Rules
Cricket scorecard abbreviations: what 1wd, nb, lb and b mean, and how a scorer writes them
On a cricket scorecard, 1wd means one wide: a one-run penalty added to the batting side's extras and charged to the bowler, but credited to no batter. The number in front is the runs that delivery cost, so 5wd is a wide that went to the boundary. Likewise nb is a no-ball, b byes and lb leg byes.
What 1wd means, and why the number in front changes
1wd is one wide: a delivery the umpire called wide, from which the batting side got the one-run penalty and nothing else. The abbreviation is wd (some scorecards print just w), and the number in front is how many runs that delivery cost, all of them wides. It turns up in ball-by-ball strips, in a bowler's figures, and in the extras line under a batting card.
The number moves because a wide's penalty is only the start. Under Law 22.6 of the Laws of Cricket the penalty is one run, awarded the moment the umpire calls it. Law 22.7 then says that "all runs completed by the batters or a boundary allowance, together with the penalty for the Wide, shall be scored as Wide balls." So a wide on which the batters scamper two is 3wd, and a wide that beats the wicket-keeper and reaches the rope is 5wd. None of it goes to a batter, and the same clause charges all of it to the bowler. A wide does not count as one of the over (Law 22.8), so it is bowled again.
| On the scorecard | What happened | Runs to the team | To the batter | Charged to the bowler | One of the six? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| . or 0 | Dot ball: a legal delivery, no run | 0 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| 1, 2, 4, 6 | Runs off the bat | As shown | As shown | As shown | Yes |
| 1wd | Wide, nothing else | 1 | 0 | 1 | No |
| 3wd | Wide, and the batters ran two | 3 | 0 | 3 | No |
| 5wd | Wide that went to the boundary | 5 | 0 | 5 | No |
| 1nb | No-ball, nothing else | 1 | 0 | 1 | No |
| 1nb + 4 | No-ball hit for four | 5 | 4 | 5 | No |
| 1nb + 2b | No-ball, then two byes | 3 | 0 | 1 | No |
| 2b | Two byes | 2 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| 4lb | Four leg byes | 4 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| W | A wicket | 0 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| 5 pen | Five penalty runs awarded | 5 | 0 | 0 | Not a delivery |
The two fives in that table look alike on a scoreboard and are opposite on a scorecard. A no-ball hit for four is 4 to the batter and 1 no-ball; a wide that runs to the boundary is 5 wides and nothing to anyone. The difference is the bat: runs off the bat always belong to the striker, and a wide by definition passed out of the striker's reach (Law 22.1).
Ball-by-ball strips do not agree on how to print a no-ball that was hit. Some show the runs off the bat with nb beside them, some show the total from the delivery. When a figure looks wrong, read it against the batter's score: if the batter went up by four, the no-ball was hit for four.
Every abbreviation on a cricket scorecard
A scorecard has three blocks, and each uses its own shorthand: the batting card, the extras and total, and the bowling figures. The letters are short because the space is small, and the same letter can mean two things in two blocks.
| Written | Means | Wicket credited to the bowler? |
|---|---|---|
| b Smith | Bowled by Smith | Yes |
| c Jones b Smith | Caught by Jones off Smith | Yes |
| c & b Smith | Caught and bowled: Smith took the catch off their own bowling | Yes |
| lbw b Smith | Leg before wicket to Smith | Yes |
| st Patel b Smith | Stumped by the wicket-keeper Patel off Smith | Yes |
| hit wkt b Smith | Hit wicket off Smith | Yes |
| run out (Jones) | Run out; the fielder or fielders involved in brackets | No |
| obstructing the field | Out obstructing the field | No |
| retired hurt, retired out | Left the field, not dismissed by the fielding side | No |
| not out | Still batting when the innings ended; often shown as 45* | Not applicable |
| dnb | Did not bat | Not applicable |
Beside the names, R is runs, B the balls faced, M minutes batted, 4s and 6s the boundaries, and SR the strike rate, runs per 100 balls faced. A no-ball counts as a ball faced by the striker, because it can be hit; a wide does not, because it could not be (NZCUSA's The Scorer's Companion). In team lists, (c) or * marks the captain and † the wicket-keeper.
Under the batting card comes the extras line, for example Extras (b 2, lb 4, w 6, nb 1, pen 5)
18. Here b is byes, not bowled. Then the total, 142/6 (18.3 ov): 142 runs for six wickets after
18 overs and 3 balls (Australian scorecards write the wickets first, 6/142). The fall of wickets
follows, as score-wicket pairs: 1-15, 2-48.
| Column | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| O | Overs bowled; the digit after the point is balls, 0 to 5 | 3.4 = three overs and four balls |
| M | Maidens: overs in which the bowler conceded nothing | 2 |
| R | Runs charged to the bowler | 41 |
| W | Wickets credited to the bowler | 3 |
| Econ | Runs charged per over | 41 in 10 overs = 4.10 |
| wd, nb | Wides and no-balls bowled, by count | 2 wd, 1 nb |
| 0s or Dots | Dot balls | 34 |
Read together, 10-2-41-3 is ten overs, two maidens, 41 runs and three wickets. Run rate and economy are worked out on balls, not on the overs figure as a decimal: 18.3 overs is 18½ overs, and the cricket score counter's run-rate section works through why dividing by 18.3 gives the wrong answer.
Who each extra is charged to
The batting side gets every run; the bowler is charged with runs off the bat, wides and no-balls, and not with byes, leg byes or penalty runs. Law 18.10.3 lists what the bowler is debited with: "all runs scored by the striker, all runs scored as No ball extras, all runs scored as Wides." The reasoning is that a wide or a no-ball is the bowler's own fault, while a bye is usually the wicket-keeper's.
| Extra | Written | Penalty | Charged to the bowler | One of the over | Ball faced by the striker |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wide | w or wd | 1 run, plus all runs off it | Yes, all of it | No | No |
| No-ball | nb | 1 run; bat runs to the striker | Yes: the penalty and any runs off the bat | No | Yes |
| Bye | b | None: the runs taken | No | Yes | Yes |
| Leg bye | lb | None: the runs taken | No | Yes | Yes |
| Penalty runs | pen | 5 runs (Law 41) | No | Not a delivery | Not applicable |
This is why bowling figures and the team total never quite match. The runs conceded by all the bowlers plus the byes, the leg byes and any penalty runs make the total, and that is the check the two scorers run at each break, the same check Law 3.2 requires them to agree with the umpires "at least at every interval".
Byes off a no-ball: the rule that changed in 2017
Since the 2017 Code, byes and leg byes run off a no-ball are scored as byes and leg byes, and only the one-run penalty is a no-ball. Law 21.15 in the edition in force from 1 October 2026 reads: "The one-run penalty shall be scored as a No ball extra and shall be debited against the bowler. … Any runs completed by the batters or any boundary allowance shall be credited to the striker if the ball has been struck by the bat; otherwise they shall also be scored as Byes or Leg byes as appropriate." Law 18.10.2 says the same from the other side.
The older Codes did it the other way. The 1980 Code's Law 24.9 reads "Runs made otherwise from a no ball shall be scored no balls" (ACS archive), and New Zealand Cricket's The Scorer's Companion (2016), written to the 2000 Code, still told scorers that after a no-ball with byes "all runs, including the original No Ball run, are credited to the batting team as No Balls". The ICC moved international cricket to the new wording on 28 September 2017 (Men's T20I playing conditions, clause 21.16).
The old rule has outlived the old Code. New Zealand Cricket's beginners' guide Cricket Scoring: Getting Started, dated 2023, tells a new scorer that when the umpire signals a no-ball and then a bye or leg bye, "you will record all runs completed off that delivery as NO BALLS", and that "all these runs are counted as runs against the bowler". Under the Laws, that delivery is 1 no-ball and 2 byes, and the bowler is charged with 1.
| Recorded as | Extras line | Team total | Charged to the bowler |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Laws since 2017 (21.15, 18.10.2) | nb 1, b 2 | +3 | 1 |
| Pre-2017 practice, and the 2023 NZCUSA guide | nb 3 | +3 | 3 |
The team total is the same either way, which is why the difference survives: nothing fails to add up. What changes is the bowler's figures and the breakdown of the extras, and over a season of no-balls that is the bowler's economy rate. Leagues may vary the Laws in their playing conditions, so a scorer should follow the competition's own conditions where they say otherwise; where they are silent, the Law applies.
The scorebook symbols for each extra
In the bowler's over box a dot is a dot ball, a numeral is runs off the bat, a circle is a no-ball, a cross is a wide, B is a bye and L a leg bye. These are the symbols New Zealand Cricket's 2023 guide recommends. Scorebooks and associations differ in the detail, so where a printed book has its own key, the key wins; the events and where their runs go do not change.
| Event | Symbol | Extra runs |
|---|---|---|
| Dot ball | • | None |
| Runs off the bat | The numeral: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 | Not applicable |
| No-ball | O, counting as one run | A numeral inside for runs off the bat; a dot inside for each run not off the bat |
| Wide | +, counting as one run | A dot in a quadrant of the cross for each further run |
| Byes | B with a small numeral: B2 | The numeral is the byes taken |
| Leg byes | L with a small numeral: L3 | The numeral is the leg byes taken |
| Wicket to the bowler | X or W | Not applicable |
| Maiden over | M across the over | Not applicable |
Byes and leg byes go in the bowler's box only so the over adds up ball by ball; they are not carried into the bowler's runs. The same events also go to the batting side: runs off the bat into the batter's box, every extra into its box in the extras row, and every run of every kind crossed off the cumulative tally of the team total. Under the 2017 Code a no-ball with byes is drawn as the circle for the penalty and B or L for the runs, not as a circle full of dots.
What a scorecard does not tell you
A scorecard records outcomes, not reasons, and two deliveries that look the same on it can be different events. A 4lb and a four off the bat both add four to the total; only the letters say which. A wicket on a free hit, where competition playing conditions use one, can only be a run out, obstructing the field or hitting the ball twice, the same as off a no-ball (ICC clause 21.19), so a batter shown "b Smith" was not out on a free hit.
Two further limits are worth knowing:
- Penalty runs (pen) are awarded for things like a fielder's helmet on the ground being hit or deliberate time-wasting. They are added to the extras and charged to no bowler, and the scorecard does not say what they were for.
- The Laws in force changed on 1 October 2026, when MCC's fourth edition of the 2017 Code took effect. Its headline changes are to the final over of a day, short running, boundary catches, overthrows and the wicket-keeper's position; the clauses on how wides, no-balls and byes are scored (21.14 to 21.16, 22.6 to 22.8 and 23) are as quoted here.
Simple Online Counter's cricket score counter applies the same Laws as it counts: it keeps the extras by type, moves the over on only for legal balls, and stores the match in the browser it is used in. It is a tally of the score, not an official scorebook, and the match record is the one the appointed scorers agree with the umpires.
Frequently asked questions
What does 1wd mean in cricket?
One wide. The umpire called the delivery wide and nothing else happened, so the batting side gets a one-run penalty as an extra (Law 22.6). The run is charged to the bowler, credited to no batter, and the delivery does not count as one of the six balls of the over, so it is bowled again (Law 22.8).
What does 5wd mean on a cricket scorecard?
A wide that went to the boundary: the one-run penalty plus the four-run boundary allowance. Under Law 22.7 every run completed off a wide, and any boundary, is scored as wides together with the penalty, so all five go in the extras as wides and all five are charged to the bowler. None goes to the batter, and a wide can never be a six.
What does nb mean in cricket?
No-ball. The batting side gets a one-run penalty, scored as a no-ball extra and charged to the bowler (Law 21.15), and the ball is bowled again. Runs the batter hits off a no-ball still go to the batter, so a four off a no-ball shows as 4 against the batter's name and 1 nb in the extras: five to the team.
What is the difference between a bye and a leg bye?
A bye is a run taken when the ball passes the striker without touching the bat or body; a leg bye is a run taken after the ball hits the striker's body but not the bat. Leg byes count only if the striker tried to play the ball or tried to get out of the way (Law 23.2). Neither is credited to the batter or charged to the bowler.
Does a wide count against the bowler?
Yes. Law 22.7 says that, apart from any five-run penalty award, all runs resulting from a wide are debited against the bowler, and Law 18.10.3 charges the bowler with every no-ball extra as well. Byes and leg byes are the extras the bowler is not charged with, which is why a bowler can bowl a maiden over that cost the team runs.
Are byes off a no-ball scored as no-balls?
Not since the 2017 Code. Law 21.15 scores the one-run penalty as a no-ball extra and any runs the batters then complete without hitting the ball as byes or leg byes, so the bowler is charged with one run, not all of them. Older Codes scored them all as no-balls, and some scoring guides still teach that.
What does b mean on a cricket scorecard?
It depends on the column. Against a batter's name, b means bowled by: "b Smith" means Smith bowled them, and "c Jones b Smith" means caught by Jones off Smith's bowling. In the extras line, b means byes, so "b 4" is four byes. Leg byes are lb, wides w or wd, and no-balls nb.
What does O M R W mean in bowling figures?
Overs, maidens, runs and wickets. Figures of 10-2-41-3 mean ten overs, two of them maidens, 41 runs charged to the bowler and three wickets. Overs are written in balls after the point, so 3.4 means three overs and four balls. A maiden is an over in which the bowler concedes no runs from the bat, wides or no-balls.
Is a wide one of the six balls in an over?
No. A wide and a no-ball do not count as one of the over (Laws 21.16 and 22.8), so each one has to be bowled again and an over with one wide takes seven deliveries. Byes and leg byes do count: they come from legal deliveries, and the striker is credited with having faced the ball.