The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willie.
For those of you unfamiliar with cricket, here’s a quick run down. The game is played between two teams of 11 players, who toss a coin to see who goes out first. The team who wins the toss decides who’ll be out fielding and who goes in to bat. They then send two of their players out to go in. The team that’s out tries to get those two players that are in, out. When one of them is out, he goes in and another player comes out and goes in. In open play, a player that’s in can be made out in by being caught out, bowled out or run out, at which point he’s out and goes in. The team that’s in tries to score as many runs as possible before they’re all out while the team that’s out tries to get them out before they go in and the other team tries to get them out. When one team has got the other team out, they go in and the other team comes out and tries to get the first team out as they come in. Clear? Good.
So, EA have tried to capture all that is the game of Cricket, which to many people is long periods of not very much happening interspersed with brief bouts of excitement and people jumping about shouting ‘Huzzaaaaaaaah!’. Which is actually a pretty good summation, especially if you’ve found yourself watching it on Channel 4 out of desperation ‘cos there’s nothing else to watch. The real tension in cricket usually comes in the closing stages where every run counts and every ball makes a difference. Given that cricket is by no means a fast paced game, anyone making a cricket sim has to find a way to capture that tension as well as keeping the gameplay pacey enough to keep the gamer interested… and EA have succeeded and failed in equal measure.
