Scoring (cricket) facts for kids

Scoring in cricket is how we keep track of points in a game. It shows which team is winning by how many runs (points) they have. It can also show how well individual players performed.

How to Win a Cricket Game

Cricket games are won by the team that scores the most runs. But there's a catch: the other team must have finished all their turns at batting (called innings).

In some cricket games, there's a time limit. If not enough innings are finished before time runs out, the game can end in a "draw." This means neither team wins. Sometimes, a team might use a tactic called the follow-on to try and avoid a draw.

When teams bat more than once, the winning team might sometimes win even if they batted fewer times than their opponent. The score can show how many fewer times they batted.

What Else Scores Show

A team's victory is mostly about runs and innings. But scores also show other important things. These include:

• The number of wickets a team has lost. This means how many batters got out.
• The number of balls or deliveries a team has faced. This can also be shown as overs.

Knowing these things is helpful. In most cricket games, a team's turn at batting usually ends in one of two ways:

• Almost all of their players are out.
• They have faced a certain number of legal deliveries. This happens in games with limits on the number of legal deliveries that can be bowled.

Images for kids

• 

  An example of a scorecard

• 

  Cricket Scorers' wides notation

• 

  No-Balls

• 

  The scoreboard at the Adelaide Oval.