How do you say 'leg before wicket' in Dutch? Is there a German word for byes? These were perhaps just some of the problems ICC Europe and the MCC would have faced while translating the Laws of Cricket into seven European languages. The 2010 edition of the Laws are now available in French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Italian and German.

The project was undertaken to help promote cricket in Europe, but took longer than expected because there were several terms, taken for granted as part of the language by cricket-lovers, completely untranslatable in other languages. “We initially underestimated the complexity involved with translating the Laws into so many different languages as many of the cricket terms just did not exist,” Richard Holdsworth, the ICC regional development manager, Europe, said. The Laws are also being translated into Romanian and Finnish.