Insporta’s cricket curriculum has five published levels, each of five sub-levels: level 1 teaches how the game works, level 2 the Laws in practice, level 3 skills and tactics, level 4 the competitive game around its calendar, and level 5 the modern professional game of technology, data and money. That is roughly 1,300 questions in 130 tests, every test ten questions with four options and one correct answer. Every question is written from the MCC Laws of Cricket (2017 code, 3rd edition 2022), the ICC playing conditions for its format, or a named reference for history and records.
How the cricket curriculum is organised
Cricket was the first sport Insporta wrote from nothing, so its five levels were planned one at a time. They follow the ladder every Insporta sport uses, Beginner to Upper-Intermediate so far, and the process described in How Insporta writes a test: a plan of five sub-levels per level, a duplicate hunt against every question already live, and a fact check of the correct answer and the three wrong options against the primary source.
One rule matters more in cricket than in any other sport on Insporta: a question says which format it belongs to. An over-rate penalty, a powerplay, a bouncer limit and a substitute’s rights all differ between Test, ODI and T20, so a question that does not name its format usually has more than one correct answer.
Level 1: Beginner, how the game works
Level 1 is the foundation: what a match is and how it is won, tied or drawn; the field, the pitch and its markings; the roles of batter, bowler, wicket-keeper, fielder, captain and the two umpires; the ball, the bat and the protective kit; runs off the bat, extras and boundaries; when the ball is in play and when it is dead; the formats from the five-day Test to Twenty20; and who runs cricket, from the MCC as guardian of the Laws to the ICC and the national boards. Its five sub-levels are the shape of a match, ways of getting out, the ground and the kit, scoring and extras, and the three formats.
Level 2: Elementary, the Laws in practice
Level 2 works the Laws that level 1 introduced. Bowling: the delivery stride, the front- and back-foot no-ball, the throw, the beamer and the short-pitched limits. Batting: obstructing the field, hitting the ball twice, timed out, and retired hurt against retired out. Fielding and wicket-keeping: where the keeper may stand and move, fake fielding, a fielder off the field and the substitute rules. Umpires and decisions: the signals, the soft signal and its retirement in 2023, the Decision Review System, umpire’s call and ball-tracking. Match regulations: powerplays, over-rate penalties, intervals, DLS in outline, concussion replacements and the free hit.
Level 3: Pre-Intermediate, skills and tactics
Level 3 leaves the rulebook for the craft. Batting, from stance and trigger movement to the front-foot and back-foot shots, playing spin against pace, leaving and the sweep family. Pace bowling: swing against seam, the wobble ball, the yorker and the bouncer, reverse swing and what it needs. Spin bowling: off spin and leg spin, the wrong’un and the carrom ball, flight against drift and using the rough. Fielding, catching and keeping: the named positions and why they are placed there, slip catching and standing up against standing back. Captaincy: reading the pitch, when to take the new ball, setting a field to a plan, chasing against defending and closing out a Twenty20.
Level 4: Intermediate, the competitive game
Level 4 is cricket as a professional sport played around a calendar. The international structure: Full and Associate membership, the World Test Championship and its points, the rankings, bilateral series and the Future Tours Programme. The global events, from the ODI and T20 World Cups to the Champions Trophy, the World Test Championship final and the Women’s and Under-19 World Cups. Domestic and franchise cricket: the County Championship, the Sheffield Shield, the Ranji Trophy and The Hundred; the IPL, BBL, PSL and CPL; the draft against the auction. The history of the game: the first Test in 1877, the Ashes in 1882, the throwing crises, World Series Cricket, the first ODI in 1971 and T20 in 2003, and South Africa’s isolation and readmission. And records and statistics: how average, strike rate, economy and net run rate are computed, and the landmark records.
Level 5: Upper-Intermediate, the modern professional game
Level 5 is how the modern game is played, watched and run day to day. Technology on the field: DRS end to end, Hawk-Eye ball-tracking and its margin of error, UltraEdge and Hot Spot, how a review is decided, and umpire’s call. Analytics: win-probability models, match-up analysis, wagon wheels and pitch maps, and how data has changed selection and tactics. Great rivalries beyond the Ashes: the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India v Pakistan, trans-Tasman cricket. The business of cricket: broadcast rights, franchise auctions, board revenue and cricket’s return to the Olympics at Los Angeles 2028. And training and sports science as a professional side uses them: workload management, injury prevention and the analysis of bowling actions.
Which sources the questions are written from
In order of authority: the MCC Laws of Cricket, 2017 code (3rd edition 2022), for the Laws themselves; the ICC playing conditions for each format, which override the Laws in international cricket and are where the format differences live; competition-specific conditions for a domestic league; and ESPNcricinfo and Wisden for history, records and governance. A statement that is correct under the Laws can be wrong for an ODI because the playing conditions changed it, so each question cites which one it rests on. Level 3, being craft rather than rulebook, cites coaching references instead.
The facts checked while writing and reviewing these tests, with their status and source, are listed at Cricket fact checks.
What is deliberately out of scope
Insporta measures knowledge of cricket, not fitness or general cognition. Strength and conditioning protocols, training loads and the biomechanics of the athlete’s body are out of scope, and so is anything that would read identically for another bat-and-ball sport: a question about the athlete rather than about cricket is a defect however well written. Numbers that move between playing-condition revisions, such as the exact count of unsuccessful DRS reviews, are asked as a direction rather than as a figure that will be stale within a season. The reasoning behind that construct is in Sport-specific knowledge, not generic brain training.
What is planned next
Level 6 and beyond are not yet planned, on purpose. Insporta plans a level when the one before it is written, so the plan is informed by what the earlier levels turned out to hold rather than by a guess made months earlier. With five levels live, the next step is to decide what a sixth should add.