Middle and off please, Ump.
Bowling is a little easier and after batting, a bit of an easy life is heartily welcomed, but here again there are some flaws that make you want to give up and just go for tea. The bowling action is so strikingly easier than the batting that you’ll wonder if either you were doing something wrong with the batting or if you’re doing something wrong with the bowling. Basically, each different bowler has a different range of deliveries in his repertoire. You start his run-up by selecting which type of bowl he’s going to make and while he’s belting along you then pick a spot where the ball will bounce. This is so much easier than batting that you have to wonder if EA haven’t got things the wrong way around. Bowling a ball accurately, at speed and with spin is damn tricky in real life but playing a defensive shot with a bat is much easier… EA seem to have this confused and have made the batting stupidly complex and the bowling amazingly easy.
The next problem is the AI batsmen who are harder to get out than it is to get Rys to spring for a round. These guys play exactly the same shot for the same delivery, so bowl the same delivery to them over and over and they’ll play the same defensive shot or leg drive or whatever. As soon as I discovered this I lobbed on to the batsman, watched him clout it for a few runs and then stuck a fielder there. And that was it, the whole team out in something like 30 balls. They just kept belting them over to my fielder who, luckily for me, had the same unerring abilities as the AI team have when they’re fielding. For variation and because I had to see, I tried a limited over game and bowled the same ball each time as near as I could to the last ball. Sure enough, after nearly 40 overs of defensive shots (with a couple of clouts where I messed up with the timing) the scoreboard sat at a decidedly boring 35 for 40 overs. Hardly a convincing recreation of cricket, is it?
