A bail guard is a small device that tethers the bails on a cricket wicket. They still lift and fall normally, they just cannot fly. It fits the stumps you already own, costs a few dollars, and the design is published free for anyone to build.
Used in games
These clubs and leagues chose to lead on player and umpire safety, and let the device be tested in real, competitive matches.
Four inexpensive parts: collar, tether, O-rings and stoppers. Retrofits on existing stumps. Nothing is drilled and nothing is modified.
Two minutes with Aashi and Anish: why a flying bail is far more dangerous than it looks, how four cheap parts fix it, and what it looks like in real matches.
Bails are small, hard, and leave the stumps at speed, at head height for the people standing closest. These are not hypothetical cases.
Up to half the field is in the firing line. Every single ball.
And behind every one of them, a parent, a teammate or a friend watching from the boundary.
A younger player's eyeline is lower and closer to the bails, reactions are still developing, and softer tissue and bone means an impact does more damage. Most youth cricket is played without any eye protection at all.
This is not a proposal to change cricket. In 2017 the MCC wrote a provision into the Laws specifically for devices like this one.
“Devices aimed at protecting player safety by limiting the distance that a bail can travel off the stumps will be allowed, subject to the approval of the Governing Body for the match and the Ground Authority.”Laws of Cricket, 2017 Code, 3rd Edition 2022. Marylebone Cricket Club. ESPNcricinfo report
A bail guard is exactly the device that clause describes. Using one needs no law change and no special dispensation, only the agreement of your league and your ground, which the Law already anticipates.
We had something patentable and chose to publish it instead. The full design is archived on Zenodo as a defensive publication, first released in October 2025, under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. That makes it prior art, so the mechanism stays permanently free for anyone to build, sell or improve, and nobody can patent it out from under the game later.
The deeper engineering questions and alternate designs considered are answered in the supplemental technical FAQ.
Every field trial number on this page can be reproduced. The scorecard counts, the scrapers that produced them and the per match reports are all in the field trial repository on GitHub.
Two minutes gets you the idea. Ten gets you the evidence. Work down the list as far as you want to go.
Every dismissal below physically dislodges the bails, the exact moment a guard is engaged. Counted from official league scorecards, not estimated.
| Dismissal type | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 2,582 | 100% |
Hit wicket is 0.4% of the total, a real but very thin slice. The bar and table views show it clearly.
These counts come only from completed dismissals on the scorecard. They do not capture the many other times the bails are dislodged:
The real number is higher. We count what can be verified from official records, and we make no claim that the device prevented any particular injury, only how often it would be engaged.
We are asking cricket's governing bodies to review the bail guard, and local leagues to try it. Support this initiative.
Share it with the cricket lovers you know. Most people have no idea this is a solved problem.