Virtual Nets: face an over from our T20 cricket game

The full game is still in development, but you don't have to wait to pick up a bat. Virtual Nets is a short batting session on our home page that lets you face an over from our T20 cricket game in your browser. You can take strike right now. This post explains what it does and how it works.

What Virtual Nets is

Virtual Nets is a single over at the crease. You stand at the batter's end of a floodlit ground and the ball comes at you from the bowler's end. It pitches, grows as it gets closer, and arrives at the bat. Your job is to time your shot.

It works with a tap on a phone or tablet, or a click or the Space bar on a computer. There's nothing to install and no account to make.

How timing works

Everything in Virtual Nets comes down to one question: did you swing as the ball reached the bat?

• Perfect timing clears the rope for six.
• Just off is still good enough for four.
• A little further off gets you two runs, then a single.
• Too early or too late and you miss it. That's a dot ball.

Here's the catch. If a ball is heading for the stumps and you're late, or you leave it alone, you're bowled. If it's drifting outside the line and you leave it, that's fine: it's "left alone" and nobody gets hurt. Most deliveries are aimed at the stumps, so leaving the ball is a real decision, not a safe default.

You can't cheat by swinging early, either. While the ball is still in the bowler's hand, taps don't count.

Three kinds of bowler

Each delivery is pace, medium or spin, chosen at random. They don't arrive at the same speed. Pace is on you quickest and gives you the least time to react. Spin is slower, which sounds easier until you realise you have to wait for it. Medium sits in between. Because you don't know which one is coming, you have to watch every ball from release.

Your over

An over is six balls, but it can end early: lose two wickets and you're done. The scoreboard in the corner shows your runs and wickets, with a dot for every ball you face, so you can see the shape of your over as it happens.

When it ends, you get your total and the option to face another over. Your best score is kept in your own browser so you have something to beat next time. It isn't sent to us and it isn't on a leaderboard.

One over, one bat, one rule: meet the ball when it arrives.

How it previews the full T20 cricket game

Virtual Nets is built around the same idea as batting in NPL Cricket League: a timing window as the ball reaches the bat. Get it right and you find the middle; get it wrong and you find the edge, the air or the stumps.

The full game adds a lot more, and that's the part we're still building:

• Line and length to read. Every delivery will have a line and a length, and the bowler's marker will show you where it's heading a moment before it pitches.
• Shot direction by swipe. You'll swipe where you want the ball to go, and how far you swipe will set how hard you hit it.
• Footwork. Getting forward or back to the right ball will widen your timing window; the wrong foot will shrink it.
• Running between the wickets. Calls for yes, no and wait, with run-outs on the line.

So think of Virtual Nets as the nets before a match: a place to get your eye in. The full game is in development for iOS and Android, and we'll share more as it comes together.

NPL Cricket League is a game by Lacspace inspired by Nepal's T20 franchise cricket. Team names identify the franchises; crests, kits and players in the game are our own, and players are fictional. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by the Cricket Association of Nepal, the Nepal Premier League or its franchises.