Three apps to help you stay up-to-date with The Ashes

The Ashes are upon us once again, so cricket fans will be clamouring for ways to keep up-to-date with the scores without being busted by the boss.

It's surely possible that some people don't like Test Match Special, and if that's the case then one of these apps might be more up your street.

Two of them help cricket fans stay up-to-date with the latest news and scores while the third is a way for fans to voice their support through social media.

So, here are your three options...

Cricitch

Available on iOS and Android, Cricitch isn't perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing but it does cram in all the information you need to keep up-to-date with the Ashes.

It also includes live scores for every other cricket game currently taking place, but that's of little interest for this post.

The news section is potentially of use, but it doesn't appear to be updated too often as the top headlines are currently about the build up to the Ashes rather than reports from the first day's play.

                      

The sound is also quite annoying, as it makes a noise every time anything interesting happens even if you're phone is on silent. You can turn this feature off, but it should be quiet by default in my opinion.

These issues aside, it's a decent enough app if all you want to do is follow the scores and check the day's stats. Navigation is a bit of a problem at first, but once you've worked out what each of the buttons means then you can easily access all the important information, like bowling stats and scorecards. 

It also allows you to set alerts for fours, sixes, wickets, half centuries and centuries. There's also the option for notifications on every ball, but I can't imagine anyone would go for that option.

Fan Face Off

It won't help you keep up-to-date with the scores, but the ECB's web app is a fun way of using social to allow fans to show their support for the team.

The tool allows fans to personalise their support by choosing from a range of England players, adding their own face to the team line up, personalising the image further with their name and message, then sharing it across social media profiles.

Ultimately though it's a way of seeing which team can clock up the most fans and followers across various social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

You can follow individual players, the teams, or tweet using the official hashtags.

A gauge at the top of the screen shows that England are just about in the lead at the moment, but it's still early days.

And the app does seem to be quite popular, as the counters were all close to zero when I checked a few days ago but now both teams have almost 5,000 Twitter followers and there have been more than 12,000 tweets using each hashtag.

ESPN cricinfo

As you would probably expect, ESPN's iOS and Android effort is the slickest and most user-friendly app as well as offering the most comprehensive coverage of the international games.

It has the latest scores, news stories, stats, a video section, and you can also choose to receive push notifications from 10 different national teams.

As with Cricitch you can access scores from a wide range of international and domestic games, however Cricinfo trumps the competition with the level of information it provides.

You can view a ball-by-ball text commentary, stats on each innings and career stats on each of the players. A ticker at the top even shows the amount of runs scored off each ball.

In terms of usability, ESPN's app is certainly way above Cricitch and is a great way to keep track of the Ashes on the go.