Cricket scoring can be a hassle to wrap your head around, both for newcomers and long-time fans. This guide will make things a little clearer!

How Cricket Scoring Works

Scoring is the lifeblood of cricket. It’s like pretty much every other sport in that way. However, unlike sports where the team with the most points or goals wins, cricket's scoring system is far more intricate.

Sure, it decides the victor of the game, nothing too special there. But it also shapes the strategies and tactics employed by both teams and their captains. Every run scored and wicket taken contributes to a delicate balance that can tip the scales in an instant.

The extra complexity of cricket rules does make it a little tough for newcomers to wrap their heads around, unfortunately.

Luckily, that’s where our guide enters the picture! Here, we’ll outline everything you need or want to know about how to score big points in this gentlemen’s sport. That way, you’ll get the most enjoyment out of any cricket game you watch or play!

Scoring Points In Cricket

Let’s start with the basics: How exactly points are scored in this age-old game.

Generally, a team’s score depends on 2 factors:

• The number of runs scored by a team.
• The number of wickets struck out by a team.

There are a few other ways for points to be scored in a cricket game (more on that in a bit). But these are the two most common ways for a team to score points.

Scoring Runs In Cricket

This is the aspect that most people will be familiar with. Batters in cricket score a ‘run’ by hitting the cricket ball, and… well, running! Specifically, from one end of the pitch to another.

A batter can attempt to make more than one run in a single turn. However, they must make it to the other end of the pitch, before the fielding team break the stumps and wicket with the ball.

When this happens, a batter is considered ‘run out’, and must leave the field and be replaced by another batter. Once a batting team has less than two batsmen on the pitch, the side is ‘all out’, and must switch with the current bowling team.

This is known as an ‘inning’, and a match will usually have 1 or 2, depending on the overall length (more on that at the end).

Another way for a batter to score points is to strike the ball into ‘boundaries’, beyond the edge of a playing field. These extra points can vary:

• Four points are scored if the ball hits the ground before going over the boundary.
• Six points are awarded if the ball makes it across the boundary without bouncing across the pitch.

Wickets & Dismissals

So, now that we know how scoring from runs works, let's talk a little more about the wicket and its role in scoring.

Anyone who’s seen a cricket match result will know that cricket scores are measured by the number of runs a team has, compared to (or ‘for’) the number of wickets that have been hit or lost. In a match where a team scored 50 runs for 6 wickets lost, it would look like this:

• 50/6

Dismissals

So, how exactly does a batter get dismissed from their wicket?

Well, there are actually quite a few ways to do it. 10, specifically. They are separated into two broad categories:

Common Dismissals

These types of dismissals are, as the name suggests, very common, and are usually done by the fielding and bowling team doing their job well.

• Batter getting ‘bowled’ out.
• A bowler knocks over the batter’s wicket with a bowled ball, and it isn’t considered a no-ball.
• Batter getting ‘stumped’.
• Where a wicketkeeper puts down a batter’s wicket while they are out of grounds (not by their wicket).
• The batter is ‘caught out’.
• Where a ball that has been struck by the batter, and isn’t considered a no-ball, is caught by a fielder.
• The ball must not have been caught by another fielder and has not touched the ground since the batter struck it.
• Leg Before the Wicket, or ‘lbw’.
• Where a ball that would have struck the wicket is intercepted by any part of the batter’s body, except the hand holding the bat.
• The batter being ‘run out’.
• A field ball hits the batter’s wicket while the batter is not at their grounds.
• This can be done by a fielded ball thrown to the wicket-keeper, or a fielder that manages to strike the wickets while no batter is at their ground

(That last one is a particularly great way of dismissing a batter, even if it’s a tricky one to pull off!)

Rare Dismissals

These next dismissals are a lot less likely to happen (like the name suggests), but can still happen from time to time. These are often pretty clear-cut, with umpires only needing to step in and make a ruling in certain situations.

• Where a batter hits the cricket ball a second time before a fielder has touched it.
• When a batter handles the ball with their non-batting hand, the ball would have likely hit the wicket (as decided by an umpire).
• The batter deliberately obstructs fielders from passing the ball between each other.
• Batters can be timed out if they are judged to be deliberately taking too much time to reach the pitch when it is their turn to bat (time-wasting, pretty much).
• 3 minutes is generally considered a fair amount of time for a batter to reach the pitch.
• When a batter breaks or knocks over their own stump.

Other Ways To Score Points

We’ve covered the two most likely ways for a cricket score to be affected, but there are actually two other ways for the overall score in a game to be affected.

• Extras
• Penalty Runs

These aren’t as common as runs and dismissals, but they can be ways for a team to add runs to their overall score.

Extras

Extras covers, you guessed it, other extra ways for extra runs to be added, which usually come from poor bowls done by a bowler.

• ‘Wide’ extras are bowled throws where the umpire deems a batter to be too far away to strike it.
• The Batter is awarded one run for this.
• ‘No-Balls’, a term we’ve thrown around a lot in this guide, is a bowled throw that would’ve passed over the head of the batter
• This can give a batter one or two runs
• ‘Byes’ happen when a bowled ball has reached the boundary, without a striker even hitting them, or runs are scored without the batter hitting the ball.
• These runs are added to the team total, but not an individual batter.
• ‘Leg Byes’ are the same as byes, but when the ball hits a part of the batter's body that isn’t the bat or their batting hand.
• The batter still needs to have made an attempt to strike the ball, however.

Penalty Runs

Penalty runs cover a wide range of extra runs that will be given to a batting team by a match umpire.

This covers a wide range of potential rule infringements from the batting side. Which, throughout an entire game, are usually added 5 at a time.

You can easily imagine how these points can accrue over time, which is why it’s doubly important that teams stick to the proper rules to the best of their ability.

Cricket Umpire Roles

If you’ve been paying attention in this guide, you’ll have spotted that a lot of these dismissals and rulings in the cricket scoring system are difficult to judge on the pitch by players, especially in those close calls. Like, who exactly can tell when a bowl should be considered a no-ball?

Well, that’s where cricket umpires come into the mix!

It’s up to the umpire of a match to determine whether an action committed by a player is valid, or needs to be taken into account in scoring. These are just a few examples:

• Umpires will be the ones to determine if a bowled ball is considered a no-ball when there’s any doubt.
• Rule if a batter is taking too long to get to a pitch, and if they are deliberately trying to time out.
• Distinguish between if a batter deliberately is intercepting a bowled ball, or if it connects with them as an accident, giving the batter a leg bye.
• Any extra penalty runs that should be given due to misconduct on the pitch.

How A Match is Won

Obviously, in a competitive sport like cricket, the main goal for each team is to win a game. So, when is that decided?

Well, a ‘result’ is decided when all the innings of a match are finished, and the total number of runs to dismissals is collected.

Matches can result in wins and losses, as well as some cases where neither team wins.

Ties, where the number of runs is even between teams, are possible. Similarly, a draw, where one team couldn’t finish their innings as batters, and time ran out, is possible, as is a match with ‘No Result’, where a match couldn’t be completed.

Final Notes

Now, that was A LOT of terms that are familiar to long-time cricket fans, but mean nothing to a newcomer. We understand if that was a lot of information to absorb all at once.

We recommend having this guide handy with you the next time you’re watching a cricket game. After all, the best way to learn about cricket is by watching/playing it!

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