cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

, a batsman is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batsman is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress.

Occurrence

At least one batter is not out at the end of every innings, because once ten batters are out, the eleventh has no partner to bat on with, so the innings ends. Usually, two batters finish not out if the batting side declares in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

, and often at the end of the scheduled number of overs in

limited overs cricket Limited overs cricket, also known as white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed within one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty20 cricket (3-h ...

. Batters further down the batting order than the not out batters do not come out to the crease at all and are noted as ''did not bat'' rather than ''not out''; by contrast, a batter who comes to the crease but faces no balls is ''not out''. A batter who ''retires hurt'' is considered not out; an uninjured batter who retires (rare) is considered '' retired out''.

Notation

In standard notation a batter's score is appended with an

asterisk The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

to show the not out final status; for example, ''10*'' means '10 not out'.

Effect on batting averages

Batting averages are personal and are calculated as runs divided by dismissals, so a player who often ends the innings not out may get an inflated batting average, on the face of it. Examples of this include MS Dhoni (84 not outs in

ODIs ODIS, or the Offender Data Information System is a web based, computerized records management software application to improve the capture, maintenance and quality of law enforcement data that is capable of running in any combination of centraliz ...

), Michael Bevan (67 not outs in

), James Anderson (101 not outs in 237 Test innings), and Bill Johnston topping the batting averages on the 1953 Australian tour of England. Using the formula of runs divided by innings understates performance for the following reasons: *If not outs were counted as dismissals a usually high-scoring batter could bat briefly. They may regularly make a low score, not out, facing a low number of balls from a bowler and thus be penalized for factors out of their control. *A batter will tend to be at their most vulnerable early in the innings before they have "got their eye in"; as a result, it may be a greater achievement to achieve two scores of 20 not out (i.e. averaging 40) than to make one score of 40, since in the latter instance the batter will only have had to deal with one set of variables (see

ceteris paribus ' (also spelled ') (Classical ) is a Latin phrase, meaning "other things equal"; some other English translations of the phrase are "all other things being equal", "other things held constant", "all else unchanged", and "all else being equal". ...

, all things remaining approximately equal). These counterbalancing elements have been at the heart of the rationale of keeping the existing formula (runs divided by dismissals) in the 21st century among cricket statisticians, who have used this method of collecting batting averages since the 18th century, after some intervening controversy.

References

{{Cricket statistics Cricket terminology Batting (cricket) Cricket laws and regulations