How to play Cricket in darts: rules, marks, closing and scoring explained

In Cricket, only seven targets count: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bullseye. You close a number by hitting it three times (a single is one mark, a double two, a treble three), and once you have closed a number you score points on it until every opponent also closes it. You win when you have closed all seven targets and your points total is equal to or higher than every opponent.

Cricket confuses new players for one reason: closing numbers and scoring points happen in parallel, and most explanations bury that under a wall of words. This guide gives you the clean version first, then walks one real rack turn by turn so you can see exactly when a hit closes a number, when it scores, and when it does nothing at all. Cricket is the second most popular darts game after 501, and it rewards thinking, not just big scoring, which is part of why pub players love it and arguments about who is winning are so common.

The targets: which numbers are in play

Forget the rest of the board. In standard Cricket the only targets that do anything are:

• 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 (the six highest numbers)
• The bullseye (outer bull and inner bull both count)

That is seven targets in total. A dart in the 14, the 7, the 3 or anywhere else is dead: it does not close anything and it does not score. This is the rule set published by the American Darts Organization and used across most steel-tip Cricket play. The whole game is a fight over those seven targets and nothing else.

What a "mark" is

A mark is a single hit on a scoring number. How many marks you get depends on which part of the segment you hit:

So one dart in the treble 20 gives you three marks on the 20 at once, which closes it in a single dart. Three separate single 20s also give three marks. A double 20 gives two marks, leaving you one short. Marks are the unit of progress in Cricket: everything (closing and scoring) is counted in them.

Closing a number: three marks

You close a number when you have three marks on it. Those three marks can arrive any way:

• Three singles across one or more turns
• A single plus a double
• One treble (three marks in a single dart)

On a paper or chalk scoreboard, closing is tracked with a slash, then an X, then a circled X next to each number. One mark is /, two marks is X, and three marks (closed) is a circled X. Once a number is closed for you, it stays closed: you never have to hit it again to keep it. What you do next with that number is where the points come in.

Scoring points: the part that confuses everyone

Here is the rule that runs in parallel with closing, and the one most explanations fumble:

You score points on a number only when you have closed it and at least one opponent has not.

Once you have your three marks on, say, the 20, every additional mark you hit on the 20 adds 20 points to your score, as long as an opponent still has the 20 open. A fourth mark on the 20 is 20 points. A treble 20 after you have closed it is 60 points in one dart. You keep piling points onto your open-for-you, open-for-them numbers until they close it too.

The instant every opponent also closes that number, it goes dead: nobody can score on it any more, and any future darts there do nothing. That is the entire tension of Cricket: close a number, then milk it for points before your opponents shut it down. The bull works exactly the same way (outer bull scores 25, inner bull 50 once you have closed the bull and an opponent has not).

How you win

The winning condition has two parts, and you need both:

1. You have closed all seven targets (20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull), and
2. Your points total is equal to or greater than every opponent.

This is the trap. If you race to close every number but you are behind on points, you have not won. You must keep scoring on whichever numbers you still have open (numbers an opponent has not yet closed) until your points catch up, or you must close your opponents out so they can never overtake you. A player who closes everything first while trailing on points has simply run out of numbers to score on, which is a bad place to be. Tied on points with all numbers closed counts as a win for the player who closed last, so getting ahead on points before you finish closing matters.

A worked example: one rack, turn by turn

Two players, Alex and Sam. Three darts per turn. We will follow the 20 and 19 so you can see closing and scoring interleave.

Turn 1: Alex

Alex throws treble 20, single 20, single 19. The treble 20 is three marks, which closes the 20. The single 20 is a fourth mark, but Sam has not closed the 20 yet, so it scores 20 points. The single 19 is one mark on the 19 (not closed). Alex: 20 closed, 19 on one mark, 20 points.

Turn 1: Sam

Sam throws single 19, single 19, single 18. Two of those marks land on the 19, giving Sam two marks on 19 (combined with nobody else this just tracks toward closing). The 18 gets one mark. Sam scores nothing yet, because Sam has closed nothing. Sam: 19 on two marks, 18 on one mark, 0 points.

Turn 2: Alex

Alex throws treble 20, single 19, single 15. The treble 20 is three more marks on a number Alex has already closed, and Sam still has the 20 open, so that is 60 points. The single 19 takes Alex to two marks on the 19. The single 15 is one mark on the 15. Alex: 20 closed, 19 on two marks, 15 on one mark, 80 points total.

Turn 2: Sam

Sam throws single 19, single 20, single 20. The single 19 is Sam's third mark on the 19, which closes the 19 for Sam. Now both players have the 19 open against each other on points only when one has closed and the other has not, so Sam can score on it next time. The two single 20s are marks toward closing the 20, but Sam still only has two marks there, so the 20 is not closed and those darts score nothing. Sam: 19 closed, 20 on two marks, 18 on one mark, 0 points.

Where the rack stands

Alex leads 80 to 0 on points, has the 20 closed and is two-thirds of the way to closing the 19. Sam has closed the 19 and is one mark from closing the 20. From here, Alex wants to close the 19 fast (to stop Sam scoring on it) and keep hammering the 20 for points until Sam finally closes it. This back-and-forth, who has closed what, who can still score, who is actually ahead, is the whole game, and it is exactly the bookkeeping the app handles so two players are not squinting at a chalkboard mid-argument.

Common Cricket variations

The core rules above are standard Cricket. You will run into a few common house variants:

• Cut-throat Cricket: points work in reverse. When you score on an open number, the points are added to your opponents' totals instead of your own, and the player with the lowest score (with all numbers closed) wins. It turns the game into avoiding points rather than collecting them.
• No-score / "closing only" Cricket: points are ignored entirely and the first to close all seven targets wins. Faster, but it loses the strategic tension.
• Wins and points: the most common league scoring, exactly as described in this guide, closing plus a points race.

Unless someone says otherwise, "Cricket" means the standard wins-and-points game. Governing bodies including the Darts Regulation Authority and the World Darts Federation focus their published rules on 501 and X01 for professional play, while the detailed Cricket rule set is laid out by organisations like the ADO; the standard game is consistent across pubs, leagues and apps.

Strategy: rush points or close numbers first?

The single most useful piece of Cricket strategy: open on the 20, build a points lead, then work down. Here is why. The 20 is worth the most per mark, so the player who closes it first and keeps an opponent open on it can bank points fast (a treble 20 is 60 points a dart). If you instead rush to close every number without scoring, you arrive at "all closed" tied or behind, and that is not a win.

A reliable order of operations for standard Cricket:

1. Close the 20 and 19 early and score on them while your opponent is still working on those numbers.
2. Bank a points cushion on the high numbers before they go dead.
3. Then work down through 18, 17, 16, 15 and the bull to finish your closes.
4. Close out an opponent's open number if they are using it to score on you, to kill their points engine.

The flip side is defensive: if your opponent has closed the 20 and you have not, every visit they get a clean shot at the treble 20 is points against you. Closing your own 20 quickly is as much about stopping their scoring as starting yours. Because the app shows live who is open where and who leads on points, you can see at a glance whether to keep scoring or switch to closing an opponent out, instead of doing the math between throws.