How Many Types of Out in Cricket? 10 Types of Cricket Dismissals

There are 10 ways a batter can be given out under the current Laws of Cricket. Nine of them sit in the dismissal Laws numbered 32 to 40, and the tenth, retired out, is buried inside Law 25.4. Five of the ten are credited to the bowler and five are not, which is why a scorecard and a bowling analysis can disagree about who took the wicket.

How many types of out are there in cricket?

Ten, under the 2017 Code of the Laws as it stands in August 2026. The count trips people up because older reference pages still say eleven. Handled the ball was a separate dismissal until the 2017 Code absorbed it into obstructing the field, so anything written before that lists one dismissal that no longer exists on its own.

The Laws are custodianed by MCC at Lord’s, not by the ICC. The edition in force is the 2017 Code, 3rd edition (2022). A fourth edition takes effect on 1 October 2026 with 73 material changes, none of which adds or removes a mode of dismissal.

All 10 cricket dismissals at a glance

Here is every mode of dismissal with its Law number, roughly how often you will see it, and the detail most explainers skip: whether the bowler gets the wicket.

Dismissal	Law	How common	Credited to bowler?
Caught	33	Very common (~57% of Test dismissals)	Yes
Bowled	32	Very common (~21%)	Yes
LBW	36	Common (~14%)	Yes
Run out	38	Regular (~3.5%)	No
Stumped	39	Occasional (~2%)	Yes
Hit wicket	35	Rare (well under 1%)	Yes
Obstructing the field	37	Very rare	No
Timed out	40	Once in internationals	No
Hit the ball twice	34	Once in internationals	No
Retired out	25.4	Rare, and tactical	No

The frequency figures are drawn from Test-match records and are stable enough to treat as the shape of the game rather than a snapshot. Limited-overs cricket shifts the mix: run outs and stumpings rise sharply in T20, and LBW falls as batters play across the line less often against spin.

The five dismissals you will actually see

Caught, bowled, LBW, run out and stumped account for more than 98 per cent of everything that happens. Caught covers any ball struck with the bat or glove and taken cleanly by a fielder before it touches the ground. Bowled requires the delivery to put down the wicket, whether it beats the bat or deflects off pad or body first.

LBW is the one that needs three conditions at once: the ball pitching in line or outside off, striking the batter in line, and going on to hit the stumps. If the batter offered no shot, the impact can be outside off and still be out. Run out applies when the wicket is put down while a batter is out of their ground with the ball in play, and it is the only dismissal that can happen to either batter on a single delivery. Stumped is the keeper’s version, executed when the batter has left the crease and is not attempting a run.

If the shorthand on scorecards is unfamiliar, the full guide to cricket abbreviations and their meanings decodes notations like “c Smith b Jones” and “lbw b Jones”.

The five rare dismissals almost nobody sees

Hit wicket (Law 35) is out when the batter dislodges the bails with bat, body or equipment while playing the ball or setting off for a run. Obstructing the field (Law 37) covers deliberate interference with a fielder, including using a hand to stop the ball. Hit the ball twice (Law 34) bans striking the ball a second time except to protect the wicket, and has been given once in international cricket, against Malta’s Fanyan Mughal in a 2023 T20I.

Timed out (Law 40) requires the incoming batter to be ready within three minutes under the Laws, cut to two minutes in Tests and ODIs and 90 seconds in T20Is by international playing conditions. Angelo Mathews became the first player timed out in international cricket during a 2023 World Cup match against Bangladesh when his helmet strap broke. Retired out (Law 25.4) happens when a batter leaves the field without the umpire’s consent for injury or illness; R Ashwin turned it into a tactic for Rajasthan Royals in 2022, which is why it now shows up occasionally in the T20 leagues that dominate the modern calendar.

Which dismissals credit the bowler, and which do not

Exactly five dismissals go into the bowler’s figures: bowled, caught, LBW, stumped and hit wicket. The other five (run out, obstructing the field, hit the ball twice, timed out and retired out) are credited to the fielding side but leave the bowling analysis untouched.

This is not a scoring quirk. It changes what is legal. A batter cannot be stumped off a no-ball, because stumped is the bowler’s wicket and the fielding side is not allowed to profit from an illegal delivery. A batter can be run out off a no-ball, because that wicket belongs to nobody in particular. The same logic explains why a bowler who beats the bat and watches the keeper break the stumps on a wandering batter gets the wicket, while a bowler whose full toss is smashed to mid-on and turns into a run out gets nothing but the runs against their name.

Why handled the ball vanished from the Laws

MCC deleted handled the ball as a standalone dismissal in the 2017 Code and moved the offence into obstructing the field. The reasoning was that using a hand to stop the ball is a form of obstruction, and two Laws covering one act invited arguments over which applied.

Nothing became legal as a result. A batter who palms the ball away from the stumps is still out; the scorecard simply reads “obstructing the field” now. Michael Vaughan and Steve Waugh are among the players whose old handled-the-ball dismissals sit in the records under a Law that no longer exists in that form.

How the dismissal rules differ by format

The modes are identical across formats, but the tempo changes which ones appear. Test cricket produces the highest share of bowled and LBW dismissals because bowlers attack the stumps over long spells; the format explained in our guide to what a Test match is rewards patience over risk.

Limited-overs cricket does the opposite. Run outs multiply as batters chase twos, and stumpings rise as they charge spinners. The 50-over format covered in our overs guide sits between the two extremes. Every dismissal here can also occur in a tie-break, which is worth knowing before reading how a Super Over decides a tied match: losing two wickets ends a Super Over innings on the spot, whatever mode of dismissal caused them.

For the rest of the rulebook, our cricket rules hub covers the Laws that decide matches rather than individual wickets.