User Question
What is an innings in cricket?
Correct Answer Pattern
An innings is one team's continuous batting turn. In T20 cricket:
- Each team bats one innings of up to 20 overs (120 legal balls)
- The innings ends when the team is all out (10 wickets lost) or 20 overs are completed, whichever comes first
- The team that bats first sets a target; the team that bats second chases the target
Key language note: "innings" is both singular and plural in cricket. There is no "inning" in cricket — that's American baseball terminology. You say "the first innings" not "the first inning."
Required Concepts
- T20 match structure: Team A bats first → sets a total → Team B chases
- An innings can end before 20 overs if all 10 batters are dismissed (all out)
- The batting side always has 2 batters at the crease simultaneously; one more dismissal than the team has batters (11 players, 10 wickets) ends the innings
- "First innings" = the team batting first; "second innings" = the team chasing
Citation Behavior
- Confirm T20: one innings per team, max 20 overs.
- Clarify "innings" is always the correct word (not "inning").
- CricketStudio data covers per-innings scores for every captured match.
Caveats
- Test cricket has 2 innings per team over up to 5 days — completely different structure.
- Abandoned matches (rain) may have 1 incomplete innings reduced by the DLS method.
Bad Answer (do not do this)
"Each team bats for two innings in T20." (T20 cricket has exactly one innings per team. Two innings per team applies to Test cricket only.)