Cricket League

Two overs. That is the whole match — and it turns out to be enough. Cricket League squeezes a full bat-and-ball contest into about the time a kettle takes to boil: two overs a side, played live against another person somewhere in the world, all in 3D. Win, and you climb. Lose, and the rematch is thirty seconds away.

You bat and bowl in every match. Batting is a timing game — read the ball, pick your shot and swing. Bowling hands you the tricks of the trade, from in-swingers and out-swingers to the doosra and the sling action. The controls take less than a minute to learn, which is very much the point: the skill sits in reading your opponent, not in memorising buttons.

Winning earns coins, and coins build the team. There are more than 25 characters to collect, players level up and open up new ways to play, and different types of ball can be bought to tilt the odds your way. The fixture list travels, too: Mumbai, Karachi, Adelaide, Dubai, Johannesburg, Dhaka, Melbourne and London all host matches, fresh locations unlock as you win, and the league structure stacks opponents into a ladder.

A match runs three to five minutes, and Miniclip built the game to stay smooth even on slow 2G and 3G connections, so it fits into queues and commutes. It is free to play, with optional in-game purchases that include random items. If you like your cricket in highlights form rather than five-day form, this is exactly that.