Respect is central

Before Law 1 there is a Preamble. It is not numbered, it names no dismissal and no penalty, and it begins with a sentence about enjoyment rather than about play: cricket "owes much of its appeal and enjoyment to the fact that it should be played not only according to the Laws, but also within the Spirit of Cricket".

Who is responsible

The second sentence assigns the job. "The major responsibility for ensuring fair play rests with the captains, but extends to all players, match officials and, especially in junior cricket, teachers, coaches and parents."

The order is deliberate. Captains first, and the word is "major". Then everybody else, in a list that ends off the field. "Especially in junior cricket" is the one place the Preamble distinguishes one level of the game from another, and it does so to widen the list rather than narrow it.

One word

"Respect is central to the Spirit of Cricket." Then seven lines, each an instruction. Respect your captain, team-mates, opponents and the authority of the umpires. Play hard and play fair. Accept the umpire's decision. Create a positive atmosphere by your own conduct, and encourage others to do likewise.

Show self-discipline, even when things go against you. Congratulate the opposition on their successes, and enjoy those of your own team. Thank the officials and your opposition at the end of the match, whatever the result.

The first of the seven has four objects, and one of them is not a person. Captain, team-mates and opponents are people. "The authority of the umpires" is an office. The line asks for respect for the people on your side and on the other, and for the authority of the people in between, which is a different thing from respect for them as people and is asked for separately.

Seven imperatives. Four are about other people: captain, team-mates, opponents, umpires, officials. Two are about the self: self-discipline, your own conduct. One, "play hard and play fair", is about the game. None of them has a penalty attached, because none of them is a Law.

What it is not

It is not a rule. Nothing in it says a batter is out or a side loses runs. Law 42 does that for conduct, with levels and prices. The Preamble sits before Law 42 and says what the levels are for.

It is not a definition, either. "Spirit of Cricket" is used in the first sentence and then illustrated rather than defined: respect, and seven examples of it. A reader looking for what the Spirit is finds what it looks like instead.

The last sentence

"Cricket is an exciting game that encourages leadership, friendship and teamwork, which brings together people from different nationalities, cultures and religions, especially when played within the Spirit of Cricket." It is a sentence about what the game is for, and it sits before the Laws rather than in them.

"Especially when played within the Spirit of Cricket" is the qualifier. The sentence does not say the game brings people together. It says it does so especially under one condition, and the condition is the thing the Preamble has just spent seven lines describing.

Why it comes first

Everything after the Preamble is a rule, and rules are read when something has gone wrong. The Preamble is placed where it will be read before anything has. It gives the captains a job, gives everyone a word, and lists what the word means in practice, all before the first clause on who the players are.

That placement is the whole of its authority. It has no clause to cite and no sanction to apply. What it has is position: first, before the Laws, and named as the thing they are to be played within.

Preamble to the Laws, Spirit of Cricket: MCC Laws of Cricket, 2017 Code →

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No. 9 in By the Book, a series of 17.

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