Cricket
Authority: MCC Laws of Cricket (2017 Code, 3rd Edition, 2022)
A cricket pitch measures exactly 22 yards (20.12m) between the two sets of stumps -- one Gunter's surveying chain. Each wicket has 3 stumps standing 28 inches (71.12cm) tall and spanning 9 inches (22.86cm) wide including bails, which must not project more than 0.5 inches (1.27cm) above the stumps.
| Parameter / Specification | Standard Value | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch Length | 22 | yards (20.12 m / 1 chain) |
| Stump Height | 28 | inches (71.12 cm) |
| Wicket Width (3 stumps) | 9 | inches (22.86 cm) |
| Max Bail Projection Above Stumps | 0.5 | inches (1.27 cm) |
Why 22 Yards?
The cricket pitch's length isn't an arbitrary cricketing figure -- it's exactly one Gunter's chain, a land-surveying unit English mathematician Edmund Gunter devised in 1620. Gunter's chain measured 66 feet (22 yards) and was divided into 100 links, making it easy to convert survey measurements into acres and giving land surveyors across England a single, practical standard unit. That same 66-foot chain survives today as the distance between a cricket pitch's two sets of stumps, a legacy of just how ubiquitous the chain was as an English measurement tool by the time cricket's pitch length was being fixed.
The stumps and bails sitting at each end of that 22-yard pitch have their own tightly specified dimensions -- height, spacing, and even how far the bails may sit proud of the stumps -- all set out in the Laws of Cricket to keep the wicket's target area consistent from match to match.
Governance: The Laws of Cricket
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), founded in London sometime in the late spring or summer of 1787, assumed oversight of the Laws of Cricket the following year, issuing its first revised code in 1788. MCC has held custodianship of the Laws ever since, retaining copyright and remaining the only body permitted to formally amend them, though changes today are made in consultation with the International Cricket Council and other cricketing nations.
The current version is the 2017 Code, whose third edition took effect on 1 October 2022 -- the latest link in a chain of revisions stretching back to that first 1788 codification.