Bowling Average Calculator
Calculate bowling average and performance statistics
Bowling Average Calculator
Calculate bowling average and performance statistics
What is a Bowling Average?
Bowling average is one of cricket's oldest and most trusted stats. It shows the average number of runs a bowler gives away for each wicket they take. A bowler with an average of 25 takes a wicket every 25 runs — the lower the number, the better the bowler is doing.
Worked example: a bowler takes 3 wickets while giving away 60 runs in a match. Bowling average = 60 ÷ 3 = 20.0 for that game. Over a full career, the same maths applies to every run and wicket added up across all matches. That's why one great spell barely moves a career average, while a long stretch of expensive, wicketless bowling can drag it down a lot.
Bowling average is not the same as economy rate. Average tells you the cost per wicket. Economy rate tells you the cost per over, wickets or no wickets. A bowler can be cheap without taking many wickets, or take wickets while being expensive — these are two separate questions.
How to Use This Calculator
Good Bowling Average by Format
- • Test — Below 22: Elite, all-time-great territory
- • Test — 22 – 30: Good, solid international bowler
- • ODI — Below 25: Elite
- • T20 — Below 18: Elite
Why Bowling Average Matters in Cricket
Bowling average has been the main way to rank Test bowlers for over a century. Selectors and fans use it to compare bowlers across different eras — someone averaging in the low 20s over a long career is usually seen as genuinely world-class, no matter which decade they played in.
It also shapes how captains use their bowlers during a match. A bowler with a strong average against a particular batting order is often brought on at key moments, because history shows they are more likely to get that wicket cheaply than someone with a weaker record.
Some of the greatest bowlers in Test history, like Sydney Barnes and Malcolm Marshall, have career averages in the low-to-mid 20s — a number that has barely changed in over a hundred years, even as bats, pitches, and playing conditions have changed a lot. That stability is part of why the stat is still so respected today.
?Frequently Asked Questions
Below 25 is excellent for a career average. Below 22 puts a bowler among the all-time greats. 25-30 is solid for an international bowler. Conditions matter a lot too — bowling on seam-friendly pitches is very different from bowling on flat, batting-friendly ones.
It depends on the format. In Test cricket, average is the main thing that matters. In T20, economy rate matters just as much, sometimes more. In ODIs, both matter — the best bowlers manage to be both cheap and take wickets.
Yes, though it's not that common. A bowler might take wickets cheaply overall, but still bowl a lot of expensive overs in between those wickets, which hurts economy rate. Usually, good wicket-takers also keep the runs down, since taking wickets builds pressure that stops batters from scoring freely.
Pitches, bats, boundary sizes, and playing conditions have all changed a lot over the history of cricket, so comparing averages across eras isn't perfectly fair. A bowler averaging 28 in a high-scoring era might have actually been more dominant compared to their peers than a bowler averaging 24 in a low-scoring, bowler-friendly era.
Yes. Average tells you the cost per wicket. Bowling strike rate tells you how often those wickets come, in balls per wicket. A bowler with a good average built on rare but cheap wickets is very different from one who strikes often and cheaply — looking at both together gives a fuller picture.
Not quite as much. In T20, matches are short, so a bowler often gets only 4 overs and 1-2 wickets in a game. Economy rate tends to carry more weight in T20 because keeping the total run count down matters more than the exact cost of each wicket.
A single bad match has less impact than people think, especially for a bowler with many career innings already behind them. Career average is a long-term number built over hundreds of overs, so one expensive, wicketless day usually only nudges it slightly, unlike a short series where the same match would have a much bigger effect.