Cricket Scoreboards Explained: Which One is Right for You?

Cricket might be a slower game than some other sports, but keeping track of the score always matters. Not just for the players and umpire. The spectators want to see the progress too.

For that, your cricket ground needs a cricket scoreboard.

But what kind is right for you?

To answer that, you need to know the options that are available, how they work, what advantages they offer, what drawbacks they might have, and what kinds of situations they work best in.

Cricket scoreboard types

In broad terms, cricket scoreboards come in two types. There are the traditional cricket scoreboards and the electronic cricket scoreboards.

Traditional cricket scoreboards

Traditional cricket scoreboards are mostly made of wood with some metal framing (often galvanised steel), and vinyl lettering. They feature stark black backgrounds with white text, and their numbers are changed by flipping and clipping panels manually.

At minimum, a smaller traditional cricket scoreboard will show you information including total runs, wickets, overs, and the runs scored in the previous innings. These are sometimes mounted on collapsable frames that can be moved around the field, or in a car. These are called ‘portascores’.

Larger traditional cricket scoreboards will contain more information, including things like batsmen’s scores, last man, and last wicket. These bigger frames are likely to be stationary, but they can be mounted on wheeled frames that are pushed to where they need to be around the grounds.

The most substantial option when it comes to traditional cricket scoreboards is the scorefascia. These are still traditional in design, but feature mechanical options which move more quickly to handle faster moving games. These can be installed on the front of scoring boxes. Permanent features resembling large sheds that are built into the grounds that show the scores proudly and clearly for the spectators to see.

Electronic cricket scoreboards

Electronic cricket scoreboards very often feature the same black background and white text for words like ‘wicket’ and ‘overs’ but after that point the similarities drop off. The actual numbers are displayed using bright LEDs, allowing them to be read clearly all across the grounds. The numbers being displayed are controlled remotely via a wireless device that can be used from anywhere within the grounds.

The boards are built from metal, use systems that work in a plug-and-play easy to manage way, and can either be run on mains power, or a number of different battery types. The battery options means that you can have them mounted on wheeled bases to ensure they can move around the grounds as you might need them.

What cricket scoreboard is right for me?

There’s lots of different factors to consider when choosing which type of cricket scoreboard would be right for you.

Live update and information

How much information do you want your cricket scoreboard to share? Some people would naturally leap to “all of it” and want to know everything, but that might not be best. Smaller audiences at lower level games might not want that much information, and might enjoy the more relaxed style of a manual traditional cricket scoreboard. However at higher levels the information might

Match level and audience

If you are dealing with a smaller audience, or one of casual sports enjoyers rather than high level enthusiasts, a cricket board live score with a lot of information could confuse things. You may prefer a smaller electronic scoreboard with the essential information, or even a manual cricket scoreboard that can be moved closer to the crowd with ease. You may also need to consider audience size and distance. Do you want to move the scoreboard closer to where they sit, or can it be reliably placed in a single place.

Upkeep and maintenance

Naturally all the different types of cricket scoreboard will need some level of upkeep. The only question to ask is ‘how much’ and ‘what resources do you have to keep things going’. Regular maintenance on something like a traditional cricket scoreboard is relatively simple, especially if you have replacement letter parts and other materials on hand. Fixing an electronic scoreboard will be more complicated, but the reliability factor means you are likely to have to do so less often. Especially if you install the boards high up or in a well weather-shielded space.

Budget and space

As a rule of thumb, taking an electronic cricket scoreboard and a traditional scoreboard of the same kind, the electronic one will be more expensive. The same is true for size, in general the larger the board the larger the budget for its upkeep and purchase will need to be. You need to have both size of space and available budget well considered when choosing what kind of board to get.

Visibility and style

How visible will your board be from the stands and pitch? If you are often doing games in the evening or at night, you might want a cricket scoreboard that can light up.

Of course, if you have floodlights or other powerful illumination sources, this might not be an issue. But such things may be less common if your ground is going for a much more classical and traditional ambiance. For that, you may want the classical timber and flip vinyl options of a traditional cricket scoreboard.

To choose right, choose the experts

To find exactly the kind of cricket scoreboard that your grounds or team or club really needs, speak to the teams at the Stuart Canvas Group today. With five decades of experience supporting cricket at levels reaching from school to club to country, they know how to get the best equipment you need.

Speak to Stuart Canvas Group today, and see how they can solve all your cricket scoreboard related needs, and much more besides.