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The main rules are .. keep to the laws by making clean hits on the correct croquet ball and don't interfere with stationary partner croquet balls, or your opponents' croquet balls, unless you are hitting them with your own croquet ball to move them to specific positions.
A clean hit is made with the full face of the mallet (not the edge) in a single strike (not a dribble or continued pushing of the ball); the ball must not be in contact with a hoop and the mallet head at the same time (even for a micro-second!).
You can hold the mallet any way you want except you must not hold the head of the mallet nor should you kick the mallet head to make a shot. The ball scores a point if it legally goes through the hoop in the correct direction either cleanly or bouncing off a hoop upright or even jumping through in the air and through the hoop. The hoop is run and a point scored if no part of the ball protrudes beyond the line of the edge of the uprights on the side of the hoop from which it was run.
An intererence with a ball (static or moving) is a fault and can take the form of accidentally touching, moving or deviating it with mallet, clothing, or your body.
The croquet balls must be struck in the prescribed order. This is blue, red, black and yellow for primary colours and green, pink, brown and white for secondary colours. They must play the hoops in the correct order and direction (see the many diagrams available).
If the wrong hoop is run, or a hoop is run from the wrong direction the ball stays where it finishes up, and the hoop is not scored.
A player cannot gain advantage by simply sending off a ball to an out-of-sequence hoop and waiting for play to get there. An offside rule is brought into play and balls can be removed to penalty spots.
All the other laws attempt to cover all possible subtelties of the above and prescribe the penalties that apply when an error is made. They can be viewed on the Croquet Association website. Our club coach and senior players can help out with explanations of the finest points.