Cricket produces more statistics than almost any other sport, and four numbers do most of the work. They are simple to calculate and easy to misuse, mostly because people compare them across situations where they are not measuring the same thing.
Batting average
Runs scored divided by times dismissed. Not innings played. Dismissals.
That distinction is the whole thing. An innings where the batter finished not out contributes its runs to the top of the fraction and nothing to the bottom. A player with 500 runs from 20 innings, five of them not out, averages 500 divided by 15, which is 33.3, rather than 25.
The logic is defensible. A not out innings was not completed, and dividing by it would penalise a batter for the innings ending around them. But it also means the figure can be inflated by role rather than by quality. A lower order batter who is regularly stranded not out at the end of an innings accumulates not outs at a rate a top order batter never will, and their average flatters them accordingly.
Rough guidance for first-class and Test cricket: above 50 is excellent, 40 is good, and 30 is where a specialist batter starts to be under pressure. Those thresholds have held for a very long time.
Batting strike rate
Runs per 100 balls faced. A strike rate of 80 means 80 runs from every 100 deliveries.
This is where format changes everything. In Test cricket a strike rate of 45 can belong to an extremely valuable player, because occupying the crease has its own worth. In T20 a strike rate of 45 would be actively harmful, because balls are the scarce resource rather than wickets.
Average and strike rate should always be read together. Neither one alone describes a batter, and a high average with a very low strike rate in a limited-overs context often means a player who was accumulating while somebody else did the difficult work.
Bowling average
Runs conceded divided by wickets taken. Lower is better, which trips people up when they are used to reading batting figures the other way.
An average of 25 means the bowler concedes 25 runs for each wicket. Under 25 in Test cricket is very good, and the great fast bowlers of history sit in the low twenties or below.
The related figure is strike rate for bowlers, which is balls per wicket rather than runs per wicket. A bowler with a good average but a poor strike rate takes wickets economically but slowly, which matters in a format where you have to take twenty of them.
Economy rate
Runs conceded per over. This is the number that matters most in limited-overs cricket and least in Test cricket.
An economy of 4.5 is expensive in a first-class match, ordinary in a 50 over game, and outstanding in T20. Nothing about the bowler changes between those judgements. The context does.
Reading them honestly
Three habits will keep you out of most arguments.
- Match the format. A T20 average and a first-class average are different measurements wearing the same name.
- Check the sample. An average over six innings tells you almost nothing. Cricket produces enormous variance in short samples.
- Check the era and conditions. Scoring rates, pitch preparation and bat design have all moved substantially. Comparing figures across fifty years without acknowledging that is comparing two different games.
Our archive keeps records separated by format for exactly this reason. If you want to see the raw innings behind a figure rather than the figure itself, the match records are the place to look, and the team pages collect them by side.
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