Organisers

Playing Eleven and Batting Order Randomiser

A fair random selection and batting order, for tape ball, corporate and social cricket.

Free, no account neededCaptainsSocial cricket organisers

Add everyone available. A seed makes the draw reproducible, which matters if it has to be auditable.

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Leave at 0 for a fresh random draw.

Enter the figures to see the answer.

Beyond the calculator

Run the whole competition in Crickslab. Fixtures, grounds, officials and the table all sit in one place and update themselves.

  • Fixtures and standings generated for you
  • Grounds, slots and officials in one calendar
  • Every stat from every match, kept for good
Request a demoExplore the ecosystem

How the number is worked out

The formula

A Fisher Yates shuffle of the available players, then take the first n
Fisher Yates
A shuffle where every possible order is equally likely.
seed
An optional number that makes the draw reproducible. The same players and the same seed always give the same order.

What it does

Thirteen players turn up for a social match and eleven are needed.

  1. 1Shuffleevery one of the thirteen has an equal chance of any position
  2. 2Selectthe first eleven make the side
  3. 3Ordertheir shuffled positions become the batting order
  4. 4Reservesthe remaining two are listed as reserves

An unarguably fair selection, which is the whole point when nobody wants to be the one leaving somebody out.

Rules and edge cases

The situations that change the answer, and the ones most calculators get wrong.

1

Use a seed if the draw has to be auditable

Without one the shuffle is fresh each time and cannot be reproduced. With a seed, the same players and the same number always give the same order, so you can show afterwards that the draw was not run repeatedly until it came out a particular way.

2

This is for social cricket, not for selection

Any competitive side should be picked as a decision. A randomiser is for tape ball, corporate days and festival cricket, where the point is that nobody has to justify the order.

3

Random batting orders produce odd sides

A shuffled order will sometimes put your best batter at eleven. That is what random means. If you want the fairness without the absurdity, randomise the selection and set the order yourself.

4

Every order is equally likely

The shuffle used here gives each arrangement the same probability, which is not true of casual approaches like sorting by a random number per player where ties can bias the result.

Frequently asked questions

It shuffles everyone available so that every possible order is equally likely, then takes the first eleven. Their positions become the batting order.

For social and corporate cricket

Run the whole day, not just the draw

Crickslab handles the fixtures, the scoring and the live scorecard for social cricket as readily as for a league, so a corporate day looks like a proper competition.

See match scoring

Last reviewed 17 August 2026. Playing conditions change, so if your competition uses a different rule, its regulations take precedence over anything here.