What is Net Run Rate and How it is calculated?

In sports, parameters to assess a team are crucial because that’s how one can know which group or team is doing better than others, but there are times when the parameters that are made need some modifications to analyze the performance of a player or team more deeply, and that is what happens in the game of cricket when multiple teams perform equally well in terms of winning percentage, but which team would lead the chart of the rankings would then be decided by the net run rate of the respective teams, which is a method to reach the net performance of the team in the number of matches played by it.

This method is an effective one to determine the rankings in the points table in tournaments like World Cups, IPL, T20 Leagues, etc.

How Net Run Rate in Cricket is Calculated?

In this method, the average of the runs per over scored by a particular team in the match played is subtracted from the average of the runs per over scored against that team by the opponent. To understand it easily, here is a simple example.

Let’s suppose India and Pakistan are having a five-match ODI series, and in the five matches, India scored 240, 260, 200, 300, and 350 runs.The total runs scored are equal to 1350 and the total overs played by the Indian team are 250 overs, then the average would be equal to 5.4.

Average = Total Runs Scored by the Team/Total Overs Played by Team

Now suppose Pakistan’s team scored 200, 220, 240, 250, and 300 runs against India in the respective matches, then the total runs scored by the team in the five matches would be 1210, and the total overs played by the Indian team is 250 overs. When we take the average, it would be 4.84.

Taking the difference of the two resultant averages, we would get (5.4-4.84 = +0.56), so this will be the net run rate of the Indian team after 5 matches.