Down the Ground - Free Hit: A Whole T20 in Five Minutes
22 June 2026
Cricket, fast
I have wanted a quick cricket game on the table for a while. Not a half-evening epic with a calculator going. Something you can set up, play and finish before the kettle has boiled twice. So I built Free Hit.
It is T20 and The Hundred in one box, both running on the Down the Ground engine. A whole match, two innings and a chase, takes about five minutes.
How it plays
Rate each side once. Roll the pitch. Then you roll three dice and read a chart, segment by segment, while the score builds. The powerplay, the middle and the death each behave differently, and there is no arithmetic once the toss is done.
The wicket die keeps the new ball and the slog honest. The dew rule turns a night chase into a gamble. And there are eight narrative tables for the colour, from the catch on the rope to the team news before the toss.
What is in the pack
- The rulebook, both format charts, the lot
- Two tournament trackers, the 2026 T20 World Cup and the T20 Blast, all sides rated and the groups laid out, ready to play right through
- A scoresheet for both formats
- Starter sides: a fictional league, all eighteen Blast counties, and the 2026 and 2024 World Cup fields
- A Match Player app that rolls and tallies for you, leagues and teams and all
If you already own Down the Ground, you know how to play this. If you do not, it is all in the book.
Have a go
The Hundred and the Blast are both on this summer, so there has never been a better time to roll your own county season or take a crack at the World Cup. Grab it, play a match, and tell me how your final went.