Story West Indies tour of the sub-continent

I am starting a tour of the sub-continent and will be playing as West Indies. This will be mainly a review of Ravi's test patch version 1.0.

Also, for those looking for fancy commentries and scorecards (not that I do not like those, just that I do not think I want to post something like that), this thread will not be something that you might want to follow.

The first match is a test match between West Indies and Bangladesh. Actually, I started the match already and then thought about posting here. Since, I decided to post it now, I took the teams from the Scoreboard and the Change Bowler menu.

The teams:

The match conditions:

Bangladesh have won the toss and elected to bat first - a good decision considering the pitch conditions.

Good luck Murali, will be watching this thread very closely.

Thanks, Ravi.

1st session wrap-up:

Bangladesh started their innings slowly and cautiously. With the wicket not doing too much for the fast bowlers, it was a bit of a surprise. But, Bangladesh plodded along at about 2.5 runs per over.

Soon, the spinners came along and were bowling a number of maiden overs. The ball was spinning quite a bit and the batsmen had difficulty timing the ball between the gaps. But, they kept their concentration and did not lose any wickets in the process nor was there any chance to get the batsmen out. Javed Omar in particular was too subdued and at the end of the session had scored 14 runs in 88 balls.

Ridley Jacobs's performance behind the wicket can only be termed as pathetic. He kept missing some very simple deliveries bowled by the fast bowlers and it did not turn out too much better against the spinners.

Without the extras it would have really been a very slow start by Bangladesh, but the byes were there and Bangladesh finished the session at 71/0 after 28 overs.

All in all a very respectable performance by the Bangladesh batsmen providing a solid platform to build on.

Some stats:

No images because nothing great happened in the session except for the two fours, during which time I did not have Fraps on. :

Day 1 - Session 2 - Wrap-up:

Bangladesh started the session much like how they left off in the previous session, slowly. Hannan Sarkar showed signs of being settled and played some sweet shots and maintained a 50% run-rate. He reached his 50 in 103 balls.

Windies kept it tight and they were rewarded with the wicket of Javed Omar out LBW to M. Dillon after scoring 17 off 103 balls.

See attached snapshot:

Top Left: Hannan Sarkar showing his prowess with a off-side four.
Top Right: Hannan Sarkar after reaching his 50
Bottom Left: Javed Omar getting out LBW
Bottom Right: Javed Omar's stats at the end of his innings

Day 1 - Session 2 - Wrap-up (cont):

Habibul Bashar then came and started off very cautiously. Unfortunately he did not offer a shot to a ball swinging in from Hinds and was judged LBW. He was a bit unlucky with that decision. He ended his innings with 2 runs off 32 balls.

The next batsman in was Ashraful. He too came and went after getting out clean bowled by Hinds. This was another ball swinging in and Ashraful completely missed the line getting clean bowled. He scored 4 runs off 16 balls.

During all this, Hannan Sarkar was batting confidently, both in defence and his shot selection.

See attached snapshot:

Top Left: Habibul Bashar getting out LBW
Top Right: Ashraful getting out bowled
Bottom Left: Ashraful's stats when he leaves the field dejected
Bottom Right: Hannan Sarkar cuts late to help himself to a four

Day 1 - Session 2 - Wrap-up (cont):

The next batsman in was Sanwar Hossain. Hannan Sarkar continued to show his prowess with the bat and at tea the scoreboard looked like this:

Overall, it was a reasonable performance from Bangladesh. Hannan Sarkar has batted well but the others have not been able to score big after settling down well. Because of this, the run-rate has remained around 2.5 runs per over. Bangladesh will be hoping that Hannan Sarkar continues his fine form.

A much better session for the West Indies. West Indies will be hoping for a few more wickets by the end of the day.

Not a bad batting effort by the Bangles, Sarkar almost reaching his hundred. Not bad at all.

Tell me this Murali, I thought it was hard to contain the batsmen and I infact tweked it to slow them down by playing defense more. Is it the case of Bangladesh playing enough shots but not able to find gaps or is it your bowling in and around off stump on good length. The patch is more or less tweaked to ensure CPU leaves those consistently.

You are right, Ravi. It did seem as though the Bangladesh batsmen left a number of balls (maybe 50% of balls) around off-stump. That is ok in a test match, I think. But, I believe there may be a little judgement issue as you can see from the two wickets that fell. Two batsmen did not offer any shot to a ball that was pitched outside off, but was swinging in. There was another similar close call to Dillon which was turned down.

But, against spinners even when the Bangladesh batsmen connected the ball, they did not seem to be finding the gaps as much as I would have liked. Also, I noticed particularly that for a ball that was pitched a bit short and a very little outside off, the batsmen were trying to go for the pull shot and were missing more than 90% of the balls. I will post a snapshot of this the next time they play it.

Otherwise I think Bangladesh did play pretty well. But, I think it may be a tad bit too slow. But, I guess I have to play against teams like Australia or South Africa to exactly figure out how fast/slow they are.

[EDIT]

Also, I should say I was impressed with the way Hannan Sarkar played. Till now, no one has scored a century against me in a test match or in a ODI (maybe once :confused: ). Generally, after scoring 50 runs, the CPU batsmen will be like morons and go for big hits and hence will get out very soon after that. Hannan Sarkar showed some urgency but did not take unnecessary risks.

Thanks a heaps for your feedback mate, it has been very instumental your feedback in producing better AI patches. Maybe as you said its a touch early knowing fully well the strength of Bangles batsmen. I will keep taking those points into account but wont change anything till you complete a full test match.

You are right, I have had to go through a lot to make sure the batsmen wont throw their wicket away once settled. As a matter of fact that was one of the toughest tweaks I have had to do. Hopefully we may be able to see good batsmen score big runs and not merely throw away their wickets one too early.

Day 1 Wrap-up:

Hannan Sarkar started off from where he left off in fine form, taking singles and he reached his 100. Then, it was Sanwar Hossain's turn to go, when he like some of his team-mates before him misjudged a in-swinger from Hinds and got out LBW.

Hannan Sarkar finally got out for 120 when a ball from Hinds slipped through his defences and was clean bowled.