How to Play Cricket Darts - A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Popular in both Asia and North America, cricket darts is the perfect beginner darts game for everyone. Not to be confused with the UK bat and ball game, cricket is found on almost every electronic soft tip dartboard but even steel tip lovers can appreciate the beauty and thrill of cricket darts! All you need are some darts, a board, and the motivation to learn an exciting new game.

In this article, we'll teach you how to play cricket darts as well as some practice routines at the end to enhance your skills.

A-Z Darts sponsored player Cali West covers all the bases of cricket darts — including scoreboard numbers, turn marks, scoring rules, and some basic strategy concepts — in a skillfully illustrated mock game animation of two players, Jen and Will.

Let's go over each aspect of how to play cricket darts and what you'll need to know before playing the game:

The goal of cricket darts is to be the first to finish the game with the highest score when the following numbers are closed: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, and BULL - more on this later. All other areas do not earn you any points so remember to practice your accuracy to make the most out of your performance!

If you don't have one already, we have tons of cricket scoreboards available to purchase on our website. While you can absolutely draw it yourself, having a dedicated scoreboard for cricket darts will make your gaming experience more convenient and fun. You can also pick up a new set of darts while you're at it! We got plenty to pick from.

Start off your cricket darts game by having each player throw one dart at the bull to determine the play order. Whoever gets closest to the bull will play first! The process of determining who goes first in darts is commonly referred to as "corking" or "diddle for the middle". In the UK, you might hear "go for bull" or "bull off".

Long story short, it is a HUGE advantage to go first in cricket darts, so we highly recommend practicing your bullseye! Don't forget your darts etiquette: shake hands or exchange fist bumps with your fellow players before every game.

Now that you know what the objective of the game is, let's go over scoring in cricket darts. The terms mark, open, and close may sound complicated at first, but it's quite simple to learn. Once you get the hang of it, cricket darts may be your next favorite game!

Marks are one of the most important aspects of cricket darts as you cannot progress or score in the game without first understanding how they work. For each dart you throw that lands in any of the allowed sections, you'll earn a mark. The goal is to earn at least three marks in a section (20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 or BULL in any order).

The above images show the cricket darts scoring areas for each number pie (using 20 as an example) and BULL. In American soft tip and steel tip play, it's called single bull (outer ring) and double bull (inner circle), but in Europe it's called 25 and BULL.

Keep track of your marks by using the proper symbols on your cricket scoreboard. Once you or your opponent have scored three marks in a number, that section is now either open for scoring or closed to prevent scoring.

To start scoring points in cricket darts, you must open a number by earning 3 marks in that section (20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 or BULL in any order). All 3 marks do not need to occur within the same round. However, your opponent must not also have three marks in that same section in order for you to claim that number to additionally score on. Therefore, cricket darts is a back and forth race to open numbers!

Once the number is open, it becomes yours and commonly referred to as your house. In other words, any darts you throw in the open number will earn you points now. Remember, your opponent cannot score on your house (they cannot accumulate any points). All your opponent can do is 'close' your house (see below).

A common phrase you will hear in the crickets darts community is 'points win games'. You may be eager to rush the game and hit 3 marks on all the numbers, but you cannot win the game unless you also have more points than your opponent (or tied for points).

The most points you could earn in a single turn with three darts is 180 with three triple 20s. This is known as a "Ton80". Therefore, the best strategy in cricket darts is to always be the first player to open the 20 segment and point on it a decent amount. A triple 20 (worth 60 points) hit repeatedly could make the difference of a few marks compared to say the triple 19 (worth 57 points) or worse triple 15 (only worth 45 points) throughout your cricket darts game.

It only takes 1 dart to score 60 points on the 20 segment (assuming you hit the triple), but it would require at least 2 darts to score 60 points on the 15 segment (triple 15 + single 15 or double 15 + double 15). As you can see, over time you are requiring your cricket darts opponent to literally throw more darts than you to catch up if you open and point on the higher numbered houses!

Hitting three marks in an open number that does not belong to you will close that section, preventing any further scoring for the rest of the cricket darts game. This does not earn you any points, but a strategy move to prevent your opponent from getting way ahead of you on points. Players will usually make sure to point ahead of their opponent first THEN attempt to "close" their houses.

This is where the strategy comes in! Knowing when to close a number in cricket darts can be crucial to your winning strategy. Should you keep scoring in your open numbers? Or should you spend your turn trying to quickly close your opponent's numbers?

If you're looking to dive deeper into cricket darts strategy, Cali West's cricket video provides a simple explanation of basic strategy concepts while Dax Munna's blog article on Tony Payne's Thermonuclear Cricket discusses more complex cricket darts strategies.

Remember that a cricket darts game ends when one person or team have closed all of their numbers (3 marks on the 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and bull). This player or team must also have the highest score or tied with the opposing team. So if you have hit 3 marks on every number - but you have less points than your opponent - you must point on an open number of yours and can only win the game once you tie your opponent's score or best it. Whether you win or lose, make sure to finish every game with good sportsmanship just as you opened the game with a handshake or fist bump.

Fun fact: The minimum amount of darts needed to finish a game of cricket darts is 8! With each dart you must score 1 triple for each number from 15 to 20, plus 1 double bull and 1 single bull — all totaling 8 darts for a perfect game.

This is technically not a 'perfect' game of cricket darts where it would only take 8 total darts to achieve a win - in this video, Boris Krcmar from Croatia displays 12 maximum scoring darts in a row to wow us with essentially a perfect leg of Cricket darts against Tony Martin in 2017.

CRICKET DARTS MATCH PERFORMANCE PLAY BY PLAY:

Round 1: Trip 18, Trip 18, Trip 20 close behind Martin's open of five 20s. 

Round 2: Trip 18, Trip 18, Trip 19 close behind Martin's 3 in the bed on the 19s.

Round 3: Trip 17 close, Trip 16, Trip 16.

Round 4: Trip 15, Double Bull, Double Bull to win.

Boris finishes the cricket darts leg with an 8.5 marks per round average (mpr). That is as perfect as you can get winning in 12 darts. He eventually went on to win the TOC international event and claim $20,000.

A near perfect game of cricket darts by Stowe Buntz in 2023 against Jim Widmayer during the DPFL Live Event in Florda.

CRICKET DARTS MATCH PERFORMANCE PLAY BY PLAY:

Round 1: Trip 20, Trip 20, Trip 20 - otherwise known as a 'Ton 80' closing the 20s and scoring 120 points.

Round 2: Trip 19, Trip 17, Trip 15 otherwise known as a 'whitehorse'.

Round 3: Trip 18, Miss, Trip 16 - so close to perfection!

Round 4: Double Bull, Single Bull to win.

Stowe finishes the cricket darts leg with a 7.4 marks per round average (mpr). A stunning display as this is extremely difficult to achieve in steel tip darts with the segments being much smaller than a soft tip dart board.

As with any game, there's always room for improvement when it comes to playing darts. Establishing a good practice routine for cricket darts can help you improve your accuracy and grouping for smoother cricket games. If you're looking for tips to win your next cricket game, we got you covered with some of the best cricket darts practice routines:

Cricket darts is a fun, addicting game that will leave you craving more every time you walk away from the oche. We hope that this article has helped you discover your new favorite darts game! Stay tuned for more how-to blog editions of other darts games and practice routines.