Bowling Economy Rate Calculator – Complete Guide for Cricket Fans and Analysts
The Bowling Economy Rate Calculator on MyTimeCalculator helps you understand how efficiently a bowler concedes runs in any format of cricket. Whether you are analysing your own spell, comparing bowlers in a league or tracking performance over a season, economy rate is one of the core bowling metrics alongside bowling average and strike rate.
The calculator works with cricket-style overs (4.3, 10.4, 18.2, etc.) and converts them into balls internally so that economy rate and runs per ball are calculated correctly. The advanced mode then benchmarks your figures against typical ranges for T20, ODI and Test cricket and provides a quick performance rating.
1. What Is Bowling Economy Rate?
Bowling economy rate measures how many runs a bowler concedes on average per over. The basic formula is:
Because one over consists of six legal balls, economy rate effectively scales the average runs per ball up to a per-over figure. A lower economy rate means the bowler is more economical and harder to score off.
2. Handling Cricket-Style Overs Like 4.3 or 10.4
In cricket scorecards, partial overs are written as digits after a dot, but the part after the dot represents balls, not decimal fractions of an over. For example:
- 4.3 overs = 4 overs and 3 balls = 4 × 6 + 3 = 27 balls.
- 10.4 overs = 10 overs and 4 balls = 10 × 6 + 4 = 64 balls.
If you treated 4.3 as a decimal number of overs (4.3 overs), you would get the wrong economy rate. The Bowling Economy Rate Calculator explicitly treats the digits after the dot as balls and therefore converts overs to balls correctly before doing any computations.
3. Economy Rate Formula and Related Metrics
Once overs have been converted to balls, the calculator uses the following relationships:
Overs (normalized) = floor(balls / 6) . remainder(balls, 6)
Economy rate = Runs conceded / Overs (normalized)
Runs per ball = Runs conceded / Balls bowled
From here, you can compare bowlers on a per-over basis, or drill down to a finer per-ball level if you are analysing specific spells or phases of the innings such as powerplay, middle overs or death overs in T20 cricket.
4. Typical Economy Rate Ranges in T20, ODI and Test Cricket
The “right” economy rate depends heavily on the format and match situation. As a rough guide:
- T20 cricket: Economy below 6 is usually excellent, around 6–7.5 is very good, 7.5–9 is average, and above 9 is often considered expensive, especially for specialist bowlers.
- ODI cricket: Economy below 4 is excellent, 4–5 is good, 5–6 is average, and above 6 can be expensive unless conditions are heavily batting friendly.
- Test cricket: Economy below 2.5 is excellent, 2.5–3 is good, 3–3.5 is average and above 3.5 may be on the higher side unless the pitch is very flat or the bowlers are attacking for wickets.
The Advanced Match Analytics tab in the calculator encodes these typical ranges and uses them to classify your spell as excellent, good, average or expensive for the chosen format.
5. How to Use the Bowling Economy Rate Calculator
- Decide whether you just need basic economy or a full performance summary and choose the appropriate tab: Basic Economy Rate or Advanced Match Analytics.
- Enter the runs conceded and overs bowled. For overs, use cricket notation like 4.3 for 4 overs and 3 balls.
- In advanced mode, also enter maiden overs, wickets taken and the match format (T20, ODI or Test).
- Click the calculate or analyze button. The tool will convert overs into balls, compute economy rate and runs per ball and, in advanced mode, compare your figures to format-based benchmarks.
- Review the performance snapshot table to see all key metrics for the spell in one place, including balls bowled, normalized overs, economy rate, rating and pressure index.
6. Interpreting Ratings and Pressure Index
The rating in the Advanced Match Analytics tab is based on the economy rate relative to typical format ranges described earlier. In simple terms:
- Excellent: Much better than the usual standard for that format.
- Good: Solid, above-average control of runs.
- Average: Around the typical range for that format and conditions.
- Expensive: Conceding runs more quickly than expected.
The pressure index gives a simple numerical sense of how your economy compares with a baseline for the format. Values above 100 indicate a more economical spell than the baseline, while values below 100 indicate that you were more expensive than typical.
7. Economy Rate vs Bowling Average and Strike Rate
Economy rate is only one part of the bowling story. Two other key metrics are:
- Bowling average: Runs conceded per wicket taken. This focuses on how costly each wicket is.
- Bowling strike rate: Balls bowled per wicket. This measures how frequently a bowler takes wickets.
A bowler can have a low economy but a modest strike rate, or vice versa. Serious analysis usually looks at all three together to understand whether a bowler is keeping control, striking regularly, or providing a balance of both in different phases of the innings.
Related Tools from MyTimeCalculator
- Cricket Strike Rate Calculator
- Bowling Average Calculator
- Batting Average Calculator
- Run Rate Calculator
Bowling Economy Rate Calculator FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to common questions about bowling economy rate, cricket-style overs notation and how to use this calculator for T20, ODI and Test analysis.
In cricket notation, the number after the dot represents balls, not decimal overs. So 4.3 means 4 overs and 3 balls (27 balls in total) and 10.4 means 10 overs and 4 balls (64 balls in total). The calculator interprets the part after the dot as balls, checks that it is between 0 and 5 and converts everything to balls internally before computing economy rate.
It depends on conditions, opposition and role, but as a rough guide, an economy rate below 6 runs per over is usually excellent, 6–7.5 is good, 7.5–9 is around average, and above 9 can be considered expensive for specialist bowlers. The Advanced Match Analytics tab uses similar ranges when classifying your spell as excellent, good, average or expensive for T20 matches.
Yes. The core economy rate formula is the same in all formats: runs conceded divided by overs bowled. In advanced mode, you can choose T20, ODI or Test. The calculator then compares your economy rate with format specific benchmarks to provide a rating and pressure index that are more meaningful for that type of match.
Runs per over is the standard measure for bowling economy, but runs per ball can be useful when you are analysing small spells, particular phases of an innings or ball-by-ball data. Showing both makes it easier to understand how each extra boundary or dot ball can move your overall figures in short formats like T20 cricket.
The basic economy rate depends only on runs conceded and overs bowled, but in advanced mode you can also enter maiden overs and wickets taken. These values do not change the economy rate formula, but they are included in the performance snapshot and summary so that you can interpret a tight spell with maidens very differently from a similar economy rate without maidens or wickets.
Yes. As long as you know the runs conceded and overs bowled (with overs written in the usual cricket notation), you can plug the numbers into the calculator and see the resulting economy rate. You can then use the advanced tab to tag spells by format and add maidens and wickets, making it easy to build a consistent view across different seasons or competitions.