What Is a Good Economy Rate in Cricket? It Depends on Innings Length

Ask ten cricketers what is a good economy rate in cricket and you will get ten numbers, all of them right for one format and wrong for the others. The figure only means something next to two things almost nobody mentions: the length of the innings and the phase of it you bowled in. Four overs for 28 is a fine T20 return and a bad one in a Test. Two overs for 14 in a five over match is close to a disaster.

The short answer

A good economy rate is any figure clearly below the average run rate for the format being played. Long-run means across international cricket sit near 2.75 runs per over in Tests, 4.70 in one-day internationals and 7.44 in T20 internationals. So under 3.00 in a Test, under 4.50 in an ODI and under 7.00 in a T20 counts as good, and under 6.00 in a T20 is excellent. The shorter the innings, the higher the acceptable number, because there are fewer overs to absorb one expensive one.

What the number actually measures

Economy rate is runs conceded divided by overs bowled. Four overs for 24 is 6.00.

The trap is partial overs. Cricket writes three overs and three balls as 3.3, but that is not a decimal. Three and a half overs is 3.5 in decimal, so 21 runs off 3.3 overs is 21 divided by 3.5, which is 6.00, not 6.36. Every hand-calculated economy rate that looks slightly off is usually this mistake.

What gets charged to you

Runs scored off the bat, including boundaries and overthrows, all count against you.
Wides and no-balls are charged to the bowler. They are your runs.
Byes and leg byes are not charged to the bowler. A keeper letting four through the legs does not touch your figure.
A no-ball costs twice, because it concedes a run and does not count as one of the six legal deliveries. In most limited-overs playing conditions it also hands over a free hit.

That last point is why bowlers with tidy-looking spells sometimes have ugly economy rates. It is rarely the shots. It is the extras.

Format benchmarks, side by side

Test cricket: average around 2.75. Under 3.00 is good, under 2.50 is a frontline attack leader.
One-day internationals: average around 4.70. Under 4.50 is good, under 4.00 is very good.
T20: average around 7.44. Under 7.00 is good, under 6.00 is excellent, over 9.00 is being taken apart.
Ten over cricket: treat T20 numbers and add roughly half a run, because the batter has less reason to hold back at any point.
Five over cricket: there is no meaningful benchmark. Every ball is a death ball. Under 8.00 is a good over, under 6.00 is a very good one, and one spell of five overs is too small a sample to call anything a rate.

The part most explanations skip

Economy rate is an average, and averages get unstable fast when the sample shrinks. That is the whole story of short-format bowling.

Take one twelve-run over. If the rest of your overs go at 6.00:

In a 20 over innings, nineteen overs at 6.00 plus that one over is 126 off 20, an economy of 6.30. You lost 0.30.
In a 10 over innings, nine overs at 6.00 plus that one is 66 off 10, an economy of 6.60. You lost 0.60.
In a 5 over innings, four overs at 6.00 plus that one is 36 off 5, an economy of 7.20. You lost 1.20.

The same over, bowled identically, costs four times as much in a five over game as in a T20. This is why the honest answer to what is a good economy rate in cricket in short formats is a range and not a number, and why short-format bowlers should stop thinking in rates altogether and start thinking in overs. Not "keep it under seven." Instead: "give away fewer than eight in this over, and no over over twelve."

The maiden over works the same way in reverse. Chasing 40 off 5 needs 8.00 an over. Concede nothing in the first over and the requirement jumps to 40 off 24 balls, exactly 10.00 an over. One over changed the chase by a quarter. In a T20 a maiden moves the required rate by a fraction of that.

Economy is a phase number, not a career number

Ask when the overs were bowled before judging the figure. In T20 the final few overs routinely go at nine or ten an over while the middle overs are markedly cheaper, so a bowler who only ever bowls the death carries a worse economy than a bowler of equal quality who only bowls overs seven to fifteen. Comparing the two numbers directly tells you nothing.

The fielding restrictions matter too. Bowling inside a powerplay means fewer protected boundaries and more gaps, and the run rate reflects that regardless of how well you land the ball. There is a separate piece on how powerplays work by proportion rather than by a fixed six overs on the blog, and it changes how you should read any powerplay economy figure.

So the useful version of the question is not what is a good economy rate in cricket. It is: what is a good economy rate for these overs, in this format, under these restrictions.

When you bowl every over yourself

In a normal match, a captain spreads the damage. A specialist takes the hardest overs and the economy rates separate out. In a live 1v1 match, that protection does not exist. One player bats the whole innings and the other bowls the whole innings, so your economy rate is not a slice of the attack, it is the opposition run rate. If the batter finishes on 62 off 5 overs, you bowled at 12.40 and there is nowhere to put the blame.

That is a harsh way to learn, and it is also the fastest. On howzatlive the formats are 5, 10 or 20 overs, in the browser, with no download and no install, and you and one real opponent play a live match with one batting and one bowling. Two things happen quickly once your whole economy is your own:

You stop bowling for wickets on every ball. In a five over innings, a dot ball and a wicket are worth almost the same, because a new batter costs the chase a delivery or two of settling.
You start noticing that your extras, not your good length balls, are the leak. A wide in a 30-ball innings is over three per cent of the innings, gifted.

You can bowl at a bot first at three difficulties, Gully, Club or Academy, to get your line under control. Those results are rated at half weight, capped at a few per day, and they can carry you no higher than Scale 3, so the number that eventually sits next to your name comes from real opponents. The Scale badge runs 0 to 10 and appears after five rated matches, and beating stronger opponents moves you up faster. If you want to see where the tidy bowlers sit, the leaderboard is public. To keep a record of your own matches, create a free account first.

Five ways to bring the number down

Bowl no no-balls. A no-ball is a run plus an extra delivery plus, usually, a free hit. Nothing else on this list saves as much.
Cut the width. Most wides are attempts at a fifth-stump line that were never going to be played. Aim to be hittable and awkward, not unhittable and illegal.
Change pace, not length, under pressure. A slower ball at a good length beats a quicker ball dragged short. Short is where the free boundaries live.
Accept singles. Two overs of ones and twos costs about 8 runs. One over that leaks two boundaries costs the same and takes six balls instead of twelve.
Plan the over, then bowl it. Decide the first two balls before the over starts. Bowlers who improvise ball by ball concede in clusters, and clusters are what wreck an economy rate in a short innings.

Where the figure misleads you

A low economy rate can mean you were hard to score off, or it can mean the batter was happy to leave you alone and attack the other end. In a 1v1 game the second option does not exist, which makes the number cleaner than it is in an eleven-a-side match. And a small sample lies: five overs is thirty balls, and thirty balls is an anecdote, not a rate. Bowl ten matches before you believe your own figure.

Then go and lower it. Pick a format, play cricket online against a real opponent, and count the number of overs you concede more than eight in. That count is more useful than the decimal.