Some games refuse to die. Cricket 07, the EA Sports title that defined an entire generation of cricket fans when it launched in 2006, can now be played directly inside a web browser, and this time it comes with something the original never had: an online multiplayer mode.
The browser version is the work of a developer known as Dhaiwat, who announced the project on X earlier this week. “Cricket 07 with an online multiplayer mode. Play with your friends. All you need is a web browser,” he wrote, and the response from nostalgic fans was immediate. The game runs on a website, cricket07.dhaiwat.com, where players can pick Play Solo to take on the computer offline or share controllers on the same device, or choose Play Multiplayer for an online one-on-one match.
Setting up an online game is straightforward. One player hosts the match and receives a room code to send to a friend, who enters the code to join or opens an invite link shared by the host. Players can also select a room server region, with Asia-Pacific, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and North America on offer. The site recommends choosing a server that sits between the two players when they are in different countries, and the input delay can be set anywhere from 67 ms to 300 ms or left on auto, a thoughtful touch for keeping gameplay fair across long distances.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
There is one catch for first-time visitors: the site downloads roughly 1.2 GB of game files on the first visit, storing them in the browser so later sessions start much faster. Dhaiwat has advised players who run into download errors to use Google Chrome, noting that Safari does not handle the setup well. The project follows a similar experiment in which Grand Theft Auto V was made to run inside Chrome with no cloud gaming or installation involved, showing just how far browser-based emulation has come.
The controls have been mapped with care. On a keyboard, the arrow keys set shot direction and ball placement, S plays a normal shot or a stock delivery, Shift lofts the ball, and D sends the batsman running. Alt and Enter together switch the game to full screen. Dhaiwat said the game also supports controllers, though he admitted he had not tested that himself yet. One early player replied that a short match with a controller worked well, which will please anyone who remembers the original’s feel on a console pad.
The website is careful to credit EA Sports with the copyright of the original game, noting that it was ported to the browser by Dhaiwat. The 2006 original was developed by HB Studios and EA Canada and published by EA Sports for Windows and the PlayStation 2 in November 2006, and it went on to become one of the most beloved cricket games ever made. Newer titles have since arrived from other studios, including Cricket 24, which was set to feature official Pakistan and PSL teams, but none of them has quite displaced the old classic in the hearts of fans.
There is something quietly remarkable about all of this. A game built for the hardware of 2006, running inside a browser tab in 2026, with online play added by an independent developer and a growing community of players rediscovering it. For a generation that grew up on Cricket 07, the hardest part now is not finding the game, it is finding a friend with the time for a proper match.
