Cricket Abbreviations and Full Forms: The Complete List

Cricket abbreviations split cleanly into four groups: scorecard shorthand, scheduling shorthand, rules shorthand and statistics shorthand. ODI is One Day International, LBW is leg before wicket, DRS is the Decision Review System, DLS is Duckworth-Lewis-Stern, NRR is net run rate and TBC is to be confirmed. The tables below give every common one, grouped by where you actually encounter it, because knowing the group tells you how to read the number next to it.

Scorecard abbreviations: batting, bowling and dismissals

Scorecard abbreviations describe what happened in a match rather than how a competition is structured. They are the densest group, and the dismissal codes are the ones that trip people up.

Abbreviation	Full form	Where you see it	What it means
DNB	Did not bat	Batting card	The innings ended before this player was needed
c	Caught	Dismissal line	Caught by the named fielder off the named bowler
c&b	Caught and bowled	Dismissal line	The bowler caught the ball off their own delivery
st	Stumped	Dismissal line	The keeper broke the stumps with the batter out of the crease
b	Bowled	Dismissal line	The delivery hit the stumps
lbw	Leg before wicket	Dismissal line	The ball would have hit the stumps but struck the batter first
run out	Run out	Dismissal line	The wicket was broken while the batters were running; the fielder is named
Mdns	Maidens	Bowling card	Overs in which no runs were scored off the bat or as extras
HS	Highest score	Career summary	The player’s best individual innings
BBI / BBM	Best bowling in innings / in match	Career summary	Best figures in one innings and across a whole match
Ct / St	Catches / Stumpings	Fielding summary	Dismissals taken in the field or behind the stumps
b, lb, w, nb, p	Byes, leg byes, wides, no-balls, penalty	Extras line	Runs added to the total that are not credited to a batter
RHB / LHB	Right-hand bat / left-hand bat	Squad list	The batter’s stance
RM, RF, OB, LB, SLA	Right-arm medium, right-arm fast, off break, leg break, slow left-arm orthodox	Squad list	The bowler’s type
WK	Wicketkeeper	Team sheet	The nominated keeper, often marked with a dagger or asterisk

Scheduling abbreviations: TBC, TBD and points tables

Scheduling abbreviations describe a fixture or a standings row, not a delivery. TBC and TBD look interchangeable and are not.

Abbreviation	Full form	Where you see it	What it means
TBC	To be confirmed	Fixture list	The detail exists but has not been signed off, typically a venue or a time
TBD	To be decided	Fixture list, brackets	The detail cannot be filled in yet, such as a knockout opponent
W / D / L	Won / Drawn / Lost	Points table	Match results columns; in Test tables D means drawn, in limited-overs tables NR means no result
NR	No result	Points table	Abandoned without a result, usually rain, points shared
T	Tied	Points table	Scores level with the second innings complete
Pts	Points	Points table	Competition points earned
NRR	Net run rate	Points table	The tie-breaker between teams level on points
ODI	One Day International	Fixture list	A 50-over international, covered in detail in our guide to how many overs are in an ODI
T20I	Twenty20 International	Fixture list	A 20-over international
FC / LA	First-class / List A	Career records	Multi-day domestic cricket and 50-over domestic cricket
WTC	World Test Championship	Fixture list	The ICC’s two-year Test league, explained in our guide to what a Test match is
RSA, AUS, ENG, IND, PAK, NZ, SL, BAN, WI, AFG, IRE, ZIM	Team codes	Scoreboards	RSA is South Africa, from Republic of South Africa

Rules abbreviations: LBW, DRS, DLS and PP

Rules abbreviations point at a specific Law or playing condition. Each of these has a mechanism behind it rather than just a definition.

LBW is leg before wicket. The striker is out if a delivery that is not a no-ball strikes them without first hitting the bat, the ball pitched in line or outside off stump, the impact was in line (or outside off with no shot offered), and the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps.

DRS is the Decision Review System, the player-initiated referral to the third umpire using ball-tracking, edge detection and replays. Umpire’s call is the outcome where the on-field decision stands because the ball-tracking margin is too small to overturn it.

DLS is the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, the formula that resets a target when rain shortens a limited-overs match. It treats overs and wickets as two resources that deplete together, which is why losing wickets raises a revised target as much as losing overs does. An ODI needs at least 20 overs per side for a DLS result to stand.

PP is powerplay. In a 50-over innings, PP1 covers overs 1 to 10 with a maximum of two fielders outside the circle, PP2 covers overs 11 to 40 with four, and PP3 covers overs 41 to 50 with five.

Dismissal shorthand belongs here too, and it is worth knowing that the Laws list nine methods with retired out handled separately. Our guide to the types of dismissal in cricket works through each one.

Statistics abbreviations: SR, ER, Ave and NRR

Statistics abbreviations are the ones most often misread, because two of them mean opposite things depending on whether a batter or a bowler is being described.

Abbreviation	Full form	Applies to	Formula
SR	Strike rate	Batter	Runs per 100 balls faced; higher is better
SR	Strike rate	Bowler	Balls bowled per wicket; lower is better
Ave	Average	Batter	Runs divided by dismissals
Ave	Average	Bowler	Runs conceded divided by wickets
ER / Econ	Economy rate	Bowler	Runs conceded divided by overs bowled
RR / RPO	Run rate / runs per over	Team innings	Runs divided by overs faced
NRR	Net run rate	Team, tournament	Runs scored per over minus runs conceded per over, across all matches
4s / 6s	Boundaries	Batter	Fours and sixes hit
50 / 100	Half-centuries / centuries	Batter	Scores of 50-99 and 100 or more
5w / 10w	Five-wicket haul / ten-wicket match	Bowler	Five in an innings, ten across a match
MoM / POTM	Man of the Match / Player of the Match	Awards	The match award

The NRR detail that decides tournaments: if a team is bowled out inside its allocation, its run rate is calculated over the full quota of overs it was entitled to, not the overs it actually used. That is why being dismissed for 120 in 28 overs damages a side’s NRR far more than scraping to 120 in 50.

The abbreviations people mix up

Four pairs cause most of the confusion, and all four are worth memorising as pairs rather than singly.

TBC and TBD. TBC is a placeholder for a decision already made but unpublished. TBD is a placeholder for a decision that cannot be made yet.

SR for batters and SR for bowlers. Same two letters, inverted direction. A batting SR of 140 is aggressive; a bowling SR of 140 is very poor.

W in a scorecard and W in a points table. In a bowling card, W is wickets. In a standings row, W is wins.

st and c. Both are keeper dismissals in practice, but a stumping requires the batter to have left the crease of their own accord, while a caught behind is a legitimate edge held cleanly. Only 11 players are on the field to take either, and the composition of that eleven is covered in how many players are in a cricket team.

For the governing body behind most of these playing conditions, see what ICC stands for in cricket, and for the wider rulebook start at the cricket rules hub.