Backyard Cricket: Day 9 of Sunburnt Santa

How to play Backyard Cricket

• Slide your finger to move Santa's hands.
• Catch the tennis balls coming off the roof; a ball that bounces twice costs a life. Bindis fall straight down and sting: the red ring on the lawn shows where each one lands.
• One hand, one bounce: a ball caught after one bounce is worth half. Catches in a row build a multiplier. The signed ball is worth 5x.

Scoring

Catches in a row build a multiplier: x2 from 5, up to x5 from 20, and a one-bounce catch still counts towards the streak. Losing a life resets it. You have 3 lives; every 10 catches the balls come 4% faster.

Stars: the three targets

Stars don't lock anything; they show how you're going, and doors with at least one star count towards the bonus games.

Tips for three stars

1. A one-bounce catch is worth half, but it keeps your multiplier alive, while a second bounce costs a life and the streak. If you can't get under a ball on the full, take it on the bounce.
2. Bindis fall straight down with no swerve, and the red ring on the lawn shows exactly where each will land. One never lands right beside the last, so there's always a gap. Bindis you don't touch cost nothing.
3. Some balls carry spin and swerve across as they fall, and more of them swing as the game goes on. Read the curve early and move to where the ball is going. A signed ball at x5 is 1,250.

The real story: Bradman's backyard game

Backyard cricket is played with whatever you've got (a tennis ball, a wheelie bin for stumps, a fence for a boundary), and every family makes up its own rules. "One hand, one bounce", where a one-handed catch after a single bounce counts as out, is one of the best known, and Day 9 borrows it.

Australia's most famous cricketer started in a backyard too, on his own. Don Bradman was born in Cootamundra in 1908, and his family moved to a house on Shepherd Street in Bowral, New South Wales, in early 1911 [1]. Behind the house stood a water tank on a brick stand. The young Bradman invented a one-man game with a cricket stump and a golf ball: he threw the ball at the stand and hit it as it rebounded, fast and at odd angles [1]. The State Library of South Australia says the game helped him build quick reactions and accuracy [1]. He went on to need just four runs in his final Test innings for a career average of 100, and was out for a duck [1].

Christmas Day backyard cricket is played in the full summer sun, so Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide before the first ball [2], and watch out for the bindis.

Read more: Backyard cricket rules (one hand, one bounce and the rest).

When it opens

Door 9 opens on day 9 of your own calendar (your Day 1 is the day you first play), and for everyone by 9 December. Play the door before it to open it. Once it's open you can replay it as often as you like, and after Christmas Eve all 24 doors stay open. How the calendar works.

Play now

Same kind of game: Mango Madness, Prawn Rain, Present Drop.

Sources for the real story

1. Bradman's biography, State Library of South Australia
2. Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek, Slide, Cancer Council Australia