FAQs

Does it stop the bails coming off when they should?#

No. The bails sit in their grooves and lift exactly as they always have. The tether limits how far a bail travels once it is already off, so it acts after the dismissal, not on it.

This is the question our field trials were built to answer. Across 912 competitive games we have counted 4,694 dismissals that physically dislodged the bails: bowled, stumped, run out and hit wicket. Every one of those is a moment a guard was engaged and the dismissal was given as normal. Umpires who have worked with them across a season report no difference in dislodgement behaviour.

The counts come from official league scorecards and are published, with the tools that produced them, in the field trial repository.

Does the extra mass make the bails harder to dislodge?#

That depends on which build you use, and in the standard one the answer is no.

• With the lower stopper, which is how we normally build it, the collar rests on the stopper rather than hanging from the bails. The bails carry no added mass at all.
• Without it, the collar hangs from the two bails and adds roughly 6 to 7.5 grams per bail. The collar itself weighs 12 to 15 grams.

Even the second case sits inside variation the game already accepts. The Laws of Cricket specify bail dimensions and seating, but set no mass requirement at all. Wooden bails in ordinary use range from about 8 grams to over 20 depending on timber, moisture and manufacture, and the LED bails used in international cricket weigh around 27 grams.

The full treatment, including the rarer case where one bail is already down and the whole collar acts on the other, is in the supplemental technical FAQ.

Does either team get an advantage?#

No. Both sides bat and bowl at the same wicket, with the same stumps, bails and collars, under the same conditions. Nothing about it favours a batting or a bowling side.

Does it change what a dismissal looks like on camera?#

It does not obscure anything, and we would argue it reads better. An unguarded bail often leaves the frame entirely. A guarded one stays at the stumps and spends its energy there, usually spinning around the stump, so the moment of dismissal stays in shot.

Here is a real one, from a Grand Prairie Cricket Club cup game. It starts at the relevant delivery; watch the bail at about 44 seconds.

More of the same in the match highlights playlist, all from competitive games rather than staged tests.

Is it legal under the Laws of Cricket?#

Yes, and explicitly so. MCC introduced Law 8.3.4 in the 2017 Code, effective 1 October 2017:

The Law was written for exactly this category of device. Nothing here asks the game to change a rule; it uses one that already exists.

Whose permission do we need?#

The two named in the Law: the Governing Body for the match and the Ground Authority. In practice that is your league committee and whoever runs the ground you play on. You do not need permission from us, from MCC, or from any national board.

Has any governing body formally approved it?#

No. No governing body has formally approved this particular design, and we would rather say so than imply an endorsement that does not exist.

What has happened is this: Law 8.3.4 already permits devices of this kind, and Dallas Cricket League adopted bail guards on that basis, and Minor League Cricket, a semi-professional competition, has played matches with them. Other clubs and academies have run them in competitive matches. The decision for your matches sits with your own governing body and ground authority, which is what the Law intends.

Will it fit the stumps we already own?#

Yes. It is a retrofit and it fits standard stumps with no modification. Nothing is drilled, glued, screwed or permanently altered, and it comes off as easily as it goes on. If you stop using it, your stumps are exactly as they were.

Does it work with LED (Zing) bails?#

Early results say yes. We have done preliminary testing with a Zing club set and the bail guard worked as expected. There was no obvious reason it would not: the tether attaches to the bail itself and the collar sits on the stump, so nothing about the approach depends on the bail being wooden. Detailed results are being written up and will be published here shortly.

For a long time the honest answer was that we did not know, because we had never had a set to try. Zing's club-level wicket set runs to roughly AUD $2,700 to $2,950 on a minimum three-year subscription, and the systems used in international and franchise cricket are leased to boards rather than sold outright. We are grateful to Major League Cricket (MLC) at Grand Prairie Stadium, and to Mr. Johnny Grave, CEO of Major League Cricket, and Mr. Zubin Surkari, Minor League Cricket Tournament Director, for putting a Zing club set in our hands so this could be tested.

We will not call it proven until the data is published, which is the standard everything else on this site is held to.

What does it cost, and how long does it take to fit?#

A few dollars a set, in standard parts from an ordinary hardware store. No specialist tools, no 3D printing, nothing to order from us. One set takes a couple of minutes to put together and under a minute to fit, and a whole league can be kitted out in an afternoon.

The parts list, the one-page install guide and the assembly instructions are on Get involved.

How many do we need?#

Fewer than you would think. If your league runs a regular panel of umpires, give each umpire one set of guarded bails to carry to whichever ground they are appointed to. A handful of sets then covers a whole season, rather than one set per ground sitting unused most weekends.

Do we need every part?#

No. Three of the parts are optional, and each is there for a specific reason you can weigh for yourself.

• Lower stopper. Optional. With it, the collar rests on the stopper and the bails carry no added mass, and it also keeps the collar at height after a dislodgement so an umpire does not have to reposition it before re-seating the bails. Without it, add 6 to 7.5 grams per bail.
• Top stopper. Optional. The collar absorbs most impacts on its own. The top stopper matters only in the rarer case where the force is vertical, such as a ball or a keeper's hand driving the bail and collar upward during a stumping or a run out.
• O-rings. Optional. The tether can be tied straight to the bail knurling with a multi-wrap scaffold knot instead, which drops two parts.

The design is deliberately forgiving. Tether lengths and stopper heights can be approximate and it still works.

Which side of the stumps should the tether be on?#

The wicket keeper's side, so the thread faces away from the bowler and takes fewer direct hits from the ball, especially where it meets the collar. Fitted the other way round it still works, just check the thread more often.

This only matters for the hand-assembled build, where one thread runs to both bails from a single point on the collar. Once collars come off a production line, we prefer two separate threads, one to each bail, attached at the sides of the collar. A collar built that way has no front or back, so there is no wrong way round, and a thread that breaks frees one bail rather than both.

What if one breaks mid-match?#

Take it off the stumps and carry on, exactly as you would have without one. Slip the collar and tether off, re-seat the bails, play resumes. Nothing about the wicket depends on it being there, so a failure costs you the safety benefit for that match and nothing else.

What do umpires make of it?#

The safety case is the reason it exists, but it is not the first thing umpires mention. What they raise is practical:

• No hunting for bails. A dislodged bail stays at the stumps instead of disappearing into the outfield, which matters more than it sounds when the grass is thick.
• Teams stop losing bails. The bails stay attached to the wicket between games. Clubs forget and mislay bails constantly, and league matches have been played without them.
• It feels safer to stand at the stumps all day.
• No difference in how the bails behave when they come off.

That second point is worth sitting with. It is a reason to fit one that has nothing to do with safety at all.

Why not drill the middle stump, or fit a hook?#

Both work, and both were built and tested before settling on this. The trouble with each is the same: they turn a shared, portable device into a permanent modification of one particular set of stumps, and they make the tether length critical.

• The tether length has to be exact. Too long and it sways in the wind, where it can meet a keeper's gloves or the bat and interfere with play. Our collar sits on its stopper and holds the tether taut, so the length does not have to be right to the millimetre.
• Nobody replaces a cut thread properly. If it is replaced at all, it is rarely at the right length, and you are back to the first problem.
• It is permanent. A drilled stump or a screwed-in eye-bolt cannot be undone. A club that changes its mind has damaged its stumps.
• A hook or eye-bolt is itself a hazard. It is a rigid metal part fixed to the stump, right where hands, gloves and faces are, and if it works loose during play it becomes a projectile of its own. That is the problem we set out to solve, not a new one to introduce. Our parts are soft silicone and waxed thread: nothing rigid, nothing sharp, nothing that can detach and hurt somebody.

A collar that sits on the stump avoids all four. It moves between grounds, it tolerates approximate assembly, and it leaves nothing behind.

Drilling the stump fails #Retrofit and #Forgiving; a hook or eye-bolt also fails #Harmless and #PlayOn.

Why not tie the thread to a band on the stump?#

We tried that too: a stopper on its own, gripping the stump, with the threads tied to it and no collar. It is tempting. Fewer parts, no added bail mass, nothing that slides and nothing to reset after a dislodgement. It is also the fixed anchor the defensive publication records as rejected, and every problem with it comes from the same root: it is a rigid anchor, so it behaves like the drilled stump and the hook, not like the collar.

• Tether length becomes critical again. The collar's whole trick is that it is not fixed: a flying bail drags it up the stump, and the length only has to be roughly right. A band gives the thread a hard end. Too short and the bail cannot lift cleanly; too long and it sways in the wind and meets the wicketkeeper's gloves and the bat.
• A harder stop, so a higher load on the thread. With the collar, a flying bail spends its energy dragging the collar before the thread snaps tight. With a band the thread goes from slack to full tension in one jerk, and all of that goes into the thread, the knot and the O-ring. Threads cut sooner, and the bail springs back towards the stumps or the keeper instead of dropping. We have seen this happen: in the first week of the DCL season a collar was fitted pinned hard against its stopper, so it could not move, and a single dislodgement hit the end of the tether with enough force to pull the bail clean off its two O-rings. The O-rings were intact; the jolt beat their grip. The clip and the write-up are public, and that set-up is now the first "incorrect" example on the install guide.
• Grip is a trade-off you cannot win at both ends. Tight enough not to creep under repeated yanks, and it is hard to fit and reposition. Anything looser creeps. And grip is not constant: wet stumps, dirt, worn varnish, cold rubber and a season of sun all change it.
• Stumps are not one size. The Laws allow 35 to 38 mm, and many sets taper. A band that grips a 38 mm stump is loose on a 35 mm one; sized for 35, it is a fight to fit on 38. The collar handles this tolerance.

Net: the band drops two stoppers and picks up the two headline faults of the fixed alternatives, exact length and silent creep, plus a harsher stop on the thread.

Fails #SameGame and #Forgiving.

Why not helmets and safety glasses?#

Helmets and eyewear are good equipment and this is not an argument against them. They protect against the ball, which a bail guard does nothing about, so they solve a problem this does not. Wear both.

They are a poor answer to this problem for three reasons. They protect only the person wearing them, when a flying bail can reach the keeper, the batter, close fielders, the bowler, the non-striker and the umpire. They depend on somebody remembering, and children forget. And a bail can still get past a grille to the face or teeth, while safety glasses fog and bead in rain.

A guard on the stumps protects everyone on the field at once and cannot be forgotten by an individual.

The alternatives side by side#

Every approach we built or considered, against the eight design principles. Each one wins somewhere; the bail guard is the only one that does not fail a principle.

Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen. The alternative designs are covered in more depth in the supplemental technical FAQ.

What does it cost us to work with you?#

Nothing, and there is nothing to sign. The design is published under CC BY 4.0 as a defensive publication, which makes it prior art: it is permanently free for anyone to build, sell or improve, and nobody can patent it away from the game later. We sell nothing and there is nothing to order from us.

If you want to talk it through, or want someone to explain it to your committee, ask.

Get in touch