A cricket scorecard can look like a wall of numbers the first time you see one. Once you know what each column means, it becomes a fascinating story of the match. Here is everything you need to read one with confidence.

The headline: team totals

At the top of a scorecard you will see each team's innings summarized, something like PAK 187/6 (20 overs). That means Pakistan scored 187 runs for the loss of 6 wickets in 20 overs. The number before the slash is always the runs; the number after is the wickets lost. A team has 10 wickets in total, so 187/6 means four wickets were still in hand.

Overs are cricket's unit of time. One over is six legal deliveries. 17.2 overs means 17 full overs plus 2 balls of the 18th — not 17 and two-tenths. Each team faces a fixed number of overs in limited-overs formats: 50 in ODIs, 20 in T20s.

The batting table

Each batter gets a row showing:

  • Runs — how many runs they scored.
  • Balls — how many deliveries they faced.
  • 4s / 6s — boundaries: hitting the ball to the rope is 4 runs, clearing it on the full is 6.
  • SR (strike rate) — runs per 100 balls. Above 100 is aggressive in ODIs; in T20s, the best strikers push past 140.
  • How out — the dismissal. "c Smith b Cummins" means caught by Smith off Cummins' bowling. "b" alone means bowled, "lbw" is leg-before-wicket, and "run out" needs no bowler. An asterisk next to the score (68*) means the batter was not out.

At the bottom, extras count runs the batters did not hit — wides, no-balls, byes and leg-byes — added to the team total.

The bowling table

Each bowler's row shows overs, maidens, runs, wickets — for example, 4-0-32-2 means 4 overs, 0 maidens, 32 runs conceded, 2 wickets taken. A maiden over is one in which no runs are scored, a badge of honor for bowlers. The economy rate (runs per over) tells you how expensive a bowler was; lower is better.

Reading the story

A scorecard lets you reconstruct the match: a 90-run opening stand followed by a collapse, a bowler's spell of 4/19 turning the game, or a finisher's unbeaten 40 off 18 balls. Start with the totals, scan the top scorers, check the best bowling figures — and you will understand how the match was won long before you ever watch a highlight.