Cricket Bowling Average Calculator

Background.

A cricket bowling average is the number of runs a bowler concedes for each wicket they take: Average = Runs conceded ÷ Wickets taken. It prices a wicket in runs, and unlike a batting average a lower number is better. A career average under 25 marks a good bowler in the longer formats and under 22 marks an outstanding one.

This is the wicket-denominated bowling statistic. Cricket has three standard bowling measures and they answer three different questions from the same scorecard line: the bowling average is runs per wicket, the economy rate is runs per over, and the bowling strike rate is balls per wicket. A bowler with an average of 25 and an economy of 2.5 is a Test-match workhorse taking a wicket every 60 balls; a bowler with the same average of 25 but an economy of 7.5 is a T20 wicket-taker who goes at more than a run a ball. Quanta keeps the average and the economy rate on separate pages precisely because they answer different questions, and this page deliberately does not ask for overs — if you want runs per over, use the cricket economy rate calculator.

The input that goes wrong most often is 'runs conceded', because it is not simply the runs scored while the bowler was bowling. The Laws of Cricket assign each category of run explicitly. Runs off the bat count against the bowler. Wides count: MCC Law 22.7 says that "apart from any award of 5 Penalty runs, all runs resulting from a Wide shall be debited against the bowler", and the ICC playing conditions reproduce that clause word for word. No balls count: Law 21.16 says "the one run penalty shall be scored as a No ball extra and shall be debited against the bowler", and runs scored off the delivery are added too. Byes and leg byes do not count: Law 23 credits them to the batting side, not to the bowler, on the reasoning that a delivery the batter never touched and the keeper failed to gather is not the bowler's fault. If you take the runs figure straight from the bowler's own line on the scorecard, all of this is already applied.

The wicket column has a matching rule. Only dismissals credited to the bowler count — bowled, caught, leg before wicket, stumped and hit wicket. A run out is credited to no bowler at all, and neither are the rare dismissals such as obstructing the field or timed out. A spell of 10–1–45–3 in which one further batter was run out is three wickets, not four.

The calculator runs in three modes on the same identity. The default takes runs conceded and wickets and returns the average. The second inverts it for a target: how many runs may you concede across a given number of wickets and still average what you want? The third answers the selection question: on the runs you have already conceded, how many wickets must you take to get the average down to a stated figure? Every mode also returns the cost of a five-wicket haul at that average, which is the quickest way to sanity-check whether a given '5 for X' was above or below a bowler's long-run standard.

What is cricket bowling average calculator?

The bowling average is a cost statistic: it measures how expensive each wicket is, in runs. Formally Ave = R ÷ W, where R is the runs debited to the bowler and W is the wickets credited to the bowler. It is quoted to two decimal places in every career record beside the economy rate and the bowling strike rate. Three features distinguish it from the batting average that shares its name. First, direction is reversed — for a batter a high average is good, for a bowler a low one is. Second, the denominator is wickets rather than dismissals of the player themselves, so it has no not-out complication and no censoring problem; a bowler's average is a clean ratio of two fully observed counts. Third, it is undefined for a wicketless bowler: with W = 0 the ratio is R ÷ 0, and record books print a dash rather than a number, which is why this calculator refuses that input rather than reporting infinity. The average is best read next to the economy rate, because the two decompose the bowler's job into how often they take wickets and how much they cost while waiting. The bowling strike rate — balls per wicket — links them: bowling average = bowling strike rate × economy rate ÷ 6, an identity worth remembering because it shows that a bowler can lower their average either by striking more often or by leaking less, and the two routes suit different formats.

How to use this calculator.

1. 01Choose a mode. 'Bowling average' answers the ordinary question. 'Runs allowed' works backwards from a target average, and 'Wickets needed' tells you how many more wickets bring the average down to where you want it.
2. 02Enter runs conceded. Take the figure from the bowler's own line on the scorecard: it already includes runs off the bat, wides and no balls, and already excludes byes, leg byes and 5-run penalties.
3. 03Enter wickets taken — only the ones credited to the bowler. Bowled, caught, lbw, stumped and hit wicket count. Run outs do not, no matter who was bowling.
4. 04Read the bowling average, remembering that lower is better. Then read the 'runs per five-wicket haul' figure: it is five times the average, and it converts the statistic into the familiar '5 for X' shape most cricketers think in.
5. 05To set a target for the rest of a season, switch to 'Wickets needed', enter the runs you have already conceded and the average you want, and the calculator returns the wicket count at which you cross it.
6. 06For a fuller picture of the same spell, run the economy rate calculator on the overs and runs. Average and economy together tell you whether a bowler is a strike option or a containing option — neither number does that alone.

The formula.

The identity is Ave = R ÷ W.

The numerator is defined by the Laws rather than by intuition. Runs off the bat are the bowler's. Wides are the bowler's under MCC Law 22.7 — "apart from any award of 5 Penalty runs, all runs resulting from a Wide shall be debited against the bowler" — which means a wide that runs away for four costs the bowler five, not one. No balls are the bowler's under Law 21.16, both the penalty and any runs the batters take off the delivery. Byes and leg byes are not the bowler's: Law 23 credits them to the batting side, on the principle that a ball the batter never touched and the wicketkeeper failed to collect is a fielding failure rather than a bowling one. Five-run penalties are likewise excluded from the bowler's analysis.

The denominator is the wickets the bowler is credited with: bowled, caught, leg before wicket, stumped, hit wicket. Everything else — run out, obstructing the field, timed out, retired out — belongs to no bowler.

The two inverse modes are algebra on the same line. Solving for runs gives R = Ave × W: to average 25 across 154 wickets you may concede at most 3,850. Solving for wickets gives W = R ÷ Ave: 3,842 runs conceded needs 153.68 wickets to average 25, which means the 154th wicket is the one that brings the average under the line. The fractional answer is meaningful even though a fraction of a wicket is not — it identifies the crossing point.

One relationship is worth carrying away, because it ties this page to the economy rate page: bowling average = bowling strike rate × economy rate ÷ 6, where the strike rate is balls per wicket and the 6 is the six balls of an over under MCC Law 17.1. A bowler with a strike rate of 60 balls per wicket and an economy of 2.50 averages 60 × 2.50 ÷ 6 = 25.00. This decomposition shows the two ways to improve an average — take wickets more often, or concede less while waiting — and explains why Test bowlers chase strike rate while limited-overs bowlers are often judged on economy.

The undefined case is genuine. A bowler with zero wickets has an average of R ÷ 0. Scorecards print a dash. This calculator raises an error rather than reporting infinity, because '∞' would suggest a wicketless bowler is infinitely expensive when in fact their average is simply not yet measurable.

A worked example.

Frequently asked questions.

References& sources.

1. [1]Marylebone Cricket Club — Laws of Cricket, Law 22 (Wide ball). Law 22.7: "Apart from any award of 5 Penalty runs, all runs resulting from a Wide shall be debited against the bowler." This is the rule that puts wides into the numerator of the bowling average.
2. [2]Marylebone Cricket Club — Laws of Cricket, Law 21 (No ball). Law 21.16: "The one run penalty shall be scored as a No ball extra and shall be debited against the bowler." Runs the batters take off the delivery are charged to the bowler as well.
3. [3]Marylebone Cricket Club — Laws of Cricket, Law 23 (Bye and Leg bye). Runs completed from a delivery that passes the striker without touching bat or person "shall be credited as Byes to the batting side"; leg byes are likewise scored to the side. Neither is debited to the bowler, which is why a team total exceeds the sum of the bowlers' figures.
4. [4]International Cricket Council — Men's ODI Match Clause 22: Wide ball. The ICC playing conditions reproduce MCC Law 22.7 verbatim for international one-day cricket: "Apart from any award of 5 Penalty runs, all runs resulting from a Wide shall be debited against the bowler."
5. [5]International Cricket Council — ICC Men's One-Day International Playing Conditions, effective from July 2025 (PDF). Clause 13.9.1: "No bowler shall bowl more than 10 overs in an innings." Clause 13.6.1 limits each innings to a maximum of 50 overs. These quotas cap how much of a match any one bowler's average can be built from.