Howzat Online Cricket Game: What the Word Means and What You Get

Search for a howzat online cricket game and three completely different things come back wearing the same word. One is a fantasy app. One is a timing minigame from the Flash era, re-uploaded to a hundred portal sites. One is an actual cricket match against another human being. The word on its own tells you nothing about which you are getting, so it is worth knowing what howzat means in the sport before you decide what you want from the game.

The short answer

Howzat is the compressed form of "How's that?", the shout a fielding side aims at the umpire to claim a wicket. Under the Laws of Cricket an umpire will not give a batter out unless the fielding side appeals, even when the batter is plainly out. Online, the word has been borrowed by fantasy apps, single-player browser toys and live multiplayer games alike, so it marks the theme rather than the product. On Howzat Live it means a free 3D match in your browser where one real person bats and another bowls, with nothing to download.

What the appeal really is

Most people who search for cricket games have shouted howzat in a street or a school ground without ever reading the law behind it. The law is stranger than the shout suggests.

The umpire has to be asked

The umpire is not there to spot dismissals on your behalf. Under Law 31 of the Laws of Cricket, the batter is not given out unless the fielding side appeals, which means a side can genuinely bowl a batter's edge into the keeper's gloves, say nothing, and watch the batter carry on. In practice it almost never happens in a serious match, because eleven people appeal by reflex. But the law is what makes the appeal a real act rather than theatre.

One shout covers everything

An appeal is not specific. If you scream for a caught behind and the replay shows the ball would have hit leg stump, the umpire can still give it out leg before, because the appeal covers every mode of dismissal at once, not only the one you had in mind. You are asking a general question: is he out, by any means available.

There is also a clock on it. An appeal has to come before the bowler starts the run-up for the next delivery, or before the umpire calls time at the end of a session. Appeal late and the moment is gone.

The ten answers to the question

The current Laws recognise ten ways a batter can be dismissed:

• Bowled
• Caught
• Leg before wicket
• Run out
• Stumped
• Hit wicket
• Obstructing the field
• Hit the ball twice
• Timed out
• Retired out

Handled the ball used to be an eleventh. It was folded into obstructing the field in the 2017 code, which is why older cricket books and older cricket games still list eleven. Any game claiming a full set of dismissals is describing this list, and most browser cricket games implement four of them at best.

The three things sold as a howzat online cricket game

Sorting the search results is easier once you know the categories:

1. Fantasy and cash apps. You pick real players from real fixtures and score points from live matches. No ball is bowled by you. These are not cricket games in the playing sense at all, and several of them involve money, which is a different hobby.
2. Single-player timing games. A ball comes down a fixed track, you press at the right moment, the computer bowls forever and you only ever bat. Cheap to build, which is why there are hundreds of them and why they get re-hosted under any cricket word that has traffic, howzat included.
3. Live multiplayer matches. Two real people, one batting and one bowling, watching the same delivery at the same time. This is the smallest category by a long way, because it needs matchmaking and real-time networking rather than a single loop.

The third one is what Howzat Live is. If you want the longer version of that sorting exercise, there is a five-point checklist on the blog for telling a real match from a timing game before you commit to playing it.

What happens to the appeal when there is no umpire

Here is the part that no page ranking for this phrase seems to cover. In a video game, the appeal is the first thing to die.

A software umpire already knows. The engine has the ball's exact path, the exact contact, the exact position of every fielder, to a precision no human standing twenty-two yards away can match. There is nothing to ask it. The moment the ball hits the pad, the answer exists. So the shout, the single most recognisable sound in cricket, has no job left to do.

What that costs you is the argument. In real cricket the appeal is a negotiation between three parties who each want a different answer, and the tension of a close leg before decision is mostly social. In a browser match that tension has to move somewhere else, and where it moves is the chat. Bowl a slower ball, take a top edge, and the thing that carries the moment is a real person typing at you from another city. The in-match chat is not a garnish on a howzat online cricket game. It is where the human half of the sport now lives.

The Test format handles it differently again. There the review system with ball-tracking is part of the game, so a decision can be challenged the way it is in the professional sport, and the appeal keeps some of its old weight.

How a live match plays

The basic shape is simple. You create a free account, pick a format, and either take a quick match against whoever is waiting or send a private link to a friend so the two of you land in the same match.

• Formats: 5, 10 or 20 overs. Five is roughly a lunch break. Twenty is a proper evening.
• Conditions: day or night, which changes what you can see and how the ball behaves off the bat.
• Roles: one of you bats and one bowls, then you swap. Both of you are picking something every ball, which is the whole point.
• Cost: free. No download, no install, no payment. It runs in the browser tab you already have open.

When nobody is around

You can play the computer at three difficulties: Gully bot, Club bot and Academy bot. Those results are rated at half weight, are capped at a few per day, and cannot carry you past Scale 3, which is the Club level. Everything above that has to be earned against real opponents. The bots exist so you can warm up at three in the morning, not so you can farm a rating.

The Scale

After five rated matches you get a Scale badge from 0 to 10. Beating stronger opponents moves you up faster than beating weaker ones, and playing the same person repeatedly is damped, so a rating built on one obliging friend does not go far. You can see where everyone sits on the leaderboard.

Where to start

If you came here from a search for a howzat online cricket game, the fastest way to find out which category you actually wanted is to play one match. Take the 5-over format, pick night conditions, and bowl first. Six deliveries against a real person will tell you more about whether you want live cricket or a timing game than any list of features will.

And if you find something broken, or you want a format that does not exist yet, contact us. The game is small enough that requests still get read.