Do you want to keep an eye on the latest cricket scores but don’t want to use a web browser to do it?
Check out a new Indicator Applet called Cricket Score Indicator. It’s a small panel-based menu that serves up the latest live cricket scores straight to your desktop.
Cricket Indicator: A ‘Perfect Companion’
Reader Nigel Byou, who tipped us to Cricket Score Indicator, describes it as ‘the perfect companion for cricket-mad Linux lovers’ like himself.
I’ll take Nigel’s word because, as you’ll gather from the lack of cricket puns in this copy, I’m not a particularly big cricket fan myself!
Despite my own sport malaise the add-on will let those of you who are interested in cricket easily stay on top of the latest cricket scores without needing to constantly check a website, install a mobile app or keep a radio station playing in the background.
You get the latest cricket scores live, as they happen, right on the Ubuntu desktop.
How It Works
Once installed and running the indicator will automatically fetch and display live cricket scores using data scraped from the popular ESPNcricinfo service.
It lets you select one match to show directly in the desktop panel, meaning you won’t even need to click on the indicator menu to check the score.
Inside the indicator menu is a list of all matches that are currently in play. Mouse over any match listed to see an up-to-date scorecard for it, data for which is downloaded on-demand to limit network usage.
Click the checkbox next to a match to embed its score in the desktop panel.
Full feature list:
- Real-time updates fetched from ESPNcricinfo
- See current match score directly in panel
- Match scorecards available in sub-menus
- International, domestic and county matches covered
- Displays the runs scored on the last delivery of selected match
Install Cricket Score Indicator on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS +
Cricket Score Indicator is free, open-source and easy to install on Ubuntu and other Debian-based distributions.
If you’re on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or later you can install the tool from the official project PPA* by running the following terminal commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rawcoder/cricket-score-indicator
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install cricket-score-indicator
With installation complete, launch the indicator from the Unity Dash by searching for ‘cricket’ or looking for a batsman icon.
GNOME-Shell users can also run this tool but will need to install the free ‘AppIndicator Support’ extension from the GNOME Shell extensions website first.
*To preempt the usual discussion about the pros/cons of the PPA system remember that there is no longer a way for non-archive software to be distributed through the Ubuntu Software Centre, while paid apps are only available on 14.04 LTS. The App Review board has been retired. PPAs are a useful way for devs and users to get updates for software. As always, PPAs are entirely optional.