A cricket innings ends when ten of the eleven players of the side are dismissed. By default, it is understood that one batter would remain not out at the end of the bowled out innings. This last standing batter of the side is called a red inker.
Red inker is a term that finds its origins from the early days of cricket. Unlike recent times, where a digital scoreboard would mark the not out batters by highlighting their names or putting an asterisk mark, the hand-written scoreboard of the past had its own style to mark a not out batter. The scorekeeper would paint the name of the last standing batter with a red colored ink. Thus, this batter has always been referred as a red inker.
Since the red inker would remain not out at the end of the innings, their average would increase prolifically. This is because the formula to count a batter’s average is by dividing the number of runs he or she scored with the number of times he or she was dismissed. Thus, the red inker has also been referred as ‘The Guardsman of the Average’.
It is often a misconception among novice cricket followers that the No.11 batter is usually the red inker. This does not hold true as the tail-ender is the one who is more vulnerable to a dismissal due to their modest batting skill.
In men’s test cricket, leading English bowler James Anderson holds the record for being not out on a record 114 instances of the 188 matches he played. Among players with a definite batting skill, Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s tally of 49 not outs (out of the 164 matches he played) in test cricket is arguably the greatest as of 2025. India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni holds the record for the most not outs in One Day International cricket with 84 not outs (350 matches).
In women’s cricket, no player has remained not out for more than eight times in test cricket. However, in One Day Internationals, Mithali Raj’s tally of 57 not outs (across 232 matches) is the highest among all players. The next best is Australian legend Ellyse Perry with 42 not outs (155 matches).
