Live cricket scores on your Lock Screen

Third Slip is a live cricket scores app for iPhone. It puts the score on your Lock Screen, in the Dynamic Island, on your Apple Watch and in CarPlay, updating ball by ball. Inside the app there are full scorecards, ball-by-ball commentary, fixtures, tables, ICC team rankings and the day's cricket news.

Yes - that is what it is for. Third Slip uses iOS Live Activities, so the score sits on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island and keeps itself current as the match goes on. You do not have to unlock your phone or open the app to see it.

It is the live card iOS shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. It beats a widget for cricket: it turns up when the match is on, updates ball by ball, and takes itself away when play is done.

Test, ODI and Twenty20 cricket from around the world, men's and women's. That takes in international series such as the Ashes and domestic competitions such as the Indian Premier League and the Big Bash League.

Yes. Turn on Automatic Live Activities for a team, a series or a whole competition, and every match it covers starts one on its own. In international cricket the competition is the format - Test, ODI, Twenty20 International - and the series is the tour, so you can go as broad or as narrow as you like. You can also start any single match by hand from the bolt at the top of the match screen.

A Test is one match spread over about five days, so its Live Activity finishes at stumps and comes back for the next day's play rather than sitting on your Lock Screen overnight. Lunch, tea, bad light and rain are named as they happen, so a score that has stopped moving reads as a break rather than as an app that has fallen over.

Yes. Choose Start When Play Begins on the match, and the Live Activity is waiting on your Lock Screen when the first ball goes down. That is the one you want for a Test starting at 3am your time.

Almost all of it is free, for good: live scores, full scorecards, ball-by-ball commentary, fixtures, tables, rankings and news. The only thing you pay for is Lock Screen Live Activities, and your first three of those are free too. After that, Premium is A$14.99 a year or A$6.99 every three months, priced for your country. It renews automatically and you can cancel any time in your App Store settings.

Yes. A running Live Activity shows the same live score on your wrist and on the dashboard, so the score is wherever you are already looking.

Not yet. Third Slip is an iPhone app today, and an Android version is on the way.

No. No betting odds, no gambling advertising and no bookmaker sponsorship anywhere in the app. It is independent, and the subscription is what keeps it that way.

Because that is how it is said in Australia and New Zealand - wickets first. Elsewhere runs come first, so Settings has a Score Order switch, and your Lock Screen follows whichever you pick.

Third slip is a fielding position: the furthest of the catchers behind the batter, watching every single ball and waiting for the edge. It seemed a reasonable name for an app that does the same thing while you get on with your day.