails), in which case the umpires will adjudge whether or not the wicket is broken, however,Hawk-Eye graphics, part of theDecision Review System, still assumes the bails are on the stump.
An excerpt from Law 8(3)(b) of theLaws of cricket:[1]
