Quick cricket matches in a colourful gali: pastel houses with water tanks on the roofs, a washing line, a chai stall, an uncle on his charpai and two kids on the side who go wild for a six. Two overs a side, a ninety-second clock each innings, and about three minutes a match.
Batting, tap the street or press Space the moment the ball reaches the glowing ring in front of you: perfect timing sends it for four or six, and a mistimed swing can be caught. Bowling, an arrow slides along the length bar and you tap to stop it: green, a good length, is your best chance of a wicket, and pink is a wide.
Take on a neighbour, or team up with a friend against two of them: when your teammate bats or bowls, you watch and cheer from the wall. Every match pays rupees for playing, winning, runs and wickets, and the gali shop turns them into better bats and balls, outfits and caps, and decorations for the street. A goat, a motorcycle, a car or the chai seller may wander through, and sometimes the ball ends up on a roof.
Play it now, free, in your browser
No ads. Not a banner, not a pop-up, not a “watch a video to carry on”. The rupees are earned on the street and spent in the gali shop; there is nothing to buy with real money. No download, no account, nothing to install, and once you have opened it once with a connection it plays with no connection at all — on a plane, in a lift, anywhere with no signal.
It runs in any modern browser on a phone, a tablet or a desktop, and on a wide screen the gali carries on either side of the pitch. On a keyboard, Space swings the bat and bowls the ball.
Questions, ideas, or something not working? Write to fawaz_ahmed@live.com.
You do not jump — you swerve. One tap sends your rickshaw into the other lane: slip through the traffic and pick up fares from the kerb.
Whip the cloth out from under a table of the good china and keep everything standing, while the table fills up toward the edge.