Cricket Match review: if Candy Crush Saga was made for cricket fans

App stores the world over are filled to the brim with match-3 games. Fuelled by the success of games such as Candy Crush Saga and Jelly Splash, every possible permutation and combination of the genre has found its way to a commercial release. From matching Disney characters to fruit cubes, it’s a category that keeps getting stronger.

(See: 5 reasons why Line’s Disney Tsum Tsum is going to consume your life)

Cricket Match is one such entry into the genre. As the name suggests it’s a match-3 game with cricket playing an important role in the proceedings.

And if you’re not a follower of the sport, don’t worry. This is perhaps the most jargon-free presentation of it around. Thanks to smart use of symbols and numbers, you’ll find it easy to pick up.

In Cricket Match, you’re a batsman who has to hit a stipulated number of runs to win a game. Rather than that being dependent on your reflexes, you’ll be connecting balls of the same type and color. The longer the chain of connected balls, the more runs you score. When you hit or exceed the required runs in the allotted number of turns, you proceed to the next level. Sounds simple enough? Not quite. There’s a fair bit of complexity and depth introduced as you go along. And no, that’s not a bad thing.

As you play through the 60-odd levels you’ll end up unlocking a host of power-ups. These range from coins that let you hit a six (the most runs off a single ball in cricket) to bombs that let you clear up the obstacles that make scoring runs a chore. Barring a few odd spikes in difficulty, there’s very little wrong in this game.

Progressing across the game’s many levels requires you to obtain a set number of stars. You’re awarded stars for completing puzzles in a certain manner. These include chaining a set number of balls or hitting a specified number of runs. They’re fairly set objectives that have you revisiting older levels, but you never feel like you’re grinding to progress.

Even if matching balls of the same color gets boring or predictable, watching the slick animations every time you pull off a perfect shot never gets old. From over-the-top effects that include your character guitaring with a cricket bat (complete with lightning in the backdrop) to hitting shots that mimic most modern day cricketing techniques, you’ll find yourself playing just to see what quirky new special effect the game throws at you next.

And play you will. Much like most games on mobile, there’s a stamina system. Fail five puzzles and you’ll have to wait before trying again. However the wait period before being able to play again is never too long that you feel compelled to pay.

Speaking of paying, you’ll be doing very little of it. Like seemingly every new smartphone game these days, Cricket Match is available for the lovely price of free. You can spend money on power-ups and retries but your progress is never hampered by the lack of buying them. Cricket Match is devoid of ads too. With no pesky, tough-to-close ads between every game to break your concentration, your experience is all the more enjoyable.

If you’re looking for a fun mix of match-3 and sport, you can’t go wrong with Cricket Match. The comic presentation, amusing effects, and handy power-ups make this one of the better genre mash-ups we’ve seen in awhile.