Who Writes the Laws of Cricket? The MCC, the ICC and the Small Print

Somewhere in the pavilion at Lord's, behind a door that most visitors never open, sits a body of people whose work you feel every time an umpire raises a finger. They do not set the fixtures, pick the teams or sell the broadcast rights. They look after the sentences that decide what counts as a catch, a no-ball or a fair delivery. Cricket's Laws are among the most quoted pieces of sporting text in the world, and they have a very particular history.

A club that wrote the rulebook

The Marylebone Cricket Club, known as the MCC, is a private members' club founded in 1787. Over the next decades it became the custodian of the game's rules, and the first MCC code of laws appeared in the 1780s and was revised through the nineteenth century as the sport spread. The club still holds the copyright of the Laws and is responsible for keeping them up to date.

The code has been republished in editions at intervals, and the 2017 code was a notable rewrite that was later updated. The MCC works through a Laws sub-committee, which considers proposed changes, discusses them and seeks the views of cricket's national bodies.

Where the ICC comes in

The International Cricket Council, the ICC, is the global governing body for international cricket. It organises world tournaments, oversees the rankings and regulates the international game. Its relationship with the Laws is practical: international matches are played under the Laws of Cricket, together with a set of ICC playing conditions that apply to each format.

This division of labour is unusual. In many sports, one body writes the rules and runs the competitions. In cricket, the Laws come from a historic club, while the competitions and their regulations come from the international and national governing bodies. The two have worked alongside each other for a long time, and the arrangement has generally held.

Laws versus playing conditions

The Laws are the foundation, the universal framework. They describe, for example, the pitch dimensions, the number of players, the ways in which a batter can be dismissed, and what constitutes a fair delivery. They apply, with local variations, from the village green to the Test arena.

Playing conditions are the additional rules that organisers use to tailor a competition. They are where you find provisions such as the number of overs per innings in limited-overs cricket, restrictions on fielders in certain overs, rules around the use of the Decision Review System, and penalties for slow over rates. They can also adjust how the Laws are applied, for example by setting how many bouncers are allowed per over in a given format.

How change actually happens

Changes to the Laws tend to be gradual, and they are often driven by experience. A rule that causes a persistent argument, a modern technology that changes how decisions are made, or a form of play that needs clearer wording may all prompt a revision. Proposals are discussed, sometimes tested in competitions, and eventually published in a new edition.

Some changes have been well known. The way a run out at the non-striker's end is classified was moved from the section on unfair play into the run-out law in the 2022 update, which settled one long-running debate in a tidier way, though not everyone was pleased. The wider point is that the Laws reflect an ongoing conversation between players, officials, administrators and fans.

The spirit of the game

The Laws also contain a preamble on the spirit of cricket, which asks players to respect opponents, umpires and the game's traditions. It is not a legal clause in the way a dismissal is, but it has real moral weight, and it has shaped debates about sportsmanship for years. Cricket is unusual in that it writes down such a principle at the start of its rulebook.

Local laws, local variations

Because the Laws apply so widely, some flexibility is built in. Clubs and leagues at lower levels often adapt matters such as the length of the boundary, the number of overs in an innings, or the arrangements for younger players, using the freedom the Laws allow. This is part of why a Sunday friendly can feel very different from an international, and why the shared framework still holds.

There is a human side too. The Laws are interpreted by umpires, who must apply them under pressure, in real time, often with a few seconds to decide. A good umpire knows the Laws thoroughly and uses common sense, and the whole system depends on players accepting that decisions will be made in good faith. The written code is the skeleton, and the culture of the game is what gives it life.

Why this matters to you

Understanding who writes what helps make sense of the game. When a controversial decision turns on a technicality, it is worth asking whether it comes from the Laws or from the competition's playing conditions. The two layers explain why a club match, a T20 league and a Test can each look slightly different and still be recognisably the same sport. The Laws are the shared language, the playing conditions are the dialect, and the people who look after them are a surprisingly small group with an enormous influence.