CricPulse
A batter walks off before being bowled, caught, stumped, or run out. Nothing has dismissed them — and yet the scorebook still has to record what just happened, and it matters which of three very different things it actually was. Retired hurt, retired out, and a junior league’s compulsory retirement rule can look identical from the boundary — a batter simply stops batting and someone else takes their place — but they sit under different rules, they are scored differently, and only one of them counts against a player’s average.
This guide covers all three: what each one actually is, which law or playing condition governs it, whether it counts as a dismissal, whether the batter can come back, and — the part most explainers skip entirely — exactly what a scorer writes down for each.
The Three Kinds of Retirement, at a Glance
| Type | Governed by | Counts as a dismissal? | Can resume without consent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retired hurt / ill | MCC Law 25.4.1 | ❌ No — not out | ✅ Yes, any time |
| Retired out | MCC Law 25.4.2 | ✅ Yes — dismissal | ❌ No — needs opposing captain’s consent |
| Compulsory / development retirement | League playing conditions (not MCC Law) | ❌ No — not out | ⚠️ Usually, once others are out — varies by league |
Retired Hurt or Ill: Not a Dismissal, No Permission Needed
Under Law 25.4.1, a batter who has to leave the field because of injury, illness, or any other unavoidable cause is recorded as retired — not out. It is not a dismissal in any sense: no bowler is credited, no fielder is involved, and the fall-of-wickets count does not move. The innings is effectively paused, not ended.
Because nothing has dismissed them, the batter can return to the crease at any later point in the same innings — most commonly the next time a wicket falls, though some competitions allow the batting side to send them back in whenever they choose (subject to the not-out batters at the crease staying constant at two). No permission from the opposing captain is required, because nothing adversarial happened; the batter left for a genuine, unavoidable reason.
Retired Out: A Tactical Decision That Does Count Against You
Retired out (Law 25.4.2) covers every other reason a batter might retire — almost always a tactical one, and almost always the batting side’s own choice, not the bowling side’s doing. If that batter’s innings is not resumed, it is recorded as retired — out, and — unlike retired hurt — it does count as a dismissal for statistical purposes. It is simply never credited to a bowler or a fielder, because no delivery or catch caused it.
Resuming after a tactical retirement is not automatic. The batter may only return with the consent of the opposing captain — in practice, something that is rarely granted, since a captain has no incentive to let a withdrawn batter come back and bat again.
Retired out has become genuinely common in franchise T20 cricket in recent years, almost always in the closing overs of a chase: swap out a set but slow-scoring batter for a quicker one when the required rate has climbed, or protect an established player from injury risk once the match is already decided. R Ashwin’s 2022 IPL innings for Rajasthan Royals is widely reported as the first retired-out dismissal in IPL history, and the tactic has been used by several teams since — but it remains vanishingly rare in club and school cricket, where there is usually no equivalent incentive to swap a set batter out mid-innings.
Compulsory Retirement: A League Rule, Not a Law
The third kind is different in kind, not just in degree: it is not part of the Laws of Cricket at all. Many junior and development competitions run a compulsory retirement rule — commonly “retire at 30” or “retire at 25” — where every batter must leave the crease on reaching a set score, regardless of form or the match situation. It exists to guarantee more players get a turn to bat, not to reward or penalise anyone.
The exact resumption rule is set by the competition, not MCC Law, and varies noticeably between leagues. Under-15 cup rules published by the East Yorkshire Junior Cricket League retire batters at 30 and explicitly state the retirement does not count in the fall-of-wickets column, with Under-11 and Under-13 competitions in the same league retiring batters at 25. Australia’s North Metro Cricket Association junior by-laws allow a compulsorily retired batter to return once every other listed player has been dismissed or has also compulsorily retired — so a side is never bowled out on paper while retired players are still technically available to bat again.
These are the same age-group competitions that typically run a second, unrelated set of safety rules alongside their retirement policy — capping how many overs a young bowler can send down in a day. CricPulse’s guide to junior cricket bowling limits and fast bowling directives covers that side of age-group scoring in full.
For statistics, a compulsory retirement is treated the same way as retired hurt: it is not a dismissal, so the innings is scored not out. That has a real side effect covered in more detail in CricPulse’s guide to club cricket averages and qualification rules: a development side full of “retire at 30” not-outs will post averages that look inflated next to a senior side where batters actually get out, unless the club also publishes runs-per-innings alongside the average table.
How Each One Hits the Scorebook and the Statistics
| Type | Scorecard notation | Affects batting average? | Credited to a bowler? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retired hurt / ill | retired hurt or retired not out | Inflates it, like any not-out | No |
| Retired out | retired out | Counts as an innings ended — no inflation | No |
| Compulsory retirement | retired not out (by convention) | Inflates it, like any not-out | No |
The one universal rule across all three: none of them is ever credited to a bowler, because no delivery caused the batter to leave. That is the same principle covered in CricPulse’s guide to how batting average is calculated — a bowler’s figures only move on a dismissal they actually caused, and a retirement of any kind never qualifies. If you’re tallying a season’s worth of not-outs by hand, the batting average calculator applies the same not-out handling automatically.
Worked Example
Illustrative scenario: A batter on 41 not out twists an ankle going for a second run and leaves the field. They are recorded as retired — not out, 41. Two wickets later, with the score under pressure, they return to bat and add another 19 before being bowled — the final scorecard entry becomes b [bowler], 60, a single completed innings, with the retirement invisible in the final line beyond the fact that the innings was interrupted. Had the same batter instead been withdrawn by their own captain with the match already won, and never returned, the entry would read retired out, 41 instead — a dismissal, with no bowler attached, and the innings permanently closed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a retired hurt batter count as a wicket for the bowler?
No. Retired hurt is not a dismissal at all, so no bowler is credited and no wicket is added to the
fall-of-wickets column. The batter is simply not out, exactly as if the innings ended with them
unbeaten.
Can a batter who retires hurt come back later in the same innings?
Yes, at any point, without needing the opposing captain’s permission — the innings is treated as
suspended, not ended. They typically resume once a wicket falls or, in some formats, whenever the
batting side chooses to send them back in.
Is retired out the same as being run out?
No. A run out is a fielding dismissal credited to the fielding side; retired out is the batting
side’s own tactical decision to withdraw a batter. Both end the innings and count as a dismissal on
the scorecard, but retired out is never credited to a bowler or a fielder.
Does a junior “retire at 30” rule count against a player’s batting average?
Under standard convention, no. A compulsory development retirement is not a dismissal, so that
innings is scored not out and inflates the average the same way any other not-out does — which is
exactly why clubs running these rules are usually advised to publish runs-per-innings alongside the
average table, not the average alone.
Can a batter who was compulsorily retired come back in the same innings?
Depends entirely on the competition’s own playing conditions, not on MCC Law — this is a local
league rule, not Law 25. Many junior leagues allow a compulsorily retired batter to return once
every other listed player has been dismissed or has also retired, so the side is never bowled out on
paper while retired players are still available.
Why would a team choose to retire a batter out instead of letting them keep batting?
It is almost always a tactical call in a short-format run chase or a net-run-rate-sensitive match —
swapping out a set but slow-scoring batter for a quicker one late in an innings, or protecting a key
player from an injury risk once the game is already decided. It requires the batting side’s own
decision; the bowling side has no say in it.
How CricPulse Fits In
Three kinds of retirement, three different effects on the average, and a rule book that changes depending on whether you’re scoring a league match or a Sunday development game — this is exactly the kind of distinction that is easy to get wrong live, under pressure, thirty seconds after a batter has actually left the field. CricPulse lets you retire a batter mid-innings with one tap, keeps their runs and not-out status intact, and brings them straight back into the same spot in the order the moment they return — so the notation is correct whether it turns out to be a two-over injury break or the rest of the innings. Free on iOS and Android.