How Often Do Cricket Matches End in a Tie? T20 and ODI Super Overs

A tied cricket match feels like a once-a-season freak, and the numbers mostly agree. I went through 8,487 men's T20 and ODI matches with a result, 2002-2026, to answer three questions: how often games finish level, what happens once they do, and what a super over actually produces.

The headline is that T20 matches tied 1.2% of the time, roughly one in 83, which puts the fair price at 82.54. ODIs tied at 1.0%. If you use my cricket match predictions page for the bigger markets, think of this as the small print on the tie line. It also covers the super over that usually follows in T20, where the side batting first won only 39.2% of the time.

Period 1Every competition ties rarely, but the LPL leads

This chart ranks each competition by the share of matches that ended level. The LPL tops it with 3 ties in 140 matches (2.1%), while the MLC sits at 0.0% with 0 in 108. Between those extremes, the T20 Blast produced 25 ties in 1,531 matches (1.6%) and the IPL 16 in 1,234 (1.3%). T20 internationals matched the Blast at 1.6%, against 1.1% across the leagues.

I wouldn't build anything on the top and bottom rows. Three ties against none is a difference of a handful of games, and that is the main caveat for this whole study. Ties are so rare that every row rests on tiny counts, and the super-over figures come from just 51 matches, so treat them as directions rather than precise rates and remember the past only describes what happened. The bigger samples, the Blast and the IPL, are the ones I lean on.

Period 2Fair tie odds run from the sixties to nearly a hundred

This table is where frequency becomes price. It converts each tie rate into a fair price with no margin: 82.54 for all T20, 87.60 for the leagues, 64.12 for T20 internationals and 98.30 for ODIs. The 95% ranges show how much those rates could wobble, and the internationals' ±0.7 is more than twice the ±0.3 on the full T20 set.

There's a time split too. T20 tied 1.0% of the time from 2005-2016 (fair odds 97.00) and 1.3% from 2017-2026 (78.28). I suspect tighter, higher-scoring chases play a part, but the gap is small enough that I'd only call it a gentle drift.

For a bettor, the point is simple. A tie price noticeably shorter than these fair figures gives you less than the record justifies, and the margin on a market this rare can be heavy.

Period 3Most T20 ties go to a super over; ODI ties stand

Once a match is level, the format decides what happens next. Of 79 tied T20 matches, 60.8% went to a super over, 36.7% stayed as ties and 2.5% were settled by a bowl-out, the old tiebreak from early T20 internationals. ODIs are the opposite: of 20 ties, only 15.0% went to a super over and 85.0% simply stood.

Inside the first super overs, the side batting first won 39.2%, the side batting second won 54.9% and 5.9% were tied again. In all 51, the team that chased in the main match batted first in the super over, and across the settled matches that side won 43.1%. Of the 3 tied super overs, 1 went to a second one.

This matters for settlement. Check whether your market settles on the tie itself or runs through the super over, because in some league group stages the tie can just stand.

Period 4A super over usually produces between six and fifteen runs

The last chart covers all 104 super-over innings. The average was 10.0 runs, the 6-10 band was the most common, and 30.8% scored 11-15. Only 23.1% made 0-5, 12.5% reached 16-20 and just 1.9% got to 21 or more.

Two wickets end a super-over innings, and 25.0% of innings lost both. That collapse risk is why the low band is as big as it is, and why a side batting first can't simply swing at everything.

When I'm judging a super-over target in my head, 10.0 is the anchor. Anything in the teens is a strong total, and 21 or more almost never happens.

Written byJack Thompson

I'm Jack Thompson, and I write the cricket match predictions at correct-score.vip — covering Tests, ODIs and T20s with an eye on conditions as much as form.

View profile →