A batsman facing a 130 kmph delivery has well under half a second to pick up the ball out of the bowler's hand. Put a row of parked cars, a fence, or a crowd behind that bowler's arm instead of a plain background, and half a second shrinks fast.
That is the entire job of a sight screen. It has nothing to do with keeping the ball inside the ground — that is boundary rope and fencing, which we cover separately in our guide to boundary fencing and safety netting. A sight screen protects visibility for the batsman, not property or spectators.
It is also a cheap, easy line item to forget. A wooden pair costs roughly ₹1.5 lakh against a ground budget that can run from ₹15 lakh to ₹2 crore — small money, but a ground genuinely cannot host serious cricket without it. Here is what to buy and why.
What a Sight Screen Actually Does
A sight screen is a large, plain, portable board set up behind the bowler's arm at each end of the ground so the batsman sees the ball against a flat background instead of trees, buildings, cars, or a moving crowd. Without one, a batsman effectively loses the ball for the first fraction of its flight, which is dangerous at any real bowling pace.
The ICC and MCC Laws of Cricket require sight screens at both ends for top-level matches, but neither prescribes one universal minimum height. It is treated as a visibility judgement made for each ground, not a fixed number you can look up and build to. What matters practically is that the screen is tall and wide enough to fully block the background behind the bowler's arm from the batsman's eye line.
International venues push this further than a club ground needs to. Screens at the top level commonly run in the range of 4.5m high by 4-5m wide, because vast stadium backgrounds and long sightlines demand it. A school, academy, or club ground does not need anything close to that scale.
How Many Screens Does a Ground Need
A standard ground needs two sight screens, one at each bowling end, so there is always a plain background behind whichever end is currently in use. Bowling alternates ends over by over, so a screen sitting at only one end leaves the batsman exposed for half the overs bowled.
Grounds that also run practice nets, or that host two pitches on the same field, often need one or two extra screens so match play and net sessions are not fighting over the same equipment. Academies and multi-pitch facilities should budget for this from day one rather than discovering the shortage mid-season.
Mini-story — Chandigarh. A club near Chandigarh built a new ground with a pitch, outfield, and boundary fencing, but the contractor's quote never listed sight screens. Ten days before a district T20 tournament, the ground committee realised neither end had one. They paid a local vendor roughly ₹90,000 to rush-deliver and hire two screens for the weekend, well above the ₹1.5 lakh it would have cost to simply own a wooden pair from the start.
Black or White: The Colour Rule You Cannot Get Wrong
Black sight screens are used with the white ball in limited-overs cricket — ODIs and T20s. White sight screens are used with the red ball in Test and other longer-format cricket. The rule is simple: the screen colour has to contrast with the ball colour, never match it.
A white ball against a white screen, or a red ball against a background close to its own tone, disappears at the release point. That is exactly the failure a sight screen exists to prevent, so getting the colour backwards defeats the entire purpose of owning one.
Mini-story — Gurgaon. A corporate sports club in Gurgaon ran a white-ball T20 evening tournament using its two white sight screens, the same pair used for the club's weekend red-ball games. Batsmen on both sides complained they were losing the white ball against the white background, and the umpires eventually paused play to swap in borrowed black boards from a neighbouring ground. A second, black pair would have cost about ₹1.5 lakh and avoided the delay entirely.
Wood vs Aluminium Composite
Wooden sight screens are the standard, budget-friendly choice for most Indian grounds. Aluminium composite screens cost more upfront but are weatherproof and need far less repainting and repair, making them a premium step up for grounds that see heavy use.
| Aspect | Wood | Aluminium composite |
|---|
| Typical cost | ~₹75,000/piece (20 ft × 20 ft) | Higher than wood; premium pricing |
| Weight / mobility | Heavier, needs sturdy wheels | Lighter panels, easier to reposition |
| Maintenance | Needs periodic repainting | Low; panel doesn't need repainting |
| Weather resistance | Warps and fades under sun and monsoon over time | Weatherproof, built for outdoor exposure |
| Best fit | Club, academy, budget grounds | High-use grounds wanting less upkeep |
Both designs share the same basic build: a wood frame or aluminium composite panel held in a metal frame, mounted on wheels so it can be rolled into position as the bowling end changes. Better designs pair heavy-duty wheels at the base with lighter centre wheels, so one person can reposition the screen without a struggle mid-over.
Sight Screen Cost in India
A standard wooden sight screen, roughly 20 ft wide by 20 ft high, costs around ₹75,000 per piece from Indian vendors — so a basic wooden pair for a ground runs roughly ₹1.5 lakh. That is the representative size and price point most club and academy grounds should plan around, though larger custom sizes exist.
A second size seen in the Indian market is a weatherproof aluminium composite screen, 20 ft wide by 14 ft high, built as a mobile unit on heavy-duty wheels. It costs more than the wooden option, but the lower repainting and repair burden makes it worth considering for grounds that host matches through most of the year.
Against the full picture, our cricket ground construction cost guide puts a pitch-only build at ₹3–15 lakh and a full ground at ₹15 lakh to ₹2 crore. Two sight screens at roughly ₹1.5 lakh is a small fraction of either number, which is exactly why it gets left off quotes and forgotten until match week.
Mini-story — Jaipur. A residential society ground in Jaipur owned a single wooden sight screen with small, worn caster wheels that stuck on the outfield's slight camber. Midway through a Saturday match the sun swung low and the fielding captain needed the screen shifted between overs, but two groundstaff took nearly ten minutes to drag it into place each time. The society replaced it with a screen on proper heavy-duty wheels for about ₹75,000, and repositioning now takes under a minute.
Sight Screen Mistakes That Cost You
Most sight screen problems trace back to four mistakes: wrong colour for the format, a screen too heavy or worn to reposition quickly, cheap material that warps in North India's heat, and a screen sited so close to the boundary that it becomes a safety hazard. Each one is avoidable and each has a fairly predictable fix cost.
- Wrong colour for the ball in play. A white screen used for a white-ball match, or a black screen used for a red-ball match, defeats the whole purpose. Fix cost: a second, correctly coloured pair at roughly ₹1.5 lakh.
- Not mobile enough to reposition. Small or seized wheels mean staff can't shift the screen fast enough as the sun angle or bowling end changes mid-match. Fix cost: roughly ₹75,000 for a screen built on proper heavy-duty wheels.
- Cheap material that warps or fades. Untreated wood left in North India's 42-48°C summer heat and UV cups, cracks, and fades within a couple of seasons, going patchy exactly where it needs to stay flat and plain. Fix cost: ₹75,000 to replace, or a step up to aluminium composite to stop the cycle repeating.
- Sited too close to the boundary. A screen parked right on the rope puts groundstaff and the screen itself in the path of full-blooded shots during repositioning. Fix cost: minimal to relocate it further back, but the risk if ignored is an injury claim that costs far more than any screen.
None of these mistakes are expensive to prevent. They are expensive only when a ground finds out about them during a tournament instead of before one.
