Mondo Knows Facts
A cricket over is six balls long
Australia used eight-ball overs until the 1979-80 season, changing late The Laws of Cricket now define an over as six balls, but the count has changed over time and by country. England moved from eight-ball to six-ball overs in 1979, and Australia followed for the 1979-80 season. New Zealand was still using eight-ball overs into the 1970s. It sits in Mondo's sports collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: cricket, rules, overs
A cricket over is six balls long: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Australia used eight-ball overs until the 1979-80 season, changing late. The figure is taken from Marylebone Cricket Club, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a sports fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Sports shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.