Best Cricket Video Games Ever Made: Ranked and Reviewed

Cricket games spent most of the 2000s stuck in neglect. EA dropped the license after 2007, and for the better part of a decade the only options were mobile knockoffs and an aging PC classic kept alive by modders. Big Ant Studios changed that when it picked up the license, and the gap between “playable” and “actually good” has closed fast since.

The modern era: Big Ant Studios

Big Ant took over as the main developer in the 2010s and has shipped a run of titles that steadily improved on each other:

Game	Platform	Highlights
Cricket 24	PS4/5, Xbox, PC	The most complete edition yet, with better animations and a deeper career mode
Cricket 22	PS4/5, Xbox, PC, Switch	Strong domestic licensing; the Ashes were included at launch
Ashes Cricket (2017)	PS4, Xbox, PC	A shaky launch but a solid reboot once patched; batting mechanics held up
Don Bradman Cricket 17	PS4, Xbox, PC	A career mode deep enough that hardcore fans still rate it highly
Don Bradman Cricket 14	PS3, Xbox 360, PC	The release that proved cricket games could be good again

The EA era: classics that defined a generation

Before Big Ant, EA Sports made the games most cricket fans grew up on.

Game	Year	Why it’s remembered
EA Cricket 07	2007	Still played today thanks to its modding scene, which patched in new teams and kits for years after EA moved on
EA Cricket 2005	2005	Solid gameplay backed by a strong commentary team
EA Cricket 2004	2004	Introduced career mode and built a following across South Asia
Brian Lara Cricket 99	1999	The PS1-era standard; dated now but genuinely good for its time

Best mobile cricket games

Mobile cricket has grown into its own category rather than a stopgap between console releases.

• Real Cricket (Nautilus Mobile): realistic mechanics, multiple formats, and frequent updates that keep rosters current
• World Cricket Championship (WCC): especially popular in South Asia, with career and tournament modes that go deeper than most mobile sports titles
• Cricket Captain series: a text-based management sim for people who want tactics over graphics

What makes a great cricket game?

• Batting feel: timing mechanics that reward skill without punishing small mistakes
• Bowling variety: pace, swing, and spin that actually change how a batter has to respond
• Licensing: real teams, players, and tournaments instead of generic stand-ins
• Career mode: something to build toward beyond a single quick match
• Replayability: AI and pitch conditions varied enough that matches don’t blur together

Upcoming and recent releases

Big Ant has signaled it plans to keep investing in the franchise, and licensing deals with Cricket Australia and the ECB have made recent entries more authentic than anything from the EA years. The ICC’s broader licensing situation is still messy, which is part of why no single game has ever managed to secure every major board at once.