Palmcricket Manual

Ending an Over

After 6 or more valid balls have been bowled in an over, Palmcricket will give a warning sound, but won't restrict the number of balls. The scorer must indicate the end of over by tapping the Over button. Then one can select a new bowler, or record a break in play.

The end of the over is triggered by tapping on the Over button (shown circled).

After triggering the end of the over, one has the option of selecting the next bowler, or recording a break in play, as shown. Normally, the bowler who bowled the over before the over just completed will be shown highlighted. If there's a change in bowling, tap on the correct player name. Select the bowler from the list by tapping the player name followed by Done. If the end of the over was followed by a break in play, tap Break to bring up the Break Window, as shown.

Palmcricket does not restrict the number of balls per over. The over can be completed after one ball or several, and this is under full control of the scorer. Most cricket matches abide by Law 22.1, which specifically defines an over as consisting of 6 balls. Palmcricket provides only a gentle reminder (a quick series of sounds) after 6 or more balls have been counted. This allows flexibility with regard to umpires miscounting, junior matches where a maximum of 3 wides are allowed, or special club rules which use 8 balls per over, say.

The only restriction is that the current over's ball-by-ball breakdown must not exceed 100 characters. This field appears on the main scoring screen just above the scoring block, and scrolls to the left as more events are added. For example, in the screen at the start of this page, the ball-by-ball breakdown is shown as 4.o.1.1.1.1. (12 characters all told, including the periods).

A series of quick musical notes are sounded after every event from valid ball 6 onwards. The sound volume is linked to the game sound volume control accessed via the PalmOs Prefs button and can be set to any of the four options: off, low, medium and high. The high setting is recommended for scoring a match while umpiring, whereas the off to medium settings are more appropriate when scoring outside the field of play.