The desk's cricket reference. The terminology, the field positions, the bowling variations, the scoring conventions — the cricket literacy that makes every fantasy explainer suddenly land. Read it once and refer back when a points-system rule mentions a cricket term you don't know.
Cricket has a vocabulary that looks dense — "yorker", "googly", "silly mid-off", "powerplay", "dot ball" — but most of the words are working terms, not jargon. Once you know what they mean, the points-system rules fall into place quickly.
A small sample: a dot ball is a ball where no run is scored. A powerplay is the first six overs of an innings. A wicketkeeper stands behind the stumps. A yorker is a delivery pitched at the batter's feet. None of this is obscure once you've read it once; all of it shows up in the points-system reference.
The desk writes the cricket reference as a fan-to-fan explainer. We skip the parts of cricket history that don't affect your fantasy picks — and we go deep on the parts that do (innings structure, dismissal types, the captain's on-field decisions).
An IPL innings lasts twenty overs, or 120 legal deliveries. Each side bats once. The side with more runs wins. A team bats in pairs (the "partnership"); the batting order is set by the captain before the toss, with flexibility to declare an "Impact Player" substitution that's unique to the IPL. A batter is "out" when one of ten dismissal types occurs — bowled, caught, leg-before-wicket, run-out, stumped, hit-wicket, handled the ball, obstructing the field, hit the ball twice, timed out. Each dismissal ends that batter's innings (but not the team's — the next batter in).
The fielding side has eleven players including one wicketkeeper. The bowler delivers from one end; the other end is the non-striker's end. Fielders are spread around the field in a tactical arrangement (the "field setting"). A fielder can change position at any break in play, except the wicketkeeper and two fielders during the powerplay.
Each bowler can bowl a maximum of four overs in an IPL innings. Pace bowlers tend to bowl the powerplay and the death overs. Spinners tend to bowl the middle overs where the run rate is lower and wickets fall more predictably.
Cricket's field is laid out in a circle around the batter. The "slips" are behind the batter on the off-side for a fast-bowler attack. The "gully" is a closer slip position. The "point" is a square off-side position. The "cover" and "extra cover" are attacking off-side positions.
On the leg-side, "square leg" is directly behind the batter. "Mid-wicket" is a square leg-side attacking position. "Fine leg" is behind square on the leg side for edges down to the keeper.
Behind the wicket, "third man" is a boundary position. The wicketkeeper stands directly behind. "Short fine leg" sits inside the circle for top-edge deflections.
Reading field positions is reading the captain's plan. Two slips + gully = the captain thinks the batter will edge the new ball. Three fielders in the deep on the leg side = the captain wants to take the pace off the ball and stop runs, not take wickets.
The "strike" in cricket is the batter currently facing the bowler. The two batters in the innings swap strike after each one-run. Strike is also swapped at the end of an over, regardless of runs scored — so a batter who finishes his over on strike is on strike for the next over as well.
An "innings" can refer to a single batter's stay at the crease or to a team's full batting. The captain and coach use both meanings depending on context: "his innings was 47" means the batter scored 47 before being dismissed; "the team's innings" refers to the team's total score.
A "partnership" is the runs added by two batters batting together. Partnerships matter in T20 because the highest-scoring partnerships tend to come from the batting side that builds the highest total — and the fantasy points for partnerships are often an unstated multiplier in the points reference.
Bowlers fall into two families: pace and spin. Pace bowlers operate at 130–150 km/h, rely on bounce and seam movement, and tend to bowl the powerplay and death overs. Spin bowlers operate at 70–95 km/h, rely on rotation and drift, and tend to bowl the middle overs where the run rate is lower.
Variations exist within each family. Pace variations include the "yorker" (pitched at the batter's feet), the "bouncer" (short-pitched, rising), the "slower ball" (delivered slower than expected to disrupt timing), and the "cutter" (off-cutter or leg-cutter — a delivery that moves off the seam).
Spin variations include the "off-break" (spins into a right-handed batter), the "leg-break" (spins away), the "googly" (a leg-break that's bowled to look like an off-break — used by wrist-spinners), and the "doosra" (an off-break that's bowled to look like a leg-break — used by finger-spinners).
Match-ups in fantasy turn on these variations. A right-handed batter who struggles against left-arm spin is a captain differential when the opposition plays one. A batter who picks googlies early in his innings is high-floor against a wrist-spinner.
Fielding in cricket is two distinct skills. The first is the "ground fielding" — stopping the ball cleanly, returning quickly to the keeper or bowler's end. The second is the "catching" — taking chances in the slips, in the outfield, and at backward point.
Fielding points in fantasy are tiny individually but cascade when your side takes three catches in five balls. A wicketkeeper who takes a catch and stumps a batter in the same over can clear 25 fantasy points in three deliveries.
The captain's tactical work shows up here. After a wicket falls, the captain might bring a slip in, change the bowling, or set an attacking field. Reading these signals in real-time helps your fantasy picks for the next match — if a captain has been rotating spinners with attacking fields, expect more of the same next game.
Runs are the basic unit. Each completed run by the batters counts as one run. Boundaries count as four (if the ball touches the ground before crossing) or six (if the ball clears the boundary on the full). Extras are runs awarded without the batters running — wides, no-balls, byes, leg-byes. Each wide or no-ball adds one run plus any runs completed off the delivery.
Dismissals end a batter's innings. The dismissal types are the "ten ways a batter can be out" — bowled, caught, leg-before-wicket, run-out, stumped, hit-wicket, handled the ball, obstructing the field, hit the ball twice, timed out. The first five are common; the last five are rare and usually memorable.
The dismissals that fantasy cares about most: bowled (high points for the bowler), caught (points shared with the fielder), run-out (points to the fielder), and stumped (points to the wicketkeeper).
The first six overs of an innings. Two fielders must stay in the inner circle. Often the highest-scoring overs of the innings.
Overs 7–15. Spinners operate here. Run rate dips. Wickets tend to fall to turn and mistimed shots.
Overs 16–20. Pace bowlers and power-hitters. Maximum sixes per over. Most volatile overs for fantasy points.
A ball where no run is scored. Bowlers get bonus fantasy points for dot balls in T20 formats.
An over where no runs are scored from any delivery. Rare in T20 but high-impact when it happens.
An IPL-specific rule allowing one substitution per side. Replaces a player in the XI at any point in the match — usually at the halfway mark.
A 2.5-minute tactical break during each innings. Captains reset the field and discuss bowling changes.
The rain-rule system that adjusts target scores. Used in IPL only when matches are rain-shortened.
Runs scored per 100 balls faced. Crucial to many T20 fantasy bonuses.
Open the desk's points-system explainer. Every cricket term below shows up as a fantasy-points rule.
Open points referenceNow that you know the cricket, build the line-up. Role-balance arithmetic and captain logic.
Open squad laneForm evaluation, match-up logic, and bankroll discipline. The day-to-day reference.
Open tips laneOnce you can read a pitch, name a field position, and identify a bowling variation, the points-system reference makes sense and the captain logic stops being guesswork.
