The game is usually played between two players, but can be played alone. It is played with two six-sided long dice and a paper scorecard. One die, the batting die, is labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, 'owzthat' and 6. The second die, the umpire die, is labelled 'bowled', 'stumped', 'caught', 'not out', 'no ball', and 'L.B.W.'. During long summer school holidays that stretched out as endlessly as a Boycott innings, there was one, indomitable saving grace when it rained.

If'not out' is rolled, then batsman remains not out. If other than 'no ball' or 'not out' is rolled then batsman is given out and next batsman starts. On another day, the moustachioed Essex opener with the three-pound SS tree trunk and England’s leading run-scorer in Tests would have scored 5,908-0 but therein lies the power and mystic of this dice game.Now umpire die is rolled and options of that die is used to determine fate of the batsman. if 'no ball' is rolled, then the batsman continues and an extra ball is given to the batsman (which means an additonal roll of batting die). In less time than I played one inning by hand I was able to play both innings of the same match I posted earlier. Here is the result if anyone is interested. In limited overs game player's turn ends when either the allocated overs are finished or 10 batsmen get out before allocated overs finish. The player keeps rolling batting die and adds score to the batsman's score until 'owzthat' turns up.

Fred Trueman and Darren Gough opened for Yorkshire and would have been appalled at their economy rate as sixes and fours were biffed with alarming regularity. Now in truth, the game was in no way shape or form the meticulous scoring opus of my former teen years. Involving the dice, a diary to scribble the scores and away we went, it was definitely more T20 than Test match in its formulation.In my excitement this time, which batsmen were meant to be on strike and whether the batting stats and bowling analysis bore any relation to one another is something of a guilty admission. All of which prompted a decision to crank open the Owzthat dice for another game; the first for donkey’s years; to see how an England XI would fare against a Yorkshire XI from down the years.

Does this compact, nugget, no-frills companion still have any relevance in today’s world of apps, notifications, ultra-high-def landscape? Sure it does. Wrapped tightly in a set of paper instructions for the game are two metal dice; a mode of dismissals one with NOT OUT, STUMPED etc in red lettering on each side while its stubbier cousin has 1,2,3,4, OWZTHAT and 6. Here you will find the greatest variety of free online games, enjoy the world of GabiGames.co – Free Online Games at https://gabigames.co

In essence though, it involved rolling a pencil to decide if the batsmen scored 1,2,3,4, 6 or was out. If out, the same pencil (or another if you were particularly flash) equated to either not out, caught, LBW, etc.