Super Over rules in cricket: what the ICC conditions actually say

A Super Over, also called a one-over eliminator, is the tie-breaker in limited-overs cricket: each side bats one over of six balls, and whoever scores more runs wins the match. Two wickets end an innings, and the number of wickets lost never decides anything — only the runs do.

It is worth knowing where that rule actually lives, because it is not where most people assume. The phrase “Super Over” does not appear once in the Laws of Cricket. Law 16.5.1 of the 2026 code says only that a match is a Tie “when all innings have been completed and the scores are equal”, and stops there. Everything below comes from the ICC’s playing conditions instead — Appendix F of the Men’s T20I conditions and Appendix G of the Men’s ODI conditions, which carry the same 26 paragraphs word for word.

Super Over rules

These are the rules as the ICC writes them, not as they are usually summarised.

Rule	What the playing conditions say
Length	One over of six balls per side, unless it ends sooner
Wickets	Losing two wickets ends that side’s innings
Who wins	Most runs, “irrespective of the number of wickets lost”
Who bats first	The team that batted second in the match
Who is eligible	Only players nominated for the match, including a concussion replacement
The ball	The fielding captain picks from the box of used match balls; no new ball
The end	The fielding side chooses which end to bowl from
Fielding restrictions	The same as the last over of an uninterrupted match
Reviews	One unsuccessful review per side per innings, fresh from the match
Timing	Starts five minutes after the match ends; five minutes between the two overs
If it is tied	Another Super Over, and another, until somebody wins

One widely repeated rule is not in the conditions at all: there is no requirement to nominate three batters and a bowler in advance. This page said so itself until today. Appendix F never mentions it. What it says is that the loss of two wickets ends the innings, which is why three batters is the practical maximum — the third is simply the one who never gets in. The only nomination that matters is the team sheet for the match itself.

The fielding restriction is the clause that changes how a Super Over looks and almost nobody quotes it. Because it matches the last over of an uninterrupted match, a T20I Super Over is bowled with no more than five fielders outside the circle, exactly as in the non-powerplay overs of a normal innings. The bowler gets no extra protection for bowling the most pressurised over of the night.

Who bats first in a Super Over?

The side that batted second in the match bats first in the Super Over, so the chase and the defence swap round. If a second Super Over is needed, they swap again: whoever batted second in the previous one goes first in the next.

How many wickets are allowed in a Super Over?

Two. The third batter is padded up but the innings is over the moment the second wicket falls, however many balls are left. A side bowled out for four off three balls has still scored four, and the other side needs five. Wides and no balls count as they do in the match, and a no ball still brings a free hit.

What happens if the Super Over is tied?

Another one is played, and the conditions allow an unlimited number of them. Four things change in a repeat Super Over: the side batting second bats first, the fielding team bowls from the opposite end, each team reuses the ball it chose the first time, and two groups of players are locked out — any batter dismissed in a previous Super Over cannot bat again, and any bowler who bowled the previous one cannot bowl the next. A batter who retires hurt is not dismissed and may return; a batter who is retired out is.

There are only two ways a tied match can now stay tied. If the Super Overs are abandoned before completion — weather, light, time — the match is declared a tie. And where there is a hard curfew, such as floodlights that have to go off, the ICC Match Referee may cap the number of Super Overs and must tell both captains before the first one starts.

What happened to the boundary count rule?

It is gone. Until October 2019 a tied Super Over was settled by counting boundaries, which is how England were declared World Cup winners at Lord’s in July 2019 after both the match and the Super Over finished level at 241 and 15 apiece. The rule was scrapped within months, and the current playing conditions contain no boundary count of any kind.

What actually happens in a Super Over

The rules are easy to find. What nobody publishes is what a Super Over usually looks like, so we counted every one ever played. The ball-by-ball archive covers 75 Super Overs across 72 matches in men’s and women’s T20Is, ODIs and the Indian T20 League, from the first on 26 December 2008 to the most recent on 22 July 2026.

Competition	Tied matches	Went to a Super Over	Super Overs bowled
T20 internationals	51	46	48
One-day internationals	34	10	10
Indian T20 League	16	16	17
Total	101	72	75

A rain-hit match that ends level on DLS is a tie like any other, and goes to a Super Over wherever the conditions provide for one.

The first thing the numbers say is that the scale is small. Across 150 Super Over innings the median score is 10 and the mean is 10.4, in a format where ten an over is an ordinary rate. The lowest is 0 and the highest is 30.

The second thing is that a Super Over is effectively won at 15, and the fall-off is steep.

First innings score	Times	Chased down	Success rate
Under 10	32	27	84%
10 to 14	17	8	47%
15 or more	26	4	15%

Overall the side batting second has won 39 Super Overs to 31, with five tied, and the reason is in the table above: knowing the target is worth a great deal when the target is small and there are six balls to find it. Four sides in the history of the tie-breaker have chased 15 or more and got there.

The third finding is how often a Super Over does not last. Only 98 of the 150 innings faced all six legal balls. Thirty-three of them lost both wickets, which is more than one innings in five, and the rest ended because the runs had been knocked off. Two wickets is a very small allowance when three of your batters are trying to hit every ball.

Does every tied match get a Super Over?

No, and this is the part that surprises people. The Super Over applies only where a competition’s playing conditions call for it, so a tied bilateral ODI is usually just a tie. Of the 34 tied ODIs in the archive, 24 were left as ties — including India against England at the 2011 World Cup in Bengaluru and India against Sri Lanka at Colombo in August 2024. Only ten tied ODIs have ever gone to a Super Over, most of them in ICC events and qualifiers.

Twenty20 is the opposite. Every one of the 16 tied Indian T20 League matches has gone to a Super Over, and 46 of the 51 tied T20Is have. Of the five that did not, two were settled by the method the Super Over replaced.

Highest Super Over totals

Runs	Team	Match	Date
30	Netherlands	v West Indies, ODI, Harare	26 June 2023
25	West Indies	v New Zealand, T20I, Auckland	26 December 2008
25	West Indies Women	v South Africa, ODI, Johannesburg	31 January 2022
22	United States	v Canada, T20I, Antigua	10 November 2021
20	Sunrisers Hyderabad	v Royal Challengers, Uppal	7 April 2013
20	India Women	v Australia, T20I, Navi Mumbai	11 December 2022

The record belongs to one of the strangest overs in the archive. In the 2023 World Cup Qualifier at Takashinga in Harare, Logan van Beek faced all six balls from Jason Holder and hit 4, 6, 4, 6, 6, 4 for 30 — and then bowled the reply himself, taking two wickets as West Indies managed eight. One player scored the highest Super Over total there has been and then defended it, in the same fifteen minutes.

Tied Super Overs

Five Super Overs have finished level. Two came before the rule changed, in the 2014 Indian T20 League match between Kolkata and Rajasthan and in the 2019 World Cup final. Three have been replayed since: Mumbai and Punjab needed two on 18 October 2020, and Netherlands and Nepal needed three on 16 June 2025 — 19 apiece, then 17 apiece, and only then did Nepal lose both wickets without scoring and the Netherlands knock off six runs. It is the only match on record to require three Super Overs.

When was the Super Over introduced in cricket?

The first Super Over was played on 26 December 2008, in a tied Twenty20 international between New Zealand and West Indies at Eden Park, Auckland. It replaced the bowl-out, in which bowlers from each side aimed at an unguarded set of stumps; the archive contains exactly two of those, New Zealand against West Indies in February 2006 and India against Pakistan at the 2007 World Twenty20, and none after 2008.

West Indies batted first and made 25 for 1, and Chris Gayle scored every one of the runs off Daniel Vettori: 6, 1, 6, 6, 4, 2. Xavier Marshall was run out without facing a ball and Shivnarine Chanderpaul spent the rest of the over at the non-striker’s end. That 25 is still the most any side has made in a men’s T20I Super Over.

New Zealand replied with Jacob Oram and Brendon McCullum. Oram hit the first ball for six and was caught off the third, Ross Taylor hit Sulieman Benn for six and was bowled next ball, and New Zealand finished on 15 from five balls with both wickets gone. McCullum, one of the most destructive T20 batters of his generation, watched the whole thing from the non-striker’s end without facing a delivery — which is the Super Over in one image.

Super Over FAQs

Do Super Over runs count in career statistics? No. Super Over runs and wickets are recorded separately and do not go into a player’s batting or bowling figures for the match.

Can the same bowler bowl two Super Overs? Not back to back. A bowler who bowled the previous Super Over is ineligible for the next one, so a side needs a second option ready.

Can a batter who was out in the match bat in the Super Over? Yes. Only a dismissal in a previous Super Over rules a batter out of the next one; what happened in the match itself does not matter.

Is there a Super Over in Test cricket? No. The phrase does not appear anywhere in the ICC Men’s Test Match Playing Conditions either, so a tied Test is simply a tie.

What happens if a Super Over cannot be completed? The match is declared a tie and the points are shared, which is also what happens if the Match Referee has capped the number of Super Overs and they all finish level.

Super Over counts derived from ball-by-ball records of men’s and women’s T20 internationals, one-day internationals and Indian T20 League matches to 22 July 2026. Rules quoted from the ICC Men’s T20I and ODI Playing Conditions, July 2025.

Featured photo: Marty MELVILLE / AFP