Fantasy cricket glossary

By the Runtiva team · Last updated July 9, 2026

Every fantasy cricket and cricket DFS term you'll meet, in plain English — from the game itself to the contest formats. New to cricket entirely? Start with cricket explained for baseball fans.

Cricket basics

Over: A set of six legal deliveries bowled from one end. A T20 innings is 20 overs; a One-Day innings is 50.
Innings: A team's turn to bat. A side bats until 10 of its 11 players are out or its overs run out.
Wicket: Two meanings: the set of three stumps the bowler aims at, and a dismissal — when a batter is out. 'Taking a wicket' is a bowler getting a batter out.
Powerplay: Early overs with fielding restrictions, so batters attack. In T20 it's the first six overs — a high-scoring window that matters for fantasy.
Toss: The pre-match coin toss; the winning captain chooses to bat or bowl first. Confirmed teams and the toss are your last cue before lineups lock.
All-rounder: A player who both bats and bowls. In fantasy they can score two ways from one roster spot — the budget cheat code.
Boundary: The rope at the edge of the field. A ball reaching it scores 4 (along the ground) or 6 (cleared on the full).

Batting

Four: Four runs, scored when the ball reaches the boundary along the ground.
Six: Six runs, scored when the ball clears the boundary on the full — cricket's home run.
Half-century / century: 50 runs (half-century) or 100 runs (century) by a single batter — milestones that earn big fantasy bonuses.
Duck: Out without scoring a run. Out on the very first ball you face is a 'golden duck'.
Strike rate: Runs scored per 100 balls faced — a measure of how fast a batter scores. Rewarded in fantasy in short formats.
Not out: A batter still in at the end of the innings, never dismissed.

Bowling & fielding

Bowler: The equivalent of a pitcher — delivers the ball with a straight arm, and it's allowed to bounce before reaching the batter.
Maiden over: An over in which the bowler concedes no runs. Worth fantasy bonus points.
Dot ball: A delivery off which no run is scored. Strings of dot balls build pressure — and, in some scoring, fantasy points.
Economy rate: Runs a bowler concedes per over. A low economy earns fantasy bonuses; a high one can cost points.
Wicketkeeper: The catcher of cricket — the only fielder with gloves, standing behind the stumps to take catches and effect stumpings.
Run-out: A dismissal where fielders break the stumps while a batter is short of the crease mid-run. Earns the fielder(s) fantasy points.
Maiden / hat-trick: A hat-trick is three wickets on three consecutive deliveries by one bowler — rare, and a big fantasy haul.

Formats

T20: Twenty overs a side, about three hours. The fast, high-scoring format US daily fantasy is built around (MLC, IPL).
T10: Ten overs a side — an even shorter, all-out-attack format.
ODI (One-Day): Fifty overs a side, played over a single day; more strategic pacing.
Test: The five-day format. Prestigious, but not where daily fantasy lives.
The Hundred: A 100-ball-per-side format (England), played in summer — bridges the gap between MLC and other leagues.

Fantasy & DFS terms

DFS: Daily fantasy sports — drafting a new lineup for a single match or day and settling it that day, for real money on a US-regulated platform.
Credit budget: The cap you build your squad under in cricket fantasy. Each player has a credit value; premiums cost more, so you can't pick everyone.
Salary cap: The dollar-based version of the same idea used for US team sports (NFL, MLB). Cricket on Runtiva uses credits, not a salary cap.
Captain (C) & vice-captain (VC): Your two boosted picks: the captain scores 2× points and the vice-captain 1.5×. These choices swing most contests.
Slate: The set of matches a contest draws from — usually a single cricket match.
Lock: When your lineup freezes and can't be edited. In cricket, that's the first ball of the match.
GPP: Guaranteed Prize Pool — a large tournament with a fixed prize pool and top-heavy payouts.
Head-to-head (H2H): A contest between just two entrants — your lineup against one opponent's.
50/50 & double-up: Contests where roughly the top half of entrants win, doubling their entry — lower variance than a GPP.
Ownership: The share of entrants who picked a given player. Low-ownership picks that score big are how you win large tournaments.