Half-time

In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in order to reduce any advantage that may be gained from wind or a slope to the playing surface, for example.

While it exists mainly to allow competitors to rest briefly and recover from the play of the first half, half-time also serves a number of other purposes. It also serves as an

One benefit of half-time in a field game is to allow teams to swap their positions on the field in order that the effects of the natural conditions such as sunlight and wind direction are experienced fairly by both teams. In some sports this is achieved without the need for half-time: for example, in cricket fielding positions of players are rotated after a set passage of play. In other sports no such provision is necessary, for example in baseball, where playing positions do not change and both teams occupy the same locations on the field of play, though there is frequent rotation of players in the ordinary course of play.

Half-time for spectators offers the opportunity to visit the toilet, get some food or drink, or just exercise

• Ice hockey is played in three periods of twenty minutes with eighteen-minute intermissions between regulation periods.
• Water polo^{[citation needed]}
• Test cricket
• Box lacrosse
• Volleyball matches typically take three minutes between sets 1 and 2 and any sets after the 3rd (if played). The interval between sets 2 and 3 is sometimes longer and sometimes the same.

No half-time or equivalent

(other than to allow movement of players in the natural course of play and/or TV commercials)

• Baseball (although there is a seventh-inning stretch)
• Softball

References