Retro Cricket - The Memories!!

[StormySteve]

Continuing a little "down memory lane" cricket game chat from the Ashes 13 thread...

So which game are you still playing and what memories good or bad do you have of it?

Steve S.

 

[Col. Hans Landa]

My best memories of playing a cricket game are associated with BLC99. I first saw the game in 2000 when I was 8 years old and I loved watching my uncle play the game. I myself went on to play many matches but there is 1 particular match that stands out. No surprise that it was an Indo-Pak fixture
My team always was Pak because of the balance they had in their squad.
So, the match started and the Indians managed to score 167 in 20 overs. Saurav Ganguly was the top scorer with 63 runs.

Now it was my turn to bat. Saeed Anwar and Aamer Sohail came in to bat. Pak started positively and Anwar scored a boundary down the fine-leg in the very 1st over.But in the next over Aamer Sohail was caught at slip trying to play a coverdrive. The score was 7-1. In came Inzy. Anwar and Inzy rotated the strike easilyand the score was 16-1.
Prasad bowled a fullish delivery outside off and Inzy went in for an ambitious lofted cover driver only to sky it and was caught easily at point. Score 16-2.
Anwar was also caught at slip. Prasad had picked up all the 3 wickets.
Saleem Malik,Moin Khan,Azhar Mahmood, Wasim Akram all fell cheaply. With in no time the score was 27-7 after 6 overs.
On strike were Shahid Afridi and Saqlain Mushtaq. It was upto Afridi to take over the reins and he took most of the strike playing sensibly
But got in his groove once the spinners came in. He hit Bhajji and Kumble all around the park. Now the score was 81-7 after 13. Afridi on 37 and Saqlain on 14. Before Saqqi got out caught behind off Bhajji.
In came Waqar.I was frustrated that the partnership was broken and started playing aggressively, that was blessing in disguise. With in no time the score reached 124-8,with the spinners taking some beating.Afridi on 70 and Waqar on 11. But Waqar got caught at squareleg off kumble.
In came Mushtaq Ahmad. I was in a dilemma whether to play agressively or...but with Afridi there is no other way.. He went on hitting the ball hard and you have to believe me when I say the score was 156-9 after 19 overs. Afridi on 91 and Mushtaq Ahmad on 11. Pak needed 12 off the last over. Kulkarni was the bowler. The very 1st ball Afridi hit for a 4. 8 off 5. A couple . 6 off 4. Afridi hit a boundary. Century up for him, what an innings.A single. 1 req from 2 balls.. Mushtaq on strike. Kulkarni bowls on off stick..Mushtaq goes for an off drive and the ball runs down to the cover boundary..Pak win.

PS: eventhough I made up the scores to make it look interesting the following are true:
Pak were 27-7 after 6 overs chasing 168.
Afridi scored 102.
Pak won the match by 1 wkt with ball to spare.

 

[barmyarmy]

Probably Cricket 97. Got that game at an age where I was playing a lot and as I had a PC not a console it was the obvious one.
Def regret missing BLC99 at the time!

 

[StormySteve]

Memories good and bad here....

Test Match Cricket (CRL) Spectrum - Entered the Cricket game world, stick players, poor sound but fun!

Graham Gooch Cricket (Audiogenic) - Best Cricket game by far on the small machines, marred by an annoying bug where you could not break the AI's last wicket pair

1 Meg Cricket & Ian Botham Cricket - played probably 2 games on each, I actually binned these!!!

Graham Gooch Cricket on the Amiga initially due for release July '91 anxiously awaited this, finally got it February '93 and it was so full of bugs it was almost pointless!! I actually got to beta test this prior to it's official release in June that year. The PC version was a much better effort and I got to demonstrate this at Chelmsford CCC before it was released in the Summer of '94, then came Lara '96 which was the last Audiogenic cricket game. I did the teams for that too, not a bad game but annoying bugs still remained after 5 years since the initial announcement of GGWCC in '91.

Cricket '97 - must have had this for a week before selling it....just hated it!!

Then came my involvement in Lara '98 which was my favourite Cricket game experience as I got to do the teams again and it was probably the most stable cricket game to date... sadly my next gen PC was too powerful for it and it would not run!!

Cricket 2000 - Nice animation but limited, sold this shortly after!!

Cricket 2002 - I liked this at the time as it was the best around marred by several nasty bugs, one where the bowler bowls more than his allotted overs in a ODI, that bug still existed in Cricket 2007!!

Cricket 2004 - Awful graphics, full of bugs, sold it within a week!!

Brian Lara 2005 - I liked this, I found it very playable, sadly doesn't run with Windows 7, occasionally return to it when I fire up my old PC!!

Cricket 2005 - Best of this current bunch, I still play this even more so with the editors from this site!!

Cricket 2007 - Still play this but Mark Nicholas's commentary is annoying, pointless release to be honest... we still await a new EA Cricket which doesn't look to be happening

Brian Lara 2007 - nice graphics, playable but has an annoying bug where a spinner opens the bowling I found both EA's and Codemaster's 2007 titles a come down from 2005!!!

Ashes Cricket 2009 - With patches, runs lovely on my alienware, love the presentation and commentary and makes me laugh when Aggers says amazing fielding when the ball just runs to a fielder (that piece actually existed in Lara '98) annoying though "If you want to show the kids how to play that shot there's a fine example" by all of the commentators... too repetitive but my favourite game nonetheless!!!

IC2010 - Probably a patched, updated version of AC2009 with a few nice touches but as I'm not a console player never really got played!!

Cricket Coach 2010/2012 & Cricket Captain 2011 - I play these when I can't be bothered to load up the above Cricket Captain 2011 pretty good I think, Cricket Coach 2010 and 2012 these are a bit boring but only cost me a few quid so not complaining!!

Best Cricket Game Experience - Ashes Cricket 2009 (Presentation) & Lara '98 (Involvement)

Worst Cricket Game Experience - Graham Gooch World Class Cricket (Where's the bug spray!!)

STILL PLAYING- Ashes Cricket 2009, EA Cricket 2005 & Cricket Captain 2011.

Ashes 2013 - We await with bated breath!!!

Steve S.

 

[Dutch]

Must admit to loving bowling in cricket 2004. I actually only buy cricket games to bowl as I love that side of things much more than batting. For me Cricket 2004 captured the sense of pace better than Anything else I have played since.

 

[Ashu54]

Hers mine-

I started with Ea c2002 which really got me for 3 years and still run for some fun...

Then Ea c2004 came and I jst saw the graphics and gifted to my friend (He must be angry on me....)

Then BLC2005 was the best BLC title for me..... it is really some fun.....

EA c2k5 was the best of EA... Loved the difficulty and commentary was acceptable for me....

BLC 2007 was nothing fresh for me I must admit to be a EA fan now...

Ea 2007 was easy as hell 360+ in 10 overs for me and 10 all out opposition was normal just a flighted one bowls out CPU.... Mark Nicholas and Richie Benaud seems to be talking in 2 different commentary boxes.... nothing new....

Got the Ac09 digital copy online and lost it.... before starting playing...

Intl. cricket capt. was realyy awful until 3d implementation was there but got bored nothing to play just click and watch...

Rest are not tried yet...

My Favs. would be Ea c2005 Blc2005 And c2002

 

[sami ullah khan]

The first game I played was perhaps Graham Gooch Cricket on a 386 PC in computer lab of our university. Being a cricket and video game fanatic, both at once I literally fell in love with the game and had my dad buy me a PC. Then came Cricket 97 with wonderful bowling and lovely comments from Benaud followed by BLC 99. I loved every minute of that game and spend many a nights just playing the damn thing. I remember playing a test and shane Warne cleaned us all up in no time. Real life like if you know Warnie's record against us. I loved the classic matches and completed all but the last one where Sri Lanka had to chase a mammoth 373 against Pakistan. My only gripe with the game then was the nick down the leg side. I would immediately restart the match if that happened. The game was also a blast to play with my brothers and cousins.
Those were the days.

 

[IanG]

Cricket 96 was a goody. Commentary was rather amusing,
I also played CRL Test Match on the Amstrad 128K computer.
Also International Cricket on Nintendo NES and Brian Lara and Shane Warne Cricket on Sega Mega Drive

 

[StormySteve]

Memories good and bad here....

Test Match Cricket (CRL) Spectrum - Entered the Cricket game world, stick players, poor sound but fun!

Graham Gooch Cricket (Audiogenic) - Best Cricket game by far on the small machines, marred by an annoying bug where you could not break the AI's last wicket pair

1 Meg Cricket & Ian Botham Cricket - played probably 2 games on each, I actually binned these!!!

Graham Gooch Cricket on the Amiga initially due for release July '91 anxiously awaited this, finally got it February '93 and it was so full of bugs it was almost pointless!! I actually got to beta test this prior to it's official release in June that year. The PC version was a much better effort and I got to demonstrate this at Chelmsford CCC before it was released in the Summer of '94, then came Lara '96 which was the last Audiogenic cricket game. I did the teams for that too, not a bad game but annoying bugs still remained after 5 years since the initial announcement of GGWCC in '91.

Cricket '97 - must have had this for a week before selling it....just hated it!!

Then came my involvement in Lara '98 which was my favourite Cricket game experience as I got to do the teams again and it was probably the most stable cricket game to date... sadly my next gen PC was too powerful for it and it would not run!!

Cricket 2000 - Nice animation but limited, sold this shortly after!!

Cricket 2002 - I liked this at the time as it was the best around marred by several nasty bugs, one where the bowler bowls more than his allotted overs in a ODI, that bug still existed in Cricket 2007!!

Cricket 2004 - Awful graphics, full of bugs, sold it within a week!!

Brian Lara 2005 - I liked this, I found it very playable, sadly doesn't run with Windows 7, occasionally return to it when I fire up my old PC!!

Cricket 2005 - Best of this current bunch, I still play this even more so with the editors from this site!!

Cricket 2007 - Still play this but Mark Nicholas's commentary is annoying, pointless release to be honest... we still await a new EA Cricket which doesn't look to be happening

Brian Lara 2007 - nice graphics, playable but has an annoying bug where a spinner opens the bowling I found both EA's and Codemaster's 2007 titles a come down from 2005!!!

Ashes Cricket 2009 - With patches, runs lovely on my alienware, love the presentation and commentary and makes me laugh when Aggers says amazing fielding when the ball just runs to a fielder (that piece actually existed in Lara '98) annoying though "If you want to show the kids how to play that shot there's a fine example" by all of the commentators... too repetitive but my favourite game nonetheless!!!

IC2010 - Probably a patched, updated version of AC2009 with a few nice touches but as I'm not a console player never really got played!!

Cricket Coach 2010/2012 & Cricket Captain 2011 - I play these when I can't be bothered to load up the above Cricket Captain 2011 pretty good I think, Cricket Coach 2010 and 2012 these are a bit boring but only cost me a few quid so not complaining!!

Best Cricket Game Experience - Ashes Cricket 2009 (Presentation) & Lara '98 (Involvement)

Worst Cricket Game Experience - Graham Gooch World Class Cricket (Where's the bug spray!!)

STILL PLAYING- Ashes Cricket 2009, EA Cricket 2005 & Cricket Captain 2011.

Ashes 2013 - We await with bated breath!!!

Steve S.

Ashes 2013 - I'm am now blue and dead!!!

Steve S.

 

[james82]

shane warne cricket on the mega drive (not the ps1 version) is the best cricket game imo its fully Licensed(unlike the brian lara version) with international squads/state players and legends
i still play this game today even the bowling is fun

cricket 2002 on ps2 - love this game

shane warne cricket 99 on ps1 - i kept trying to set my records every week on this one lol

 

[asprin]

Must admit to loving bowling in cricket 2004. I actually only buy cricket games to bowl as I love that side of things much more than batting. For me Cricket 2004 captured the sense of pace better than Anything else I have played since.

A very late quote, but I sense you're gonna love DBC a lot given your interest in bowling.

 

[srk121]

By far the closest cricket game ever came to anywhere near capturing cricket was BLIC99. I have very fond memories of that game.

The career/tour bit was a nice addition and gave the game longevity. Batting, bowling both were captured very well. The animation are very smooth. I still play till date.