How to get the best out of AskCricinfo

What is AskCricinfo?
AskCricinfo is the easiest way to get your stats questions answered. It's like the stats nerd in your circle of friends who revels in cricket numbers and has an answer to every query. And unlike that stats nerd, it never sleeps.

At the moment AskCricinfo is still a work in progress. Which means it will make mistakes, and it won't know the answer to every question you ask. But we're banking on you - the cricket fan - to help us improve it and make it perfect.

What sort of queries will it answer?
To start with, T20s will be the focus of AskCricinfo. More specifically, it will answer questions on:

However, since we don't have ball-by-ball data for many women's T20I matches, for that category, AskCricinfo will only answer those queries for which data is available from scorecards. Thus, you won't get answers to player vs player, powerplay, and death-overs questions, but questions related to match totals, run rates, partnerships etc will be answered.

For the men's matches, the results for ball-by-ball queries will include all matches for which these details were recorded.

A few examples of the query types AskCricinfo will answer are:

Most sixes conceded by a bowler in the PSL
Fastest to 10,000 runs in men's Tests
Who has scored the most runs in World T20?
Most powerplay wickets taken by a spinner in the IPL
Which captain has won the most matches after losing the toss in men's ODIs?
What is the highest partnership in women's ODIs?
Most dismissals by a wicketkeeper in a match in the BPL
Highest individual score in a women's T20I

Player stats
Pollard's batting record in the death overs
Yuzvendra Chahal's economy rate at each venue in the IPL
What is David Warner's highest score in run chases in T20Is?
What is Jhulan Goswami's economy rate in ODIs in England?
Sunil Gavaskar's batting average in Tests against West Indies

Player/team match-ups / comparisons
Who has dismissed Aaron Finch most often in the BBL?
Virat Kohli's batting average against James Anderson in Tests
New Zealand's T20I record against Bangladesh
Compare the strike rates of Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell in the death overs in IPL

Partnerships
What is the highest partnership in a follow-on in Tests?
What is the highest partnership in Women's T20Is?
Highest partnership in a defeat in the T20 Blast
Highest stands between Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in the IPL
Best strike-rate for a 50+ stand in the BBL
Best run rate for a century partnership in ODIs

Why is there a tournament/ format dropdown listed beside the query bar?
The dropdown ensures you don't need to type in the tournament name for each query - selecting the relevant tournament/format from the dropdown will do the job, and ensure that the output is restricted to that tournament alone, for that query and all subsequent queries, unless another tournament is selected from the dropdown.

If a written query specifies a tournament different from the one in the dropdown selection, the dropdown entry will change to accommodate the tournament specified in the text. A couple of examples.

Query: What is the most sixes hit in an innings by a team (select "BBL" from the dropdown)
The output leads with 15 sixes, by Sydney Thunder versus Sydney Sixers in Adelaide.

Change the dropdown selection to "IPL".
The output now leads with RCB's 21 sixes against Pune Warriors in 2013.

Now change the query to "Highest partnership in a defeat in a T20I", but keep the dropdown selection as "IPL" . As mentioned earlier, the query engine gives precedence to the written query over the dropdown selection, and throws up the 156-run partnership between Adnan Idrees and Ravija Sandaruwan as the top entry, with the dropdown selection automatically changing to "T20Is". You can also view the scorecard of that game by clicking on the drilldown options on the right in that row.

Do we need to ask the questions in a particular format?
No, but the clearer the question, the higher are the chances of AskCricinfo fetching the right answers. Here are a few tips: Defining the innings number in Tests: Since the term 'first innings' could mean the first innings of a match, or the first innings for a team (which could be the first or second innings of a match), the following rules apply for the algorithm to understand which innings to query for:

- 'Innings number 1' (or 'innings no. 1' or 'innings no.=1') will returns results only for the first innings of a game. The other three innings will be ignored.
- Any other terminology will return results for the first two innings.
- So, 'highest total by a team in innings no. 2 in a Test match' will return results only for that particular innings, ignoring innings 1, 3 and 4, while 'highest total by a team in the second innings in a Test match' will return results for innings 3 and 4.

Keep the questions specific and detailed, using key terms that will help the engine identify the question and answer it correctly. These keywords include the following:

batter/batting, bowler/ bowling, team, in an innings, in a match, in a season, overall.

For example:

- "Batter with the most sixes in PSL 2020" or "Team with most sixes in PSL 2020", instead of "Most sixes in PSL 2020"

- "Bowler with most powerplay wickets" or "Team with most powerplay wickets", instead of "Most powerplay wickets".

- "Most sixes by a team/batter in an innings" instead of "Most sixes in an innings".

- "Worst powerplay score for a team in a match", instead of "Worst powerplay score"

- "Bumrah's bowling record against Ben Stokes", instead of "Bumrah's record against Stokes"

- "Compare the batting records of Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard", instead of "Compare the records of Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard".

- Use "versus" or "vs" or 'v" for batter-versus-bowler match-up questions, and "and" to compare two players. So, "Gayle versus Ashwin in the powerplay in IPL"; "Compare the strike rates of Pollard and Russell in the death overs in IPL".

Mind your spellings : The engine may not identify players whose names have been spelt incorrectly, so be careful about spelling names right. In general, avoid spelling errors to get the best results from AskCricinfo.

Rephrase your question and try again if you don't get the answer you expect at the first attempt. The learning engine may not have come across that specific semantic construction for the question. Rephrasing the question might help the engine understand, and answer, your question.

Pick the tournament from the dropdown: As mentioned earlier, the tournament/format dropdown ensures you don't need to write them out for every query.

Will the voice command work for questions?
The voice command will work on the desktop and on mobile web (but not on the ESPNcricinfo app). You can use voice input for your query by clicking on the mic icon and asking the question clearly. Voice commands will work on most browsers on desktop and on mobile.

What are some of the questions that Ask Cricinfo will not answer?
While Ask Cricinfo will answer a wide gamut of questions, there are some query types that it is not trained for. So the following question types are beyond it at this time:

This is not a comprehensive list of queries which can't be answered.

Also, since this is a purely stats-based engine, it will not answer queries which are not related to stats. (So don't expect it to know the name of Virat Kohli's daughter.)