Background: Box cricket is a shortened and high-intensity modification of conventional cricket that is commonly played in confined spaces with fewer overs, fewer wickets, and restricted opportunities for recovery after an unsuccessful delivery or shot. These characteristics may increase the importance of performance during the final overs of the second innings, when the batting team is required to score rapidly and the bowling team must restrict scoring opportunities. Pressure Index (PI) provides a quantitative approach to describing situational pressure during limited-overs cricket.

Methods: A comparative experimental study was conducted among 36 male box cricket players aged 18–26 years from Surat. Participants had at least 6 months of box cricket experience. Convenient sampling was used, and observations were obtained from box cricket matches conducted over a 6-month study period. Analysis was performed using SPSS version 22. Normality was assessed using the Shapiro–Wilk test, and an independent-samples t-test was used to compare PI between batters and bowlers.

Results: The mean PI was 36.49 ± 36.21 for batters and 29.67 ± 11.53 for bowlers. Although the mean PI was numerically higher among batters, the difference was not statistically significant (t = 0.762, df = 34, p = 0.452). The large standard deviation among batters indicated substantial variability in pressure exposure. The Shapiro–Wilk test demonstrated non-normality for the batting PI distribution (W = 0.60, p < 0.001), whereas the bowling PI distribution was approximately normal (W = 0.94, p = 0.274).

Conclusion: Both batters and bowlers experienced substantial pressure during second-innings death overs in box cricket. Although batters demonstrated a higher mean PI, the between-group difference was not statistically significant. The findings suggest that pressure during death overs should be considered a dual-demand situation involving both run-scoring and run-restriction responsibilities.