Innings

Innings

An innings is the part of a game during which a side takes its turn to bat in any of a variety of sports, most notably, cricket. The term innings is also used to refer to the play of one particular batsman (Smith had an poor innings, scoring only 12), and, by extension, to almost any activity that takes a period of time (The Liberal government had a good innings, but finally lost office in 1972, or You've had a fair innings, now it's my turn, meaning "you have spoken for long enough, now let me speak").

The term innings is both singular and plural and is always spelled and pronounced with the terminal "s", with only two exceptions: American English uses inning for the singular, the largely American sport of baseball does likewise.

In cricket, a team's innings usually lasts until 10 of the 11 batsmen in the team are out, leaving the not-out batsman without a partner and thus unable to continue, or until another event intervenes (such as the captain of the team declaring the innings closed for tactical reasons; or the time allotted for the entire game expiring).

In the full form of the game, each side has two innings. In limited-overs cricket and other abbreviated forms of the game, an innings lasts only for a set period or for a certain number of overs (typically 50). Note that "an innings" can mean either a particular side's innings (Sri Lanka made 464 in their second innings) or that of both sides (England had the better of the first innings, outscoring Australia by 104).

An individual innings usually lasts until the batsman is given out, or until the end of the team innings. Although batsmen bat together in pairs, this combination is never called an innings: it is a partnership.

In indoor cricket, each innings is limited to a certain number of overs (usually 16), and each individual batsman plays an inings of fixed length (usually 4 overs), remaining in even after being given out, and stopping after the 4 overs even if not out.