CricPulse
There is no shortage of cricket umpire signal charts online. Almost all of them do the same thing: a picture of a person with an arm out, and a caption saying “wide.” That is useful for the first five minutes of your first game and close to useless afterwards, because it answers the wrong question.
An umpire’s signal is not a piece of theatre for the crowd. It is an instruction issued to two specific people — the scorers — telling them what to enter in the book. And the entries are not interchangeable. Four byes, four leg byes and four off the bat all put the same four runs on the total, but they land in three different columns, and only one of them counts against the bowler. Get the signal right and misfile the entry and the scorecard is wrong, the bowling analysis is wrong, and in a league with bonus points, the table may end up wrong too.
This guide runs through every signal an umpire will give you, what it means in the Laws, and — the part usually missing — exactly what the scorer does about it. If you are brand new to the book, start with how to score a cricket match first and come back here.
The Two Kinds of Signal
Umpires make signals for two different audiences, and the difference matters more than most players realise.
Signals made while the ball is in play are for the players. When the bowler oversteps, the umpire calls “no ball” and holds an arm out immediately, because the batters need to know they cannot be bowled and the fielding side needs to know the delivery does not count. Same with a wide, and same with the raised finger for an out. These happen in real time, in the middle of the action.
Signals made when the ball is dead are for the scorers. Once the ball is dead, the umpire turns to the scorers and repeats the signal deliberately — and then waits. That deliberate repetition is the one that goes in the book. If you are scoring, this is a useful mental filter: the frantic arm-out mid-delivery is information, but the calm, square-on repetition afterwards is the instruction.
Acknowledgement Is Part of the Law, Not a Courtesy
The umpire is required to wait until the signal has been acknowledged by a scorer before allowing play to continue. This is not politeness — it is the mechanism that keeps two independent records in sync with the umpire’s version of events.
In practice that means: look up. Watch for the signal. Raise a hand clearly, or wave the acknowledgement card if your ground uses them. Do not acknowledge a signal you did not actually see or did not understand — a delayed game is a much smaller problem than a scorebook that silently diverges from the umpire’s intention for the next forty overs. If you genuinely cannot tell whether that was a bye or a leg bye, hold your hand up flat, don’t acknowledge, and let the umpire repeat it.
The Complete Signal Reference
The table below covers the signals defined in the Laws of Cricket. The final column is the one that matters if you are holding the pen.
| Signal | What the umpire does | What the scorer records |
|---|---|---|
| Boundary four | Arm waved from side to side across the body, finishing across the chest | 4 to the striker, 4 to the team total, 4 against the bowler — unless preceded by a bye or leg bye signal, in which case 4 extras and nothing to the batter |
| Boundary six | Both arms raised straight above the head | 6 to the striker, 6 to the total, 6 against the bowler |
| Bye | One open palm raised above the head | Runs to the byes column and the team total. Not to the batter, not against the bowler. Ball counts in the over |
| Leg bye | Touching or tapping a raised knee | Runs to the leg byes column and the total. Not to the batter, not against the bowler. Ball counts |
| Wide | Both arms extended horizontally at shoulder height | 1 wide minimum, plus any further runs run or a boundary — all as wides. Charged to the bowler. Ball does not count in the over |
| No ball | One arm extended horizontally to the side | 1 no-ball extra charged to the bowler, plus any runs off the bat credited to the striker. Ball does not count in the over |
| Out | Index finger raised above the head | Record the dismissal, the bowler credited where applicable, fielder(s) for catches and run-outs, the score and overs at the fall of wicket, and the new batter in |
| Short run | Bent arm, fingertips tapping the nearest shoulder, with the call “one short” | Deduct one run from the runs completed off that delivery. Three run with one short becomes 2. The ball still counts |
| Dead ball | Wrists crossed and uncrossed below the waist | Nothing is scored from the moment the ball became dead. The umpire will make clear whether the delivery stands or is to be re-bowled — ask if it is not obvious |
| Penalty runs to the batting side | One hand repeatedly tapping the opposite shoulder | 5 penalty extras added to the batting side’s total. Not to any batter, not against the bowler |
| Penalty runs to the fielding side | One hand placed on the opposite shoulder and held there | 5 penalty runs to the fielding side. These go to that side’s eventual innings total — you will need a clearly labelled note, because there is often nowhere obvious to put them |
| Revoke last signal | Both shoulders touched, each with the opposite hand | Cancel the previous signal and enter whatever the umpire signals next. Cross out cleanly rather than scribbling over — you may need to reconstruct this later |
| New ball | The ball held above the head | Note the over number at which the new ball was taken — it is a required part of a long-form scorebook and the first thing anyone asks about afterwards |
| Last hour / final session | Pointing to a raised wrist with the other index finger | Record the time it was signalled and start counting the minimum overs required in the last hour. In timed club cricket this is the single most important note in the book |
Signals You Will See That Are Not in the Laws
Two commonly-seen signals come from competition playing conditions rather than the Laws themselves, so whether they apply to your match depends on the format you are playing.
Free hit — an arm extended and rotated in a circular motion, given after a no ball in limited-overs competitions that use free hits. The scorer marks the next delivery as a free hit, because the dismissal rules for it are different: the striker cannot be out bowled, caught, lbw or stumped, so a “wicket” on a free hit is usually not a wicket at all. Our guide to the 2026 ICC playing conditions covers where free hits currently apply.
Review signals — the drawn TV rectangle and associated gestures belong to competitions running DRS. They will not appear in club cricket, and the “soft signal” that accompanied on-field decisions referred upstairs has been removed from the ICC playing conditions.
Combined Signals: Where Scorers Actually Get Caught Out
Single signals are easy. What causes errors is two or three signals arriving in sequence, because each one modifies the last. The umpire gives them in a deliberate order, and reading that order correctly is most of the skill.
No Ball, Then Bye
The bowler oversteps, the ball beats everyone, they run two. The umpire signals no ball, then bye. The entry is 1 no-ball extra plus 2 byes — three runs to the total, none to the striker. The ball does not count in the over. Note that many leagues and scoring systems record all runs from a no ball as no-ball extras rather than splitting them; check which convention your competition uses, because it changes the extras breakdown on the scorecard even though the total is the same.
No Ball, Then Boundary Four
Overstep, then the striker smashes it for four. That is 1 no-ball extra plus 4 to the striker off the bat — five runs, four of them the batter’s, all five against the bowler, and the ball does not count. If the umpire had signalled no ball, then bye, then four, the batter gets nothing and the four goes to byes.
Wide, Then Boundary Four
A wide that races away to the rope is five wides, not one wide plus four byes. Every run from a wide delivery is a wide. This one is worth committing to memory because it looks wrong in the book the first few times.
Leg Bye, Then Short Run
They run three off the pad, one of them short. Signals: leg bye, then short run. Record 2 leg byes. The short run is deducted from the completed runs, not from the classification.
Boundary Four, Then Revoke, Then Six
The umpire consults their colleague, changes their mind, and corrects. Cancel the four, enter the six. This is precisely why revoke exists and why you never write in the book so heavily that you cannot undo it.
Penalty Runs: The Five That Confuse Everyone
Penalty runs are the signals most club scorers see least often and get wrong most reliably. The distinction is in the hand, and it is subtle: tapping the opposite shoulder repeatedly awards five runs to the batting side; a hand placed and held on the opposite shoulder awards them to the fielding side.
Five penalty runs to the batting side arise from things like the ball striking a fielding side helmet left on the ground, illegal fielding, deliberate distraction of the striker, or a fielding side offence that has already been warned once. Five to the fielding side arise from batting side offences: deliberately running short, wasting time, damaging the pitch, or deliberately distracting the fielding side.
Two practical notes. First, penalty runs are extras. They belong to the team total, not to a batter, and they are never charged to the bowler’s analysis. Second, penalties awarded to the fielding side are the awkward ones, because that side may not have batted yet — those five runs are added to their innings total whenever it happens. Most paper scorebooks have no dedicated box for this. Write it prominently, dated by over, somewhere it cannot be missed at the innings break. More than one club match has been settled by a five-run penalty that nobody remembered to carry across.
Deliberate short running is the case that stacks: the run does not count and five penalty runs go to the fielding side. If you see a short run signal followed by a fielding-side penalty signal, that is what has happened.
The Signals With No Runs Attached — And Why They Still Matter
Dead ball, new ball and last hour do not change the score, which is exactly why scorers get sloppy about them.
Dead ball is the umpire telling you that whatever just happened does not count. The nuance worth knowing is that the ball became dead at the moment of the incident, not at the moment of the signal — so runs completed after that point do not stand. If the situation was messy, ask at the end of the over rather than guessing. A related case is the non-striker leaving early: if the bowler attempts the run out and misses, the ball is called dead and the delivery does not count. Our guide to the non-striker run-out covers how that one is scored.
New ball matters because a bowling analysis without the new-ball over marked is incomplete, and because captains and coaches genuinely use it afterwards.
Last hour is the one that decides matches in timed club cricket. From the signal, a minimum number of overs must be bowled, and the count is a shared responsibility between the umpires and the scorers. If you are the only person tracking it accurately and the fielding side is drifting, your book is what the captain will be asking about. Our over-to-ball converter is handy when the overs are being counted in balls remaining rather than overs.
A Practical Routine for the Scorer
The signal is only useful if you receive it, so build a rhythm rather than relying on catching things by luck.
Look up between every delivery, not just when something happens. If your eyes are only on the book, you will miss the signal that follows the incident you are busy recording.
Acknowledge visibly and only when you are sure. Raise a hand high enough to be seen from twenty-two yards in poor light.
Wait for the full sequence before you write. A no ball is often the first of two or three signals. Writing after the first one is the most common source of combined-signal errors.
Query at the end of the over, not mid-over. Both scorers should compare totals at every over anyway; that is the natural moment to resolve an ambiguity while it is still fresh.
Never invent an entry. If you missed it, ask. An honest gap resolved at the over break is recoverable; a plausible guess that was wrong is not, because nobody will ever know to look for it.
If any of the underlying categories are still fuzzy — what separates a bye from a leg bye, or why some runs count against the bowler and others do not — the guide to cricket extras and how to read a cricket scorecard are the two companion pieces to this one.
How CricPulse Helps
Digital scoring does not remove the need to read signals — an app cannot see the umpire — but it removes almost everything that goes wrong after the signal. Tapping “no ball + 2 byes” puts the runs in the right columns, keeps them off the batter, keeps the ball out of the over count, and updates the bowling analysis in one action, so the classification errors that make paper scorecards disagree simply do not arise.
Penalty runs are the clearest example. Five to the fielding side is trivially easy to record in an app and trivially easy to lose in a paper book, because the app carries them to the right innings automatically instead of relying on someone remembering at tea. Same with the new-ball over and the last-hour over count — recorded once, visible to everyone, and still there at the end of the season when the league asks. In competitions where the table is decided partly by bonus points, that accuracy is worth actual league positions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do umpires signal twice for the same thing?
The first signal, made while the ball is in play, is for the players — it tells the batters and
fielders what is happening immediately. The second, made once the ball is dead, is for the
scorers, and the umpire waits for it to be acknowledged before play resumes. Only the second one
is the instruction to write something down.
What is the difference between the two penalty run signals?
A hand repeatedly tapping the opposite shoulder awards five penalty runs to the batting side. A
hand placed on the opposite shoulder and held there awards them to the fielding side. The
difference is movement versus stillness, which is easy to miss at distance — if you are unsure, do
not acknowledge until the umpire repeats it.
How does a scorer record a wide that goes to the boundary?
As five wides. Every run resulting from a wide delivery is recorded as a wide, charged to the
bowler, and the delivery does not count as one of the six balls in the over.
Does the batter get credit for runs off a no ball?
Runs hit off the bat from a no ball are credited to the striker as normal. The one-run no-ball
penalty itself is an extra and is not credited to any batter. All of it is charged against the
bowler.
What happens if the scorer misses a signal?
Ask the umpire at the end of the over. The umpires and the two scorers are meant to be reconciling
the score at regular intervals precisely so discrepancies are caught early. Guessing is far more
damaging than a short delay, because an unnoticed error compounds for the rest of the innings.
Do the same signals apply in junior and indoor cricket?
The core signals are the same, since they come from the Laws. Competition-specific formats often
add their own — indoor cricket in particular has its own scoring conventions, and some junior
competitions modify wides and no balls. Check your competition’s playing conditions rather than
assuming the standard set is complete.