T20 betting glossary

Par is the score that makes a contest even at that specific ground. Every par figure on this site is the median first-innings total there — a median rather than a mean, so a single 240 does not drag it upwards and misrepresent a typical night. Where a page shows a mean instead, it says so and calls it an average.

Par is the most useful single number in T20 betting because it turns a scoreboard into a probability. A first-innings 160 is a commanding total at one ground and 25 short at another, and until you know which, the number on the screen tells you very little.

The share of completed matches at a ground won by the side chasing. Fifty percent is a neutral ground; anything much above or below tells you the venue itself is applying a thumb to the scale.

The common mistake is assuming a high-scoring ground is a good ground to chase at. Those are separate properties and they come apart often.

Two separate questions live inside the toss. What do captains choose here — bat first or field first? And does the side that won the toss actually go on to win more often than not?

They are worth separating because captains follow convention, and convention is often behind the data. A ground where nine captains in ten field first, and the chasing side still loses more than it wins, is one where the received wisdom has stopped matching the pitch.

The fielding restriction makes these the easiest overs to score in and the most dangerous to bat in, because the same gaps that reward a boundary reward a catch. Powerplay scoring rates and wickets vary more between grounds than any other phase.

For betting, the powerplay matters out of proportion to its six overs: it sets the platform that the rest of the innings either builds on or spends recovering from.

With the circle restriction lifted, scoring slows and the contest becomes one of accumulation against control. This is where spin bowls most of its overs and where matches are quietly decided more often than the highlights suggest.

A ground that suppresses the middle overs will produce lower totals than its powerplay numbers imply.

From over sixteen the calculation changes: a wicket costs less than a dot ball, so the scoring rate rises sharply and so does the wicket rate. Death bowling is the most specialised skill in the format and the most variable between grounds.

Small boundaries and true bounce inflate death scoring; larger square boundaries and grip suppress it. Death hitting is most of the distance between a ground's par score and its highest totals, which is why the spread between grounds matters more here than in any other phase.

In night matches at humid venues, dew settles during the second innings. A wet ball is harder to grip, so spin turns less and seam swings less, and the ball comes onto the bat more predictably. Captains at dew-affected grounds field first almost automatically.

This site does not measure dew directly — there is no ball-by-ball record of it. What it does measure is the consequence. Where dew genuinely matters, it shows up as a chase win percentage well above fifty, so the chase number is the honest proxy and the one to trust.

Runs divided by balls faced, multiplied by 100. A strike rate of 150 means fifty percent more runs than balls. In T20 it is the primary batting measure, ahead of average, because the scarce resource is deliveries rather than wickets.

Wides are not counted as balls faced, matching standard scoring practice, so they do not depress a batter's strike rate.

Runs divided by the number of times out. It remains a useful measure of how reliably a batter survives, but it carries far less weight in T20 than in longer formats.

The reason is that a T20 innings is limited by balls, not by wickets. A batter averaging 40 at a strike rate of 110 may cost their side more than one averaging 25 at 160. Read the two together or not at all.

Boundaries supply the majority of runs in T20, so the rate at which a batter finds them is closer to the heart of their value than their average is. A boundary percentage above twenty is high.

It is also the number that travels worst between grounds. A batter's boundary rate at a small ground says relatively little about what they will do at a large one, which is why venue splits matter.

A dot ball is the bowler's real currency. In a twenty-over innings the batting side faces around 120 deliveries, so every dot removes close to one percent of the innings while conceding nothing.

Dot percentage is the most reliable single indicator of bowling control, and it predicts economy better than wickets do — a bowler can take wickets in an expensive spell, but a bowler cannot bowl dots in one.

Introduced in the IPL in 2023. Each side names four substitutes and may bring one on at set points, replacing a player who takes no further part. In practice it lets a team field an extra specialist batter when chasing or an extra bowler when defending.

Its betting relevance is that it inflates scoring. Batting sides can bat deeper without weakening the bowling attack, so first-innings totals in competitions using the rule run above what the same grounds produced before it. Be careful comparing a venue's recent IPL scores against its longer history for that reason.

The rule is specific to the IPL and to competitions that have copied it. It does not apply in most T20 cricket.

Runs conceded divided by overs bowled. In T20 an economy under seven is excellent, eight is respectable and ten is expensive — figures that would look alarming in a fifty-over match and unthinkable in a Test.

Economy is the most important bowling number in the format, because a bowler's four overs are a fixed cost and the only question is what the batting side gets for them.

Runs conceded divided by wickets taken. Lower is better. It blends two things — how expensive a bowler is and how often they strike — which makes it a reasonable summary and a poor diagnostic.

On this site a bowler is credited only with the wickets that are genuinely theirs. Run outs, obstruction and retirements are dismissals but not the bowler's, and they are excluded. That is a common source of disagreement between statistics providers.

How often a bowler strikes, independent of cost. A strike rate of 18 means a wicket every three overs.

It matters most for bowlers used in the powerplay and at the death, where taking a wicket changes what the batting side can attempt next over. A containing bowler and a striking bowler can share an economy rate and do entirely different jobs.

Every ball is recorded with both the batter and the bowler, so the record between any two players can be reconstructed: runs, balls, dismissals, dots and boundaries, across every league they have both played in rather than just the current one.

This is the least-served useful statistic in cricket. Scorecards are everywhere; the aggregate of two players' meetings has to be computed from every delivery, so almost nobody publishes it.

Treat it as evidence rather than proof. A bowler who has dismissed a batter four times in sixty balls has told you something real, but sixty balls is still sixty balls.

A line is a number you bet above or below rather than a result you bet on: a first-innings total of 168.5, a match aggregate, a player's runs in a game. The half-run exists to prevent a tie.

Lines for a fixture start from what the venue typically produces and are adjusted for the sides, the conditions and the money already taken. A venue's par score and phase splits are the same starting point, which is what makes them worth knowing before the line appears.

T20 is a short format and its statistics move violently in small samples. Three dismissals in twenty balls looks like domination and is very often noise; a batting average from six innings is close to meaningless.

This is the reason for the thresholds on this site rather than an apology for them. A venue needs at least 20 T20 matches, a player 20 appearances and a batter-bowler pairing 60 balls before it gets a page of its own. Below that the numbers change too much from one innings to the next to support a conclusion.

When a number does surprise you, check what it is built on before acting on it. That is the single habit that separates a useful statistic from a misleading one.