How to Read a Cricket Scorecard
A cricket scorecard is a summary of every innings in a match: who batted, how many runs they scored, how they got out, who bowled and how many runs and wickets each bowler finished with. You read it in three blocks for each innings: the batting card at the top, the extras and total in the middle, and the bowling figures underneath. Once you know the handful of abbreviations, a scorecard tells you the whole story of a game in a few seconds.
This guide walks through each part line by line, explains the shorthand (c, b, lbw, st, the asterisk and the dagger) and covers the odd cases that trip people up, from wides and no-balls to retired hurt and the Australian habit of writing scores backwards.
Key facts
- Each innings has a batting section, an extras line, a total, a fall of wickets list and a bowling section.
- A batting line usually shows the dismissal, runs (R), balls faced (B), fours, sixes and strike rate (SR).
- Bowling figures read overs, maidens, runs, wickets (O-M-R-W), often with economy rate.
- An asterisk (*) marks the captain or a not-out batter, depending on where it appears. A dagger (†) marks the wicketkeeper.
- Totals are written runs/wickets (250/6) almost everywhere, but wickets/runs (6/250) in Australia.
The basic layout of a cricket scorecard
Every format, from a Test match to a T20, uses the same building blocks. A Test scorecard simply has up to four innings stacked one after another, while a limited-overs scorecard has two. Websites and apps differ a little in design, but the columns are standard.
Here’s a simple made-up example of the top half of an innings, the batting card, to show how it looks.
| Batter | Dismissal | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opener A | c Keeper b Seamer 1 | 34 | 40 | 5 | 0 | 85.00 |
| Opener B | lbw b Spinner | 78 | 96 | 8 | 2 | 81.25 |
| Captain C (c) | run out (Fielder X) | 12 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 60.00 |
| Batter D | not out | 101 | 88 | 9 | 4 | 114.77 |
| Keeper E † | b Seamer 2 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 66.67 |
| Batter F | not out | 15 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 187.50 |
Below that you’d see a line listing the batters who did not bat, then extras, then the total. We’ll go through each piece in turn.
Reading the batting card
The batting order
Batters are listed in the order they came in. The first two are the openers, then number three, number four and so on down to number eleven. The order tells you a lot. If a side’s number eight is top scorer, the top order probably collapsed.
The dismissal column
This is the bit that confuses newcomers most, but it follows a simple pattern. The fielder involved comes first, then the bowler credited with the wicket.
- b Smith: bowled by Smith. The ball hit the stumps.
- c Jones b Smith: caught by Jones off Smith’s bowling.
- c & b Smith: caught and bowled, meaning Smith took the catch off his own delivery.
- c †Brown b Smith: caught by the wicketkeeper, Brown, off Smith. Some scorecards write “c wk” or just the keeper’s name.
- lbw b Smith: leg before wicket to Smith.
- st Brown b Patel: stumped by the keeper Brown off the spinner Patel.
- run out (Jones): run out, with the fielders involved in brackets. No bowler gets credit.
- hit wicket b Smith: the batter knocked their own stumps over while playing a shot or setting off for a run.
- not out: still batting when the innings ended.
The key thing to understand is who gets the wicket. Bowled, caught, lbw, stumped and hit wicket are all credited to the bowler. Run outs are not, which is why you’ll never see “b” in a run-out entry.
Rarer dismissals
You’ll occasionally see “obstructing the field”, “handled the ball” (now folded into obstructing the field under the Laws) or “timed out”. The last one is rare enough to make headlines: Angelo Mathews became the first batter in international cricket to be timed out, against Bangladesh at the 2023 World Cup in Delhi.
You might also see “retired hurt”, which means a batter left the field injured and may come back later. It doesn’t count as a wicket. “Retired out”, by contrast, does count as a dismissal, and it has become a tactical move in T20 cricket when a struggling batter makes way for a bigger hitter. “Absent hurt” means an injured batter couldn’t bat at all.
Runs, balls, fours, sixes
R is runs scored. B is balls faced. Some scorecards add M, the minutes the batter was at the crease, which is common in Test cricket. The 4s and 6s columns count boundaries.
A quick tip: wides don’t count as balls faced, because the batter couldn’t reach them. No-balls do count as a ball faced, even though the bowler has to bowl the delivery again.
Strike rate
SR, or strike rate, is runs per 100 balls. Divide runs by balls and multiply by 100. A batter on 50 from 40 balls has a strike rate of 125. In Test cricket it’s a minor detail, but in T20 it’s everything. When Glenn Maxwell made his 201 not out against Afghanistan at the 2023 World Cup, it came from 128 balls, a strike rate above 150 in a one-day international. The full story is on our Maxwell 201 highlights page.
Symbols next to names
Two symbols do a lot of work. The dagger (†) marks the wicketkeeper. The asterisk (*) has two uses: next to a name in the team list it often marks the captain, and next to a score it means not out. So “101*” means 101 not out. Many sites use “(c)” for the captain instead, to avoid confusion.
Extras and the total
The extras line
Extras are runs that aren’t scored off the bat. They’re added to the team total but not to any batter’s score. A typical extras line looks like this: Extras (b 4, lb 6, w 9, nb 2) 21.
| Abbreviation | Meaning | Charged to the bowler? |
|---|---|---|
| b | Byes: runs taken when the ball passes the bat and the keeper without touching the batter | No |
| lb | Leg byes: runs taken after the ball hits the batter’s body (not the bat) | No |
| w | Wides: deliveries too wide or high to hit | Yes |
| nb | No-balls: illegal deliveries, most often overstepping the crease | Yes |
| pen | Penalty runs, usually 5, awarded for things like the ball hitting a fielder’s helmet left on the ground | No |
If a batter hits a no-ball for four, the four goes to the batter and the no-ball penalty goes into extras. That’s why a batter’s score plus the extras doesn’t always look like the total you’d expect at first glance.
The total
The total line reads something like Total (6 wkts, 50 ov) 287 or 287/6 (50 overs). That means 287 runs for the loss of six wickets in 50 overs. If a side is bowled out, you’ll see “all out” with the overs used, such as “241 all out (49.3 ov)”. In Tests, a declaration is shown with “dec” or “d”, as in “445/8d”.
A small but important point about overs: the number after the decimal point is balls, not tenths. 49.3 overs means 49 complete overs and three balls, not 49 and three-tenths. There are six legal deliveries in an over, so 49.5 is followed by 50.0.
Australia writes it the other way round
In Australia, scores are traditionally written wickets first. An Australian broadcaster would show 6/287, meaning six wickets down for 287. Everywhere else you’d see 287/6. Both describe the same thing. Bowling figures follow the same pattern, so 5/37 in an Australian paper means five wickets for 37 runs.
Fall of wickets and partnerships
Below the total, most scorecards include a fall of wickets line, often shortened to FoW. It reads like this: 1-45 (Opener A, 9.2 ov), 2-170 (Opener B, 32.4 ov), 3-188 (Captain C, 36.1 ov).
Each entry gives the wicket number, the team score at that moment, who was out and when. It’s the best way to see the shape of an innings. Two wickets falling at 170 and 188 tells you a big partnership was broken and then the next batter went quickly.
From the fall of wickets you can work out partnerships, the runs added between two wickets. In the example, the second-wicket partnership was 125 (from 45 to 170). Many sites now show partnerships in a separate table. Famous innings are often remembered by them: Laxman and Dravid added 376 for the fifth wicket at Kolkata in 2001.
You’ll also see a “Did not bat” line listing the batters who never came in, and in live scorecards, “Yet to bat”.
Reading the bowling figures
The bowling card sits under the batting card for each innings. It lists every bowler who bowled, in the order they first came on.
| Bowler | O | M | R | W | Econ | Wd | NB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seamer 1 | 10 | 1 | 48 | 1 | 4.80 | 2 | 0 |
| Seamer 2 | 9.3 | 0 | 61 | 1 | 6.42 | 3 | 1 |
| Spinner | 10 | 2 | 37 | 3 | 3.70 | 0 | 0 |
O, M, R, W
O is overs bowled. M is maidens, overs in which the bowler conceded no runs. R is runs conceded. W is wickets taken. Figures are often quoted in that order, so the spinner above “went 10-2-37-3”. In conversation, people usually just say “three for 37”, written 3-37 or 3/37.
Byes and leg byes don’t count against the bowler, so a maiden can still include them. Wides and no-balls do count against the bowler, and they stop an over being a maiden.
Economy rate
Econ is runs conceded per over. Divide runs by overs, remembering to convert partial overs properly (9.3 overs is 9.5 in decimal terms, because three balls is half an over). An economy of 3.70 in an ODI is excellent. In T20 cricket, anything under seven or eight is usually good.
Other bowling columns
Limited-overs scorecards often add a column for dot balls (deliveries with no run scored). Some show wides and no-balls per bowler, as above, which helps explain a high economy rate.
Reading a Test match scorecard
A Test scorecard is the same thing repeated up to four times. The innings are labelled in order, for example “England 1st innings”, “Australia 1st innings”, “England 2nd innings”, “Australia 2nd innings”. If you see two innings by the same team back to back, the follow-on was enforced.
Test scorecards often include the minutes column for batters and the close-of-play scores for each day, so you can see how the match moved. Ben Stokes’s 135 not out at Headingley in 2019 is a perfect example of why the minutes and balls columns matter. He faced 219 balls, and for a long time scored very slowly before exploding at the end.
The result line
At the top or bottom of the scorecard, the result tells you who won and by how much.
- Won by X runs: the team batting first won, and X is the gap between the totals.
- Won by X wickets: the team batting second won, and X is the number of wickets they had left.
- Won by an innings and X runs: in a Test, the winning side batted only once and still scored more than the opposition’s two innings put together.
- Tied: the scores finished level with the side batting last all out (or, in limited-overs, out of overs).
- Drawn: a Test or first-class match that ran out of time without a result.
- No result: a limited-overs match abandoned without enough play.
In limited-overs games affected by rain, you’ll often see “(DLS method)” next to the margin, which means the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern system set a revised target. Tied white-ball matches in major events are decided by a Super Over, and the 2019 World Cup final, where England and New Zealand were level after both the match and the Super Over, is the most famous scorecard of them all. Relive it on our 2019 World Cup final highlights page.
Common mistakes when reading a cricket scorecard
Adding up the batters and getting the wrong total
The individual scores never add up to the total on their own. You need to add the extras.
Reading 45.3 overs as 45 and a third
It’s 45 overs and three balls, which is 45.5 in decimal terms. This matters when you’re working out run rates or economy.
Thinking every wicket belongs to a bowler
Run outs, retired out, obstructing the field and timed out are not credited to any bowler. That’s why the bowlers’ wickets can add up to fewer than the team’s total wickets.
Mixing up the asterisk
Next to a score, * means not out. Next to a name in a team list, it often means captain. Check the context.
Assuming 6/250 is a disaster
If you’re reading an Australian scorecard, 6/250 is six wickets for 250, not 6 runs for the loss of 250 wickets. It’s the same as 250/6.
Frequently asked questions
What does “c and b” mean on a cricket scorecard?
Caught and bowled. The bowler caught the ball themselves after the batter hit it back towards them.
What does the dagger symbol mean?
The dagger (†) marks the wicketkeeper. You’ll see it next to the keeper’s name in the batting order and sometimes in the dismissal column.
What does an asterisk next to a score mean?
Not out. A score of 87* means the batter finished on 87 without being dismissed.
Why don’t byes count against the bowler?
Byes come from the ball beating both the batter and the wicketkeeper, so they’re seen as the keeper’s or fielding side’s responsibility rather than the bowler’s. Leg byes come off the batter’s body, not the bat, so they aren’t charged to the bowler either.
What is “fall of wickets” on a scorecard?
It lists the team score when each wicket fell, along with who was out and in which over. It shows you where partnerships started and ended.
What does “won by 5 wickets” mean?
The team batting second reached the target with five wickets still in hand, meaning only five of their batters had been dismissed.
Now that you can read one, put it to use. Our results page has the latest scorecards, and our cricket hub brings together highlights and fixtures from around the world.
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