What is box cricket, and why are netted arenas spreading across Pakistan's cities?

Look up from a busy road in Lahore, Karachi or Rawalpindi in the evening and you may spot a glowing green rectangle on a rooftop: a cage of netting, a strip of artificial grass and a group of friends taking turns with the bat. This is box cricket, the enclosed and bookable version of the game that has become part of Pakistan's urban sporting life.

What box cricket is

Box cricket is cricket played inside a fully netted enclosure rather than on an open field. The set-up is simple. An operator lays synthetic turf on a rooftop or spare plot, puts up a steel frame, ties netting around it and installs LED floodlights. Players then book the space by the hour.

Because the ball cannot leave the enclosure, the game works in very small spaces and can be played safely in the middle of a crowded city. There is no national rulebook for the format; rules on overs, team sizes and how runs are scored off the netting are usually set by each venue or agreed by the players. The feel is closer to street cricket than to a formal club match.

Who plays, and when

According to a June 2026 policy feature in The Friday Times, the arenas are clustered in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. Demand peaks in the evening, after Maghrib and once offices close, roughly between 6pm and 8pm. The typical customer is a young man in his twenties or thirties who books an hour with around five friends.

The same report put typical booking rates at between Rs1,500 and Rs3,500 per hour, with evening slots often reserved well in advance. Many venues now also offer futsal and badminton alongside cricket.

Why it is growing

The short answer is space. Pakistan's cities have grown rapidly, and open ground has not kept pace:

• Open space in Lahore fell from about 31 square kilometres in 1998 to under 16 square kilometres in 2018, according to figures cited in the feature.
• A 2025 study referenced in the same piece estimated Karachi's green space at around 4.2 square metres per person, well below the World Health Organization's suggested minimum of 9.
• Research by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics found that almost 60 per cent of Pakistanis lack access to a playground or play area.

For operators, the model is attractive because it is light on capital. There is no land to buy, little dependence on municipal approvals, modest staffing needs and low running costs.

Public authorities have also started to plan for the demand. In Islamabad, the Capital Development Authority has earmarked land for an indoor cricket facility alongside futsal fields and new cricket grounds.

The catch

The boom has a flip side. Rooftop boxes are private businesses, not public playgrounds. The Friday Times analysis argued that their spread is partly a sign that public provision has fallen short, and that children from lower-income families, for whom even a few hundred rupees per head is a barrier, are the ones most likely to be left out.

For now, though, box cricket has given city players something precious: a guaranteed pitch, lights and an hour of cricket a short drive from home.