How to Score a Cricket Match

Scoring is one tap a ball

A scorer writes down every ball: who bowled it, who faced it, what it was worth. On paper that means a scorebook with columns for runs, balls, fours and sixes. Here it means one tap — and the adding up, the strike, the overs and the bowling figures are done for you. Start a match, choose the openers and the bowler, and tap a key for each ball.

The words a scorer uses

• Dot ball — no run scored. Written •.
• Extras — runs that do not come off the bat: wides, no-balls, byes and leg-byes. They add to the total but not to any batter's score.
• Wide — a ball too far from the batter to hit. One run (in the Laws) and the ball is bowled again. Written wd; with two more runs run, 3wd.
• No-ball — usually the bowler's foot over the line. One run, bowled again, and the next ball is a free hit, off which the batter cannot be bowled, caught, LBW or stumped.
• Bye and leg-bye — runs when the ball beat the bat (bye) or came off the batter's body (leg-bye). Extras, and not charged to the bowler.
• Maiden — an over with no run charged to the bowler. Byes and leg-byes do not spoil a maiden; wides and no-balls do.
• Bowling figures — overs, maidens, runs, wickets, written 4-0-28-2.
• Strike rate — a batter's runs for every 100 balls. Economy — a bowler's runs an over. Run rate — the side's runs an over.

One over, worked through

The over reads 1 4 wd • 6 W 1: 13 runs and a wicket, and Kiran's figures are 1-0-13-1 (one over, no maiden, 13 runs, one wicket). Anu made 10 from 4 balls, Ravi 1 from 1, Joe 1 from 1. The wide is in the 13 and against Kiran's name, but it is not one of his six balls and no batter faced it.

Who is on strike

The batters change ends each time they complete an odd number of runs — 1 or 3 — and at the end of every over, when the bowling changes ends. A four or a six is a boundary: no one runs, so nobody changes ends. A wide or no-ball they ran a single off changes the ends too. After a catch, the new batter takes strike. The app does all of this; if the batters crossed in a way it could not know, tap Swap, or tap the batter who should be on strike.

Reading the scorecard

Each batter's line shows how they were out — c Sam b Kiran is caught by Sam off Kiran's bowling, run out (Sam), lbw b Kiran — then runs, balls faced, fours, sixes and strike rate. Under the batting come the extras, the total with the run rate, the players who did not bat and the fall of wickets: 1-12 (Anu, 0.5) means the first wicket fell at 12, when Anu was out in the fifth ball of the first over. The bowling shows each bowler's overs, maidens, runs, wickets and economy, with their wides and no-balls.

Practise on a match on TV

Score the first few overs of any televised match and check your card against the broadcaster's. It is the quickest way to learn when byes are byes and when a run-out run counts — and Undo means a mistake costs nothing.