How to play Cricket in darts
Close 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull by hitting each of them three times, then score on the ones your opponents have not closed yet. You win the moment you have closed all seven AND your points are equal to or higher than every opponent's. Points on their own never win — if you close out while behind, you keep throwing.
Also played as American Cricket.
Chuck Darts scores this game to exactly the rules on this page, and keeps the card open mid-match so anybody at the board can check one. A full leg of 501, a board of Cricket and six practice drills are playable right now with no account at all.
THE BOARD
Only seven beds are in play: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull. Every other number is dead. A triple 7 marks nothing and scores nothing; the app records the dart and moves on.
MARKS
A number closes at three marks. A single is 1 mark, a double 2, a triple 3 — so a triple closes a number in one dart. On the bull, the outer ring is 1 mark and the inner (double) bull is 2. There is no triple bull and the app will not let you enter one.
POINTS
Once you are on three marks, every extra mark on that number scores its face value: a single 19 on a closed 19 is 19, a triple 20 on a closed 20 is 60. The bull scores 25 per mark, so an inner bull on a closed bull is 50. Overflow inside one dart counts — sitting on two marks, a triple 20 gives you the third mark and two spare marks, so 40 points. You only score while at least one opponent still has that number open. With three or more players, one opponent closing does not stop you: you keep scoring until they have all closed it. Once every player has closed a number it is dead for the rest of the game — it goes gray on the board and nobody can score on it again. Playing solo, nobody has anything open, so no dart can ever score. Solo cricket is a closing race.
WINNING
You win when both are true at the end of your own turn: every number closed, and your points equal to or higher than every opponent's. A tie on points goes to whoever got there first — closing out level is a win, not a draw. If you close everything while behind, nothing stops you: keep hitting the numbers your opponents still have open until you are level. The app checks the win at the end of the turn that completes it, and the first player to satisfy it is the winner for good. Nothing ends the game automatically — the app tells the host "Game over" and the host presses End Game.
ROUND LIMIT
The host can cap the game at a set number of rounds when creating it — a round is one turn for every player still in the game — and with the Round limit left off, nothing on this card changes. With a limit set, the app takes no turn after the last capped round. Close out inside the limit and you win exactly as above. If nobody has by then, the points decide it — the one time this game is won on points alone: the most points wins, counting only the players still at the board, and level points is a draw that records no winner. A turn that could not be read dart by dart keeps the points from deciding it, and then no winner is recorded either. It is the format the soft-tip bar machines use.
ENTERING SCORES
Cricket is scored dart by dart, because a turn total cannot say which numbers were marked. Enter each dart; a bare total is refused. One, two or three darts per turn is fine — enter what you actually threw, and use Miss for the ones that went nowhere. The app works out what the turn is worth from your darts. If the total it is sent disagrees with the darts it is sent, it refuses the turn rather than guess. In a game of two or more, only the player whose turn it is can enter a score.
CORRECTIONS
Correcting a turn replays the whole board from the start, so every point and every mark after it is recomputed. Correcting a turn to zero is stored as a miss, which keeps the marks record honest. Undo is a different door: it removes the last turn completely and replays without it, so the turn goes back to unthrown. A turn the clock forfeited is the clock's own record: neither you nor the host can undo it or correct it afterwards. Once the marks have decided a winner, a correction typed as a bare total is refused — re-enter that turn dart by dart instead. Before a winner exists, correct with the darts too: a bare-total correction erases that turn's marks, and once any turn has no darts the app stops naming a winner for the rest of the game.
THE CLOCK
A turn clock only auto-forfeits in ranked online games. When it runs out, the turn is recorded as three misses — no marks, no points — and play moves on. In a local game nothing forfeits; the host fixes it by hand.
LEAVING THE GAME
If someone has to go, the host — or that player themselves — can take their seat out of a live game, as long as two players are left at the board: the app refuses a removal that would leave one player throwing alone, so a two-handed game has to be ended instead. Everything they already threw stands: their marks stay marked and their points stay scored. The app keeps their seat in the running order so the turn order holds for everyone else, but nothing more is added to their card, and they are placed after everyone who finished. It cannot be undone, and Rematch will not bring them back: it carries only the seats that were still in, so start the next game and add them to it yourself.
PLAYERS
Two to four is the intended game and what the scoreboard is drawn for. Each setup screen holds you to four, and a fifth player trying to JOIN a cricket game is refused by the server — as is a fifth seat asked for when the game is created. Throwing order is the order players were added, host first. If the host ends the game before anyone has legally won, no winner is recorded — cricket never awards the game on points alone. The finishing order shown is by points only, and does not mean anyone won.
HOUSE RULES THIS APP DOES NOT PLAY
There is no governing body for cricket, and no game here has more versions — the American ones differ from each other as well as from this one. Chuck Darts plays the version above (20 down to 15 and the bull, three marks to close, any ring marks), and ships five more as games of their own: Cut-Throat, No-Score, Mickey Mouse on 20 down to 12 plus an Any double and an Any triple row, Tactics on 20 down to 10 — Tactics is the one to pick if you came looking for cricket on 10-20 and the bull — and Random Cricket, which deals six numbers from 1 to 20 and the bull at the start of every game. If it is the doubles and triples rows you came for, that is Mickey Mouse and it is one tap away. Versions you may have played elsewhere and will NOT find here: Minnesota Cricket, also called Minnesota Mickey Mouse, Mouse, Minnesota Moose or Moose — the standard 20 down to 15 board plus three more rows, any double, any triple, and three-in-a-bed, meaning all three darts of a turn in the same place; and Super Cricket, which some houses call Full Board and which nothing publishes a ruleset for at all. Wild Mouse is asked for by name too, and nothing published defines it — the nearest published game is Minnesota Cricket, and the nearest one this app actually scores is Mickey Mouse. Three-in-a-bed is the row this app cannot yet score: the source that publishes it gives four different readings of what counts as a bed, and getting it wrong would decide games. Also not here: choosing the numbers yourself, which Random Cricket does for you but does not let you do by hand, and having to close them in numerical order. If your venue plays one of those, agree it out loud before the first dart — the app will still score the version above.