Appeal (cricket)

In cricket, an appeal (locally known as a "Howzat") is the act of a player (or players) on the fielding team asking an umpire for a decision regarding whether a batter is out or not. According to Law 31 of the Laws of Cricket, an umpire may not rule a batter out unless the fielding side appeals for a decision.^[1] However, in practice most umpires will give a batter out to an obvious bowled or caught. On many occasions when a batter has otherwise technically been out, the fielding team has not realised, so neglected to appeal, and so the umpire has not declared them out.^[2] An appeal may be made at any point before the bowler starts their run-up for the next ball.