Cricket 2002: Hitting the competition for a six

With the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka nearing its completion and next year`s Cricket World Cup just around the corner, I asked the ever helpful marketing manager at Electronic Arts Africa, Claire Gobey, if I could have a look at Cricket 2002.

Even though it has been out for a couple of months now, I have been looking forward to putting the game through its paces ever since its release. As mentioned in my review of F1 2002, Electronic Arts has built a solid reputation for its realistic sport simulations. Unfortunately, while the majority of EA Sports titles follow the intricacies of the respective sporting disciplines very well, cricket and rugby have often been left by the wayside.

With more rules and nuances than even the most ardent of supporters can shake the proverbial willow at, the game developers shouldn`t have to bear the brunt of the blame. It is just that I have yet to come across a cricket game for PC that captures the spirit of the game (and yes, this include Brian Lara Cricket and Jonty Rhodes Cricket).

The very (often confusing) intricacies of cricket are the main attractions for supporters. Trying to explain to someone the importance of a perfectly timed declaration in test cricket or how a seam bowler can generate reverse swing are not the easiest of tasks to accomplish. It is therefore with some trepidation (one would assume) that developers approach cricket titles. Combining realistic game play while still catering for the mass audience are no mean feats to try and accomplish.

So, with this in mind, I installed the full 500MB of the game on my hard drive and was ready to pursue my quest to beat the Aussies at their own game (well someone has to).

There are three different game modes to choose from:

* Exhibition match

* Tournaments

* Practice nets

Players also have the option of examining the 12 squads of Cricket 2002 in more detail. Each squad has a list of 20 players. You are able to view the batting, bowling and fielding statistics of each of the players. A nice touch is the ability to change the players` names. However, these changes are purely cosmetic, since you are still forced to use the statistics of the previous player. Want to drop Gary Kirsten from your squad? Well, you will have to replace him with another left-handed opening bat with a best test score of 275.

The practice nets allow you to practice batting or bowling against a friend or a CPU-controlled player. You can switch between a right-handed and left-handed batsman at any time during your net session. The player can also specify whether the batsman will face a fast, medium fast, swing, leg-spin or offspin bowler. Again, you have the option to select whether it is a right-handed or left-handed bowler who will be doing all the work. You can also swap between batting and bowling at any time.

Once you feel comfortable batting and bowling, the exhibition match option is the ideal place to start your competitive career. Here you can pit any two teams against each other at any of the 23 cricket grounds. Unfortunately South Africa seemed to have drawn the short end of the stick as only Newlands and the Wanderers are available, while there are five Australian stadia to choose from. Maybe this is because there will be a 2003 Cricket World Cup title available that features all our local grounds?

You can specify the number of overs to be played (10/20/50/Test), the pitch conditions (hard/dusty/dry/wet/damp/green/normal), sky (sunny/cloudy/overcast/grey) and temperature (hot/hot humid/warm/mild). An interesting quirk in this option is that you can select the two non-test playing nations (Scotland and Kenya) to play a test against each other.

There are five different tournaments to play:

* A test series

* The World Cup (only in England though)

* The World Series

* A knockout tournament

* Sharjah (this is only available once the World Cup has been won at the normal or hard skill levels)

The test series allows you to set up a series of up to five tests between any two of the test playing nations (do I hear someone say "bring on the Aussies"?). The computer will automatically choose the stadium. An important feature that is available on all the different matches is the ability to change your squad once you see the pitch conditions.

While a test can be a daunting prospect to play on the computer (you want to play five full days of cricket?), Cricket 2002 has a built-in autoplay feature. This allows you to speed up the game by moving forward to a predefined point in the match (after five overs/to fall of wicket/to end of session/to end of innings).

The World Cup breaks the 12 teams into two groups of six. After an initial round robin, the top three teams in each group go through to the Super Six stage (sound familiar?). Each team then plays the three teams it has yet to play. The points picked up here are added to those won in the first phase.

The four teams with the most points then enter into a knockout competition to decide the winner. Again, you are able to choose the number of overs to be played (10/20/50) with the computer determining the rest (venues, and playing conditions).

The World Series is definitely the most fun to play. It is a one-day tournament hosted by Australia involving up to five teams. Each team plays the other teams in the group twice with the top two teams meeting in a best-of-three final.

The knockout tournament is hosted by Bangladesh and is played in Dhaka. The player can select which eight teams are to play in the tournament. The computer then randomly sets up the first round with the loser falling out after each match until the two top teams meet in the final.

Each match, from exhibition to a test match, gives the player the standard cricket options. You can change your field at any time during the over, change the side from which your bowler delivers the ball, watch action replays, change the camera angle and declare (when you are batting in a test match).

As any ardent cricket supporter will tell you, viewing statistics is almost as much fun as playing the game (some might say even more so). Cricket 2002 allows the player to check a plethora of statistics and is definitely one of the game`s strong points. You can view the scorecard, batting and bowling stats and the wagon wheel of a batsman. Of course what would a game of cricket be if you could not look at a spider, worm, manhattan or run rate graph?

Now that you know what matches are on offer, how does the game play? Practising in the cricket nets will go a long way in helping you get to know the control options. For each type of bowler there are at least three different deliveries that can be bowled. Also remember that you control how fast the ball will be bowled and that you can move your fingers across the seam to determine the type of movement applied to the ball when it pitches.

The developers have equally comprehensively catered for batting. The player can play (almost) any shot in the book. There are front and back foot defensive shots, leaves and ducks, seven front foot and seven back foot shots to choose from. Factor in that you can add power to any of your shots and you have a game that comes very close to mimicking real playing conditions and styles.

Unfortunately, nothing in life is perfect. Cricket 2002 still inherits some of the batting problems of its predecessors. No matter how much attention is paid to making the conditions as life-like as possible and fine-tuning your fielders, the game still disappoints by how easy it is to hit boundaries. Some hapless Kenyan tail-ender even succeeded in hitting a 151kph yorker bowled by Donald for six!

The umpire and crowd graphics are, not to put too fine a point on it, awful. If you are lucky, the crowd looks like imitation cut outs while the umpires do not come off that well either. This is strange when one looks at the actual game play. Playing the game is almost like watching a match on television. The players and fielding in general look very life like which is why the poor crowd effects are so disappointing.

Overall though, Cricket 2002 still comes up short before it can be considered a classic in the genre. While the improved game play and squad selection will go a long way to win over converts, the game still feels a bit underdone in certain parts. However, if you are a cricket supporter this is definitely the game to get.

Here are some more screenshots for your perusal.