As the cricket fever builds up with upsets and near-upsets in the early stages of the tournament, keeping track of how the teams are faring and their chances becomes difficult. Ashish Gupta suggests ways you can use the power of the Palm to update and analyse the mountain of statistics coming from South Africa

We will skip the part that gives you an introduction to the Cricket World Cup 2003 and the frenzy associated with it. Instead, we will look at how the Palm can be used to track the progress of your favourite teams.

The Cricket World Cup 2003 has begun. And you have discussed strategy after strategy with your mates. Of course, after every match the equations change. And you develop a new strategy. If only you were a coach, they would do better, right? Well, here is your chance to at least track each match, ball by ball, as it is played. While you wait for that call appointing you as the next coach of the Indian cricket team, here are a few Palm OS applications that will help you keep track of the chaos.

World Cup Cricket 2003 Schedule 1.0
Two groups of seven countries each means a long list of scheduled matches — the group matches, super six series, semi-finals and finals. This application lists the entire schedule, along with the members of each team. Next time you want to know when the next international is being played, and who is playing it, don’t go hunting for a newspaper, just check your Palm handheld computer instead. If you do not want to miss the start of a match, you could set an alarm to remind you.

Cricket Scorer 1.1
Cricket Scorer is an application that allows you to simulate the traditional way of scoring a cricket game, using a pen and paper. Being an automatic scoring program, it provides error free and accurate scoring when compared to paper-based scoring which is prone to human error.

Most of the scoring is accomplished by a few clicks in contrast to the numerous things that you need to remember to update when scoring manually. Friendly prompts for various events that occur during a normal cricket game ensure that you record your score accurately and efficiently. The program allows you to upload the saved match information to your Windows-based PC and convert it to an HTML file for quick and easy web publishing. You will have your scorecard out and ready to distribute within minutes of finishing the game.

An intuitive interface makes Cricket Scorer very user friendly. No complex buttons or menus to deal with. It is a very simple application, yet very powerful in the variety of features it comes packed with. Experimenting with the program for about 15 minutes should get you ready to start scoring.

P-Cricket 1.27b
This is a comprehensive cricket scorer which allows you to score all conventional cricket matches such as one-day internationals, test matches, limited-over matches or double innings club and school matches. This program is ideal for cricket scorers, coaches, umpires, cricket supporters and armchair enthusiasts who need mobility when scoring cricket matches. Makes watching cricket lot more fun. All 14 Cricket World Cup 2003 teams are included in the download, complete with Manh-attan skylines, cumulative scoring graphs, detailed batting and bowling analysis, run targets and required run rate calculation. It handles 12 different dismissal types and allows for 14 different stoppages in play. It also features a Windows PC-based companion software that allows you to view, export, edit and print match information.

The applications mentioned above can be downloaded from http://www.palmgear.com

Ashish Gupta is the founder and president of The Indian Palm User Group. He can be reached at ash@notcomguys.com