Top 7 cricket score mobile apps: Comparison, features and ratings of Cricbuzz, HotStar, ESPN and others

In about a few hours, the 10th edition of the world's most popular club-based cricket tournament — the Indian Premier League (IPL) — will start at Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad. The hosts and also the defending champions, Sunrisers Hyderabad, will take on the last year's runners up, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).

IPL's match schedules are already in the public domain and it's a long season spanning two months (April 5-May 21), during which at least one match will be played a day on weekdays and two on weekends. All the matches will be played in two time slots —16:00 IST and 20:00 IST. 

Considering the T20 cricket format's uncertainty factor, wherein the dynamics of the game can change in a few minutes (or in one over), no die-hard fan would want to miss any action on the field.

Well, there is no reason to fret about that, as many handy apps promise to bring live action right into your hands via smartphones. There are several cricket apps in Google Play and Apple App stores and this creates confusion among the users about which one to install.

So to help you pick up the best of the lot, we have leafed through the platforms and come up with the top 7 cricket-specific apps that provide real time IPL scores and cool trivia on individual player's stats.

Top 7 mobile cricket apps:

BCCI (Developed by Pulse Innovation):

Salient features:

• Live ball-by-ball scores & commentary
• Video highlights & features
• Live photostream ( for live video stream, HotStar is the official broadcaster)
• Exclusive player interviews
• Real-time updated team points table

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HotStar TV (Developed by Novi Digital Entertainment Pvt Ltd):

Salient features:

• Users can directly stream all the Vivo IPL 2017 matches on their smartphones, provided you have internet data pack on
• In case you don't want to watch live match, Hotstar will also offer live cricket scores
• It also offers full match replays / highlights from any recently concluded match from any sport only on the Hotstar app.
• Besides live cricket, HotStar TV allows user to watch top TV series, including the Game of Thrones. It also shows several regional sitcoms.

Cricbuzz Cricket News (Developed by Cricbuzz.com):

Salient features:

• Live cricket score updates and ball by ball text commentary
• Match alerts via push notification service — so that you don't miss THE moment
• It also offers in-house editorial on cricket news, pre-match and post-match analysis
• Current Matches page — To help you follow all live matches in one place
• Match Timelines and Twitter Timelines on the Commentary page (Match Center)
• Users can also follow cricket in Indian Languages (Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali are currently supported) by downloading "Cricbuzz - In Indian Languages" app.

ESPNcricinfo Cricket App (Developed by ESPN Inc.):

• Gives latest related to upcoming matches, live game coverage, scores, player statistics, team/player rankings.
• Option to choose favourite team and get related update
• Option to compare player statistics and view player profile across teams
• App user can also subscribe to exclusive content from best sports writers, audio, video and more. Push notifications for instant alerts of wickets, batsman milestones, fun facts and other match-related information.

365Scores - Sports Scores Live (Developed by 365Scores)

Salient features:

• This app enables user to choose his/her teams and leagues to create their own custom sport channel to get notifications of live scores, team standings, news, tweets and highlights all in one place.
• News articles on players and team videos on favourite league team
• News sports messenger enables to chat and share views with his/her contacts
• Users can also follow for other sports like NFL, Super Bowl, NBA, Wimbledon, Champions leagues, Bundesliga, (supports 10 different sports), etc.

NDTV Cricket (Developed by NDTV Official Apps):

Salient features:

• Live coverage of Vivo IPL 2017 and also other domestic as well as international (Test, ODI & T20) games with photos and reports
• It also claims to offer fastest live score updates via push technology with ball-by-ball commentary

Sportskeeda Hindi (Developed by Sportskeeda Apps)

Salient features:

• Ball by ball commentary in Hindi
• Cricket News, articles, features
• Humour content, interviews
• Fixtures, result, match calendar

Mobile system requirements, application compatibility and rating details:

*Ratings are subject to change with time and number of users.