How to play

A thick book, a bored afternoon, and a Test match under the desk.

Book cricket needs no bat, no ball, and no permission. You open a book at random, read the page number, and the last digit tells you what happened to the ball. That's the whole game. Generations of schoolchildren across India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh ran entire tournaments this way while a maths lesson happened above the desk.

The rules

Open the book. Left page. 2, 4, 6 or 8 is runs. Ends in 0, you're out.

1. 1One side bats first. Every flip is a ball. Read the left page.
2. 2A page ending in 2, 4, 6 or 8 scores that many runs. Yes, eight off one ball. It's book cricket.
3. 3A page ending in 0 is a wicket. Next batter in.
4. 4The innings ends when the overs run out or the side is all out. Then the other side chases.

Here it's 5 overs and 5 wickets a side, which keeps a match to about two minutes and makes every wicket matter.

The other version

Some schools played it looser: Any page. The last digit is your runs, 1 to 9. Ends in 0, you're out. You can switch to it under Teams and book. It scores higher and swings harder.

Today's Match

Once a day, everyone in the world chases the same target. The side batting first flips the same pages for everybody, so your friend's target is your target. Your chase is your own. Send your result and see who got there.

Why the left page?

Open any real book. The left page is always even. That's why the rule everyone remembers only ever mentions 2, 4, 6, 8 and 0, and why a thick book with big page numbers felt luckier. It wasn't. But nobody was going to tell you that in Class 7.