In the sport of cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball with a cricket bat to score runs or prevent the loss of one's wicket. A player who is currently batting is denoted as a batsman, while the act of hitting the ball is called a shot or stroke. The term specialist batsman is also used generically to describe players who specialise in batting (as opposed to e.g. bowlers who specialise in bowling), and the term bowler is also used in this context. The latter term can, however, refer to any player during their turn at bat. In women's cricket, the term batswoman is sometimes encountered, as is batter, but the "male" form is widely used in both men's and women's cricket.