Final Play BD — Cricket Formats Explained | finalplaybd.com
The three international formats side by side: overs per side, innings per side, duration and when each was first played.
Test cricket is played over up to five days with two innings per side and no limit on overs. That absence of a ceiling is the defining feature: a side can bat for an entire day, and the match runs until four innings are complete or time expires.
A One Day International gives each team one innings of 50 overs and is usually completed in a single day. The men's Cricket World Cup is the ODI championship; it was first held in 1975 and is played every four years.
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A Twenty20 match gives each team one innings of 20 overs and lasts about three hours. The format was created in England in 2003, and the first men's T20 international was played in 2005.
Across all three formats the over is the shared unit: six legal deliveries bowled by the same bowler. What differs is how many overs each side receives and how many innings it gets, and those two numbers determine the length of the match.
The table below sets the three formats against each other on overs, innings, duration and first played, so the differences can be read in one pass.
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