Pitchside: live scoring, player development and league management for grassroots cricket
A network of cricket academies ran leagues on paper scorecards and WhatsApp, and parents had no view of their child's progress. We built Pitchside: ball-by-ball live scoring that works offline, player profiles with career stats, coach assessments, league fixtures and a parent app — 24 features for the part of cricket that never makes it to television.
Scorebooks, WhatsApp and missing stats
Pitchside's founder ran a group of cricket academies across the city and organised junior leagues every season. Matches were scored in paper scorebooks, results were posted in WhatsApp groups, and a talented fourteen-year-old's entire record lived in a stack of books that nobody could search.
Parents wanted to know how their children were progressing. Coaches wanted to track players across seasons. Selectors for district trials wanted stats the academies simply could not produce.
“Every kid who plays here has a story in numbers. We were throwing it away every season.”
Scoring at the boundary
We spent match days with the academies' scorers — usually a coach or a volunteer parent — at grounds with poor signal and bright sun. Scoring had to be fast, forgiving of mistakes and readable in direct sunlight. It also had to work offline and sync when the scorer got signal, because many grounds had none.
Coaches also showed us their notebooks: technique ratings, fitness scores, notes on attitude. That became the player development module.
One tap per ball
The scorer app records a ball with one tap in most cases and two for extras or wickets. Undo is always one tap away. High-contrast colours and large buttons keep it readable in sunlight. Scores sync in the background and appear on public live-score pages that parents share with family.
Every ball feeds player career stats automatically, so the stack of scorebooks became a searchable history for every player.
The team
A compact team with a data engineer to build the statistics engine.
Academy workshops and season launch.
Scorer app, player profiles and live pages.
Scorer app and player/parent app.
Academy and league console, live score pages.
Statistics engine and career records.
6 people in total, working as one team.
Decisions we made
Agreed with the founder and head coaches before the season.
Online or offline-first scoring?
- Live connection required
- Offline-first with background sync
Our call: Offline-first with background sync. Many grounds had no signal. Offline-first meant no match was ever lost.
Import old scorebooks?
- Start fresh
- Digitise key past seasons
Our call: Digitise key past seasons. Selected past seasons were digitised so senior players had meaningful career records from launch.
Public or private scores?
- Private to academies
- Public live pages with privacy controls for minors
Our call: Public live pages with privacy controls for minors. Public pages drove adoption among families; player pages show only first names and stats for minors unless parents opt in.
Generic sports platform or cricket-specific?
- Multi-sport platform
- Cricket-specific data model
Our call: Cricket-specific data model. Cricket's scoring and statistics are uniquely detailed. A dedicated model made stats accurate and scoring fast.
The 24 features
Everything that shipped for scorers, players, parents, coaches and league organisers.
- 01Ball-by-ball scoring
Runs, extras and wickets in one or two taps.
- 02Offline scoring
Score without signal; sync later.
- 03One-tap undo
Correct mistakes instantly.
- 04Sunlight-readable design
High-contrast, large controls.
- 05Public live pages
Shareable live scorecards for families.
- 06Player profiles
Batting, bowling and fielding records.
- 07Career statistics
Stats calculated automatically from every ball.
- 08Performance charts
Form and progress across seasons.
- 09Achievements
Milestones like first fifty or five-wicket haul.
- 10Coach assessments
Technique, fitness and attitude ratings.
- 11Training attendance
Session attendance by player.
- 12Development notes
Coach notes shared with parents.
- 13Selection reports
Stats packs for trials and selectors.
- 14Fixture scheduling
Fixtures by ground, date and age group.
- 15Automatic standings
Points tables and net run rate from live scores.
- 16Team and squad management
Squads, registrations and eligibility.
- 17Academy fees
Fee collection and receipts.
- 18Parent app
Schedules, scores, stats and coach notes.
- 19Leaderboards
Top performers by league and season.
- 20Role-based access
Organisers, coaches, scorers, players and parents.
- 21Ground and umpire allocation
Grounds and umpires assigned to fixtures.
- 22Player registration
Online registration with age verification.
- 23Match reports
Printable scorecards and match summaries.
- 24Privacy controls for minors
Parents choose what is public.
Launching with the season
We launched at the start of the junior season, training scorers at each academy in a short session. The public live-score pages spread quickly as parents shared them with relatives, and by the end of the season every player had a complete record.
- Weeks 1–2Discovery
Match days with scorers; coach notebooks reviewed.
- Weeks 3–4Design
Scorer app tested on grounds in sunlight.
- Weeks 5–12Build
Scoring, stats engine, apps and console.
- Weeks 13–14Digitisation
Key past seasons digitised.
- Weeks 15–16Season launch
Scorers trained at every academy.
What we learned
Design for the harshest conditions first: sun, no signal and a volunteer scorer.
Data creates value later. The career stats that parents and selectors valued most were a by-product of making scoring easy.
- Flutter
- Next.js
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- Offline-first scoring with sync
- Real-time score updates
- AWS Mumbai
