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The 2026 Code of the Laws of Cricket comes into force on Thursday, carrying 73 material changes that reach bats, balls, catches and the close of play
Cricket is playing to a revised rulebook from 1 October. The Marylebone Cricket Club's 2026 edition is the fourth of the 2017 Code, and the first revision since 2022.
MCC counts 73 material changes, alongside drafting changes throughout. Among them are the legalisation of laminated bats in open-age cricket, a tighter definition of a fair catch at the boundary, and a requirement that the last over of a day in a multi-day match be completed even after a wicket falls.
An education programme has been timed to match. MCC staff have been running seminars across India since 30 September, and a Laws of Cricket app built with the ICC launches in English this week, with Hindi, Urdu, Bangla, Marathi and Kannada to follow during October.
Laminated bats, until now permitted only in junior cricket, may be used at open-age level under the new Code. MCC has pointed to the rising cost of bats around the world, and to sustainability, as the reasons for opening them up.
The club frames it as widening access without disturbing the contest between bat and ball, the balance it protected in 2017 by cutting the permitted thickness of bat edges.
"The balance of the game is crucial to cricket," Fraser Stewart, MCC's Laws Manager and Head of Cricket, told an umpires' workshop run by the Delhi and District Cricket Association.
A fielder who leaps from beyond the rope may now touch the ball only once while airborne, and must then be wholly grounded inside the boundary for the rest of the delivery.
That ends the multi-touch relay, where a fielder parries the ball infield, lands outside and comes back for more. Where it happens, a boundary is signalled.
MCC has also tightened what counts as control of the ball: a catch, run out or stumping now requires the fielder to be holding it with complete control.
In multi-day cricket, a wicket in the final over of the day no longer ends play on the spot. The incoming batter walks out and the remaining deliveries are bowled, conditions permitting.
MCC judged that the old position took "the drama out of the game, while letting the incoming batter off".
The three standard balls are now Size 1, Size 2 and Size 3, replacing naming that ran along gender lines, with tighter tolerances attached. MCC credits an initiative by current and former women's cricketers; the men's ball is unchanged.
An overthrow is defined against a misfield for the first time. A throw at the stumps to stop runs or attempt a run out is an overthrow; a misfield that escapes to the boundary is not.
Wicketkeepers will no longer be penalised for gloves straying in front of the stumps during the run-up, and need only be wholly behind once the ball is released. Where a short run is judged deliberate, the fielding captain chooses which batter takes strike.
The seminars opened in New Delhi on 30 September and run through Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Mumbai to 7 October, with MCC meeting administrators, players, coaches, umpires and media at each stop.
"It is one thing devising and writing new Laws, but it's perhaps more important to ensure that they are well understood by all the game's stakeholders," Stewart said.
Richard Illingworth, of the Emirates ICC Elite Panel of Umpires, said: "It is fantastic to see the Laws of Cricket being made available in different languages, making them more accessible to people across the game," he said.
The app carries the full text of the Laws, interpretation guides, video of every umpire signal and a quiz of more than 100 questions, with further languages promised before the end of the year.
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