What Does ‘Strike Rate’ Mean In Cricket?

Strike rate is a cricketing term that has multiple meanings. Which meaning is appropriate depends on which sort of player the term is describing! For example, strike rate can mean a certain thing when it is referring to a batsman, and then a totally different thing when it is referring to a bowler! As you can see, it’s another one of those cricketing terms you will see on a scorecard and have no clue what it means if you’re new to the game.

In this post, I’ll explain what strike rate means when it is applied to batsmen and bowlers. I’ll also tell you how it is calculated and give you some info on which professionals have had the best strike rates in international cricket, as well as answering a few other questions you may be asking.

So, what does ‘strike rate’ mean? For batsmen, strike rate is a number that represents an average of how many runs that batsman scores for every 100 balls that they face. A high batting strike rate indicates a more aggressive batsman that scores quickly, whereas a lower strike rate is a characteristic of a more conservative batsman. For bowlers, strike rate is a number that represents the average number of deliveries they have to bowl to get a batsman out. A lower strike rate is better in this case because it means the bowler doesn’t need to bowl as many balls in order to be successful.  

Batting and bowling strike rates can be averaged out over the course of a match or over the course of a players’ career.  

If you’d like to read about ways that you can improve your batting strike rate, then click here to read my tips that will help you do that!

How To Calculate Strike Rate

To calculate the strike rate for a batsman in cricket all you have to do is divide the total number of runs they have scored by the number of deliveries they have faced. Once you have done that, multiply your answer by 100 to get the strike rate of the batsman.

Let me take you through a couple of quick examples. Imagine for example we have a batsman that has scored 117 runs from 94 deliveries at the end of their innings. To work out the strike rate for that innings we divide 117 by 94, which equals 1.24. Then we multiply this figure by 100, giving the batsman a strike rate of 124.47 for that innings.

You can also work out a batsman’s strike rate over their whole career in exactly the same way! Let’s use Sachin Tendulkar as an example seeing as he is one of the most popular retired players of all time. In his entire one-day international career, Sachin scored 18,426 runs off 21,367 deliveries. Therefore, we can work out his career strike rate by dividing 18,426 by 21,367 first, which equals 0.86. We then multiply this figure by 100 to get the final number, which is 86.24.

To calculate the strike rate for a bowler in cricket all you have to do is divide the number of deliveries they have bowled by the number of wickets they have taken.

Again, lets run through a couple of examples. For the first example, imagine you have a bowler that has taken 3 wickets in an innings from the 15 overs they have bowled. There are 90 deliveries in 15 overs, so this bowler has taken 3 wickets in 90 deliveries. To work out the strike rate we simply divide the number of deliveries by the number of wickets taken. 90 divided by 3 is 30, so the bowler in this example would have a strike rate of 30 for that innings.

You will see strike rate used more for bowlers in terms of their whole career rather than just one innings, and career strike rates are calculated in the exact same way. Let’s use Glenn McGrath’s test career as an example here. Over the course of his career, Glenn took 563 test wickets and bowled 29,248 deliveries in order to get them. Dividing 29,248 by 563 gives Glenn a strike rate for his entire test career of 51.9. This shows that on average over his test career, Glenn McGrath took a wicket approximately every 9 overs that he bowled!

Who Has The Best Bowling Strike Rate In Test Cricket?

I thought I’d use this section to give you some insight into who the bowlers with the best strike rates in test cricket history are. Before I begin I’d like to mention that I’ve only included bowlers who have already retired, as bowlers who are still playing will have changing strike rates until they retire. I should also point out that there are no bowlers included in the list below that have bowled less than 2000 deliveries at the test level, or that have taken below 100 wickets!

Here are the bowlers with the best 5 bowling strike rates in test cricket history:

Who Has The Highest Batting Strike Rate In ODI Cricket?

Below is a list of the 5 batsmen with the best batting strike rates in ODI cricket history. It should be noted that 3 out of the 5 are yet to retire, and as a result their strike rates could change before they do so. However, this article was accurate at the time of writing! You should also be aware that I haven’t included any batsmen in this list that faced less than 500 deliveries at the ODI level.

Here are the batsmen with the 5 best batting strike rates in ODI cricket history:

What is the Difference Between Bowling Average and Strike Rate?

People often get confused about the difference between bowling averages and bowling strike rates. Allow me to clear up that confusion! A bowling average refers to how many runs a bowler will concede for every wicket that they take. For example, if a bowler takes 2 wickets but concedes 50 runs in the process, their bowling average would be 25. They conceded 25 runs for every wicket that they took.

As we’ve already discussed, bowling strike rate refers to how many deliveries a bowler has to bowl for each wicket that they take, so this is the difference between the two terms.

What is the Difference Between Batting Average and Strike Rate?

This is another easy one to clear up, so allow me to do so!

Batting average refers to how many runs a batsman scores on average for every innings that they play. For example, if a batsman scores 50 runs in one innings, 2 runs in the next, and 42 in the next, they would have an average of 31.33 for those 3 innings. To put it simply, batting average deals with the number of runs that a batsman scores regardless of the number of balls that they face. Batting strike rate is used to tell you how fast a batsman scores their runs.

Conclusion

I hope that this post has helped you to understand some of the definitions behind and differences between some of these confusing terms! If you’d like to read more about the game of cricket and how it is played, then you’ll find plenty of other helpful posts here on Cricketers Hub! I’ve written a post that tells you all you need to know about how the game of cricket is scored, which you can find by clicking here! I think that is a great place to start for any newcomers to the game.