From a weekend idea to live tournament scoring

The problem

Club cricket runs on whoever is willing to keep score. The reality is a paper book, a calculator, and a captain shouting across the boundary for the latest total. By the time the score reaches the bench, it's already out of date — and nobody watching at home has a clue what's happening.

CricVerse started as one scorer's frustration: there had to be a faster, calmer way to score a match and share it live, without a spreadsheet or a subscription.

Constraints

We had three hard requirements before a single screen was designed:

• Scoring can't miss a ball. Tapping a run has to be instant, even with gloves on, in the sun, one-handed.
• It works offline. Half the grounds we tested at had no signal. The score has to be correct even when the network isn't.
• Spectators sync in real time. The moment a run lands, every phone watching should update — without a refresh.

"Scoring had to feel like flicking a switch, not filling in a form. Everything else followed from that."

What we built

We designed the scoring screen around the single most common action — recording a ball — and made everything else get out of its way. Big tap targets, a running over visualised as a row of deliveries, and the match state always one glance away.

Spectators get a stripped-back live view: the score, the run rate, the equation. No clutter, no ads, no account required to watch.

The tech

A native SwiftUI app with a local-first data model: every ball is written to the device immediately, then synced when there's a connection. Spectators receive updates over a lightweight live channel, so the equation on their screen moves the instant the scorer taps. Built with SwiftUI, CloudKit, and Swift Charts.

The outcome

CricVerse shipped to the App Store and is now used to score real club matches and tournaments. Scorers get through an innings without a single dropped ball; spectators follow along from anywhere, in real time.