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Running a tournament used to mean a WhatsApp group, a spreadsheet that nobody could agree on, and one poor soul recalculating net run rate by hand at midnight. Skipper folds all of that into one place. You set the rules once, the app builds the fixtures, and the points table keeps itself honest after every match.

This guide walks you through the whole thing, from the first tap to lifting the trophy. You only need to read the parts that apply to your tournament. Most local leagues use a fraction of what is here.

Before You Start

You will be the Owner of any tournament you create, which means you control everything. You can hand out other roles later, so there is no need to gather your co-organisers before you begin. Open Skipper, go to the Tournaments section, and tap Create.

Step 1: Pick a Starting Point

Skipper opens with a Choose Tournament Type screen. These are presets grouped as Simple, Complex, and Professional. They are not separate products. A preset just pre-fills sensible defaults so a quick weekend cup does not ask you the same questions as a season-long league. Pick the closest one and move on. Every setting is editable afterwards.

Step 2: The Create Wizard

The wizard has six steps. Here is what each one is actually asking for.

Basic info

Tournament name, a short name (used in compact places like fixtures and the scoreboard), your city, and an optional description. You can upload a logo and a banner here too. The logo follows the tournament everywhere, so it is worth adding.

Format and schedule

This is the important one. You choose a tournament format and a match format.

Format	What it means
Round Robin	Every team plays every other team. The cleanest way to find a fair winner.
League	Round robin with a full standings table. Use this for a season.
Group Stage	Teams split into groups (Group A, Group B), play a round robin inside the group, and the top teams advance.
Knockout	Win or go home. A straight elimination bracket.

The match format (T20, T30, ODI, T10, The Hundred, or Custom) sets the overs per innings and a suggested innings duration. You can override the overs and the break length if your ground runs to a different clock.

One idea worth understanding early: a tournament is built from Rounds (the app's word for stages). A simple cup is one round. A bigger event might be a league round followed by semi-finals and a final. Each round has its own type, so you can run a group stage and then a knockout inside the same tournament.

Teams and squads

Set the maximum number of teams (anywhere from 2 to 64) and the squad size limits. The key choice here is the roster type:

• Open means you can add and remove teams at any point. Good for community events where entries trickle in.
• Locked fixes the teams at creation. Good when the field is already decided and you want no surprises.

Colours and branding

Pick the tournament's colours and a kit template. This is what gives your standings, fixtures, and stream overlays a consistent look.

Advanced settings

Ball type and colour, match type (Open or Box cricket), pitch type, and the bit people care about most, the points configuration. The defaults are 2 points for a win and 1 for a tie, but you can change them if your league does it differently.

Grounds

Choose which grounds are available for this tournament. The scheduler uses this list when it spreads matches across venues, so add every ground you might use.

Step 3: Add Your Teams

Open Manage Teams. You will see a counter showing how many teams are registered against your maximum. There are three ways to fill the field:

• Add teams you already manage directly.
• Share an invite link so captains add their own teams.
• Show a QR code at a registration desk for people to scan and join.

Letting captains add their own teams saves you the most work, because they bring their own squads with them. If you locked the roster at creation, you will need to switch it back to Open to make changes.

Step 4: Build the Schedule

You have two ways to create matches, and most organisers use both.

The scheduler is the fast path for round robin and league rounds. It is a short wizard: pick the round, confirm the teams, choose the grounds, then set the practical details, start date, how many matches per day per ground, the first match time, and the gap between matches. Skipper lays out the entire round at once and shows you a preview. If it looks right, you confirm and every fixture is created in one go.

Manual creation is for one-off matches and for knockouts, where the next fixture only exists once you know who won. Pick the round, the two teams, and a ground, and the match is ready to start.

Step 5: Play, Score, and Watch the Table Move

When a tournament match is ready, open it and tap Start. Score it ball by ball the same way you would any match (our scoring options guide covers every button). When you complete the match, Skipper does the accounting for you. Points, net run rate, and league position all recalculate on the spot, and anyone watching the standings sees them shift in real time.

Net run rate is the usual tie-breaker, and Skipper computes it the proper way, runs scored per over faced minus runs conceded per over bowled. When two teams are level on points, NRR separates them, and head-to-head settles it if only two teams are involved.

The Part Everyone Argues About: Qualification

This is where Skipper earns its keep near the business end of a league. Tap any team's row in the standings to open its Team Scenarios sheet.

The Status tab tells you where the team stands right now, its runs for and against, the results so far, and a plain-language banner on whether it is through, out, or still fighting. The labels mean exactly what they say:

• Qualified: mathematically through, nothing can change it.
• Destiny: in their own hands. Win and they are in.
• Bubble: it is tight, and the threshold could go either way.
• Long shot: still possible, but it needs an unlikely margin. Skipper still shows you the exact number.
• Eliminated: knocked out.

The Calculate tab is the smart one. Pick a remaining fixture and Skipper tells you what the result needs to look like, the kind of thing a captain actually wants to know. "Restrict them to 95" or "chase it inside 14 overs." It even names the team whose result is holding you back. The maths is honest about its assumptions, so when it uses a par total to project an unplayed game, it tells you what that par is.

Sharing the Load: Roles

You do not have to run everything yourself. Open the officials list and invite people, each with a role:

Role	Can do
Owner	Everything, including deleting the tournament and managing other admins. This is you.
Admin	Edit settings, manage teams, schedule, and score. A trusted co-organiser.
Scorer	Manage teams, schedule, and score matches. The people on the ground.
Viewer	Read-only. Standings, fixtures, and stats, with nothing they can break.

For a busy weekend, add your scorers before the first ball so they can pick up any match without waiting for you.

Wrapping Up the Tournament

When the final is done, mark the tournament as Completed. This freezes the points table, locks the results, and publishes the leaderboard and any awards. Players keep the stats in their profiles, and the record stays put for whenever someone wants to relive it.

That is the whole arc. The first tournament takes a few minutes to set up. The second one takes about thirty seconds, because by then you know exactly which of these settings you actually care about.