.1.1 Cricket (1-Ball cricket)
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Point One Point One Cricket or .1.1 Cricket (also called derogatorily as POPO Cricket and Pappu Cricket) is a form of cricket, originally introduced in Jhumri Tilaiya for a professional inter-club competition by the New Jharkhand Board of Control of Cricket in 2027.

Point One Point One Cricket involves two teams where each has only one ball to bowl in an entire innings. One ball is 0.1 overs and hence the name .1.1 Cricket.

1 History

1.1 Origins

.1.1 Cricket resulted as a successive natural shortening of the game from the five-day Test format. After One Day Internationals, Twenty20s gained popularity. Then came the age of T10s, F5s and ultimately One1s, where each team bowls only one over in an innings.

But the spectators wanted something more exciting than the One1s, something shorter and more instant. That’s how .1.1 Cricket was born.

In the historic Jhumri Tilaiya match, when there was rain-interruption after the bowling of just one ball in a One1 match, the organizers decided that the opposition too would bowl just one ball for a result. The positive response of the spectators followed by the popularity of the .1.1 Premier League led to international .1.1s.

1.2 The .1.1 Cricket World Cup

64 countries participate in the .1.1 Cricket World Cup that takes place every year during the weekend around April 24, the birthday of God and Grand Master, Nobel Laureate and Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar, who holds all the batting records of the largest formats of the game (the now extinct Tests and ODIs).

Matches begin early Saturday morning when the first round takes place. The 64 teams play 32 matches in a direct knockout format. The winning 32 teams make it to the second round, followed by 16 in the pre-quarters and eight in the quarter-finals and so on.

The new champions are crowned by Sunday late night, in the shortest world cup tournament on the planet. The only problem is that the city hosting the event comes to a standstill given the amount of teams and the volume of cricket packed into a single weekend.

1.3 .1.1 Cricket Worldwide

The new format became a rage all over the world and its popularity surpassed that of even football. Currently all the 200 odd nations of the world play .1.1 Cricket and there are flourishing domestic and continental leagues.

“Even Shorter Than Twitter” is a popular slogan of .1.1 Cricket aficionados.

1.4 Influence on cricket

Test cricket was phased out in 2017 and ODIs followed soon after in 2019. Empty stadiums in the 2024 T10 World Cup led to the Great Cricketing Financial Crisis of 2025, something which was revived by .1.1 Cricket.

In fact, F5 matches have been called the “New Tests”, because spectators call it a “test” of their nerves and patience to actually sit for five complete overs an innings in a stadium.

One1s, however are surviving for they serve the connoisseurs of the game and are called an actual test of skills and technique as against the total slam-bam attitude of.1.1 Cricket.

1.4 Criticism

.1.1 Cricket has come in for a lot of criticism. For one, the general level of health and fitness has come down among cricketers, who spend much more time on ad shoots, inaugurations and award shows.

The tradition of the all-rounder is also over. A bowler only bowls. A batsman only bats. A wicket-keeper only keeps the wicket. None of them field and the fielders themselves have become glorified ball boys many of whom have absolutely no understanding of the game of cricket.

Their only aim is to catch or stop the ball and throw it back at the fielder instantly to effect a run-out. In one incident, a shot put champion threw the ball so hard that it fractured the rib of a star bowler. That led to the infamous Eden Garden Riot of 2029.

2 Match format and rules

2.1 Format

Every team consists of one bowler (pacer or spinner), one wicket-keeper, one batsman, one 100-metre dasher (the runner at the non-strike end) and seven athletes for fielding to form a team of 11 players.

2.2 General rules

The toss is extremely important as most people want to bat second. All the rules are the same as the regular forms of cricket except for the fact that the Third Umpire is the most crucial element. The room for error is zero per cent. In the DRS, Snickometer, Hot Spot, Ball Track, Hawk Eye and Quantum Mechanics Probability Formulae are all used to get a perfect verdict.

2.3 Q-D/L Method

The Q-D/L (Quantum Mechanics, Duckworth & Lewis) method continues to be controversial. Since many games end in a tie, sudden death takes place where both teams bowl an extra ball each till a result is reached. One Indo-Pak match went till 13 balls with the score being tied at 24-24 at the end of 12 balls. A hit-wicket by the Pakistan batsmen on the 13th ball led to a new round of match-fixing allegations, something which .1.1 had been spared till now.

If any team plays one more ball than the other team when rain ends play, then the Q-D/L Probability Curve  predicts whether the other team would have got the required runs or not from the final ball. It’s pretty controversial, but no-one has come out with a better method yet.

3 Records

First Century: SNVR Singh of Ireland became the first player to hit a century in .1.1s by scoring 100 runs in a calendar year. Tom Peter Jones of Canada became the first to hit a double century. Fans are currently waiting for the first .1.1 triple century.

First hat-trick: Usutuaije Riruako of Zimbabwe was the first person to take three wickets in three consecutive matches.

Most catches: Vladimir Gramotin Bezborodko of India. Vladimir was a Russian citizen who was spotted in a friendly match with the Moscow Siberian Cricketing Tigers. A popular newspaper claimed that Vladimir far from understanding cricket, doesn’t even know its spelling yet. He took Indian citizenships and is currently one of the richest sportsmen in the world.

This version by Sunil Rajguru