Cricket is a game of statistics, and "Run Rate" is just another statistic. But what exactly does this stat mean in the game of cricket? Does it even matter? And how exactly do we calculate it? In this article, we are going to examine the Run Rate with some examples.
So, what is 'Run Rate' in Cricket?
Run Rate in Cricket is the AVERAGE number of runs scored by a team batting per over (for every 6 balls). Run Rate is an average only and it doesn’t mean that a team will score exactly the same number of runs in every over.
In other words, Run Rate can be defined simply as the rate at which runs are made by a batting team. But how is it calculated and what is a good run rate in the cricket game? Let's learn a bit more about it.
Run Rate is one of the easiest stats to calculate in the game of cricket. The formula to calculate the run rate is quite simple as given below:
Let's understand this with an example.
Example 1
Consider a One Day match between India and Pakistan. Pakistan bat first and managed to score 90 runs in the first 15 overs. So, what should be the run rate for Pakistan after 15 overs?
If we look at the formula explained above, it should be quite easy to calculate the run rate. All we have to do is divide 90 (total runs scored) by 15 (total overs bowled).
Like this: Run Rate = 90/15 = 6 runs per over
Therefore, Pakistan's run rate after 15 overs is 6 runs per over. This means Pakistan score an average of 6 runs for 6 balls (1 over = 6 balls) or 1 run per ball.
Example 2
Let’s continue with the same match as mentioned above in example 1. Pakistan continues to bat and after a few overs, they manage to reach a score of 127 in 24.3 overs. So, what shall be the run rate of Pakistan in this example?
Well, we shall follow the same method but with a slight difference to calculate the run rate of Pakistan as we did in example 1.
Run Rate = 127 (total runs scored) / 24.5 (total overs bowled).
Hence, the Run Rate = 5.18 (I just used a calculator to do the math)
However, you might be wondering why I changed the 24.3 to 24.5 and the explanation is below.
We must remember that every over in the game of cricket consists of 6 deliveries. As mentioned above, the run rate is presented as the average runs scored per over or 6 ball. Thus, 0.3 in 24.3 represents half of the over that was actually bowled, although it is represented by 0.3 instead of 0.5.
Hope this helps you understand more about Run Rate in Cricket. Keep updated for more Cricket update and upcoming matches only here at 11ic.com.
Comments