In the sport of cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball with a cricket bat in order to score runs without getting out.

Each team usually consists of eleven players, and all the players are expected to bat. A person either skilled at batting or presently taking his turn at batting is called a batsman, and a batsman's main aim is to try and score runs for the team without getting 'out'.

At a given moment, only two batsmen from one team can bat. A batsman can bat in each innings until he is 'out'. Once a batsman is 'out', he is replaced by a team mate until ten out of eleven players in his team are 'out' and their innings is closed.