The rules, formats and calls of football and cricket, explained simply and correctly.
How F1 points work in the 2026 season: a Grand Prix pays 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 to the top 10 finishers, a Sprint pays 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 to the top 8, every point counts for both the drivers' and the constructors' championships, there is no fastest-lap bonus point — it was removed from 2025 — and shortened races pay reduced points on a sliding scale instead of the old half points.
A standard soccer game is 90 minutes — two 45-minute halves with a halftime interval of no more than 15 minutes — plus stoppage time in each half, 30 minutes of extra time and a penalty shoot-out in knockout games that need a winner, and shorter games for younger players, up to the full 90 minutes only at under-17 and above. Checked against the IFAB Laws of the Game.
How many holes are in a golf round: 18, played as a front nine and a back nine. What par means, what a 9-hole round is, why golf settled on 18 holes at St Andrews, and how many holes a full tournament covers.
A marathon is 26.2 miles — exactly 26 miles 385 yards, or 42.195 kilometres, standardised by the IAAF (now World Athletics) in 1921 from the 1908 London Olympic course from Windsor Castle to the White City Stadium. The half marathon is exactly half at 13.1 miles (21.0975 km). Plus how long the distance takes typical runners, worked out by pace, and why your GPS watch reads long.
Five players per team are on the court at any time in every major league. Beyond that the numbers split three ways — on-court, active for a game, and full roster — and they differ by league: an NBA team dresses 13 active players from a roster of 15 standard contracts plus three two-way players, the WNBA caps its roster at 12, FIBA games are played from a 12-player scoresheet, and NCAA rosters run to 15 — checked against the NBA rulebook, the FIBA Official Basketball Rules and league sources in November 2026.
A basketball hoop is 10 feet tall — the rim's top edge sits exactly 10 feet (3.05 m) above the floor in the NBA and under FIBA rules alike. Plus rim and backboard specs, and the official youth heights by age: 8 feet at 7-8, 9 feet at 9-11, 10 feet from 12 — with official rules kept separate from common practice.
Pickleball rules from USA Pickleball's own summary and rulebook: the underhand diagonal serve and drop serve, the two-bounce rule, side-out scoring to 11 win by 2 and the 0-0-2 start, the 7-foot kitchen and its momentum rule, line calls, and the full fault list.
DRS — the Decision Review System — lets a side challenge an umpire's dismissal decision and have the third umpire check it with replays, UltraEdge and ball-tracking. How a review works, what umpire's call means, and the current allowances: 3 unsuccessful reviews per innings in Tests, 2 in ODIs and 2 in T20Is under the ICC conditions in force in November 2026.
Since 2025, both teams are guaranteed a possession in NFL overtime — in the regular season too, not just the playoffs. The 10-minute regular-season period, the 15-minute playoff periods, the coin toss, ties, timeouts and replay rules, checked against the NFL rulebook in November 2026.
OPS is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage — one number for how often a hitter gets on base and how much power he hits for. The formula, a fully worked Aaron Judge example, and the scale from poor to elite.
Umpire's call keeps the on-field umpire's decision when an LBW review is too close for ball-tracking to settle. The three checks, the centre-of-the-ball rule, and how many reviews each format allows — Tests 3, ODIs 2, T20Is 2 — explained simply.