Clothing and equipment rules: what the ICC's regulations require.

What the regulations are

The ICC Clothing and Equipment Rules and Regulations form Section 19 of the ICC's regulations and apply to bilateral international cricket from January 2024. Appendix 1 shows, by diagram, which marks and logos are allowed in what size and position on each item; Appendix 2 sets out the disciplinary process. The ICC gives its aims as consistency across member boards, professional standards of appearance, protection of sponsors' rights (including against ambush marketing), and letting players earn from controlled bat advertising.

At ICC events, the ICC's event-specific agreements and regulations take precedence where they conflict. For example, players' bat logos and charity logos are not allowed at the events the regulations call "Excluded Events": the men's and women's World Cups, T20 World Cups, Under 19 World Cups, the World Test Championship final, the Champions Trophy and certain qualifiers.

Definitions

• Cricket clothing: shirts, T-shirts, skins, trousers, sweaters, caps, hats, helmets, wristbands, headbands, sunglasses and other headgear.
• Cricket equipment: stumps, bats, pads, boots, shoes, batting or wicket-keeping gloves, thigh pads, arm guards and other visible protective equipment.

Clothing colours by format

In all formats, a number below the national logo may show the player's order of selection, caps won or a landmark such as 50 or 100 matches, and initials of up to 2 cm may appear.

Equipment, item by item

• Bat: the maker's identification and design features may appear on the edge only within the top 9 inches. Two sets of the player's initials, each at most 2 cm high, are allowed: one anywhere on the back and one within the top 10 inches of the face. Any wording a maker is legally required to carry goes on the back in a discreet design.
• Batting gloves: in Tests, more than half of the protective area white; in ODIs and T20 internationals, more than half white or the base colour of the team's playing shirt.
• Wicket-keeping gloves: visible stitching, ventilation or stencils shaped like a maker's mark count as the maker's identification, and no other visible logos are allowed.
• Helmet: one plain colour, the same across the team, in all formats. The regulations also require a helmet in three positions (see helmet rules by body).
• Batting and wicket-keeping pads: plain white in Tests (straps may be in the maker's house colours, coloured piping only below the ankle strap); plain coloured, not white or light, and the same across the team in ODIs and T20 internationals. Discoloured or faded pads are not permitted.
• Shoes and boots: at least 70% white including tongue and laces; in ODIs and T20 internationals they may instead match the playing kit (see footwear).
• Sunglasses: no colour rule except that the strap must be one colour.
• Arm guards: plain white in Tests; white or the shirt's base colour in ODIs and T20 internationals; straps may be in the maker's house colours; no visible logos.
• Face protectors: one plain colour.
• Stumps: no colour rule in Tests; in ODIs and T20 internationals the bails must be a colour that stands out from the stumps. Event or sponsor logos may appear on stumps, national logos may not.
• Thigh pads, shin pads and similar: any colour, but worn under the playing clothing, not visible, and with no visible logos.

Logos and messages, as rules

Only listed types of logo are allowed (national, commercial, event, manufacturer's, player's bat logo, charity and non-commercial), and only one manufacturer may be identified on each item. Size limits are set by the diagrams in Appendix 1 and are not reproduced here.

A personal message on clothing or equipment needs prior approval from the player's board and the ICC Cricket Operations Department. Messages relating to political, religious or racial causes are not approved. The ICC's guidance note says commemorative items such as a black armband or a poppy are more likely to be permitted. The regulations also record that an earlier ban on betting-related logos no longer applies to bilateral international cricket but remains for all ICC events.

Enforcement

• Non-compliant clothing or equipment is prohibited, and a match official may keep a player off the field, or send them off it, until the item is removed or covered. No warning is needed first.
• Kit altered in a way that, in a match official's view, falls below elite professional standards is not allowed; the examples given are items covered with sticking plaster or marker pen, and batting pads with faded or flaking coloured paint.
• Umpires, match referees or the ICC Cricket Operations Department report breaches to the ICC's Senior Cricket Operations Manager within seven days of the match. A board can itself be in breach by issuing non-compliant kit.

Equipment clauses in the ICC playing conditions

The ICC's playing conditions add rules that sit alongside the Laws:

• Bats: clause 5.8.2 of both the Men's ODI Playing Conditions (effective October 2026) and the Men's Test Match Playing Conditions (effective June 2025) allows only Type A bats. The 2026 Laws' wider use of laminated Type D bats does not reach these matches. See the bat.
• Bat limits: the Test conditions, clause 5.7, repeat the Law's blade width, depth and edge limits, the gauge and the 52% handle rule.
• Keeping gloves: the ODI conditions' appendix on wicket-keeping gloves says they must also meet the Clothing and Equipment Regulations on marks and logos.

Under the Laws themselves, Law 41.17.6 of the 2017 Code 4th Edition (2026) now requires umpires to act on equipment either of them judges unfair or illegal, preventing further use where possible and reporting it in every case.

National boards and leagues publish their own clothing and equipment regulations for domestic cricket. Those documents were not opened for this site, so their rules are not summarised here.