Review: International Cricket

International Cricket by Lambourne Games is
the granddaddy of dice rolling cricket replay games. It’s been around since the
80s when computer games were a mere twinkle in the eye of the likes of Trip
Hawkins and co, and today maintains a strong following with lots of new Player
Cards, add-ons and a very active online forum.

International Cricket (or IC) is a game for
both lovers of cricket and lovers of replay sports games in general. It
captures almost every element of the complex and rich games of One Day and Test
Cricket, excelling particularly in the longer form of the game.

Be warned, though!

IC requires a substantial investment in
time and effort from those who play it. Test Matches can take 10+ hours of play
time and lots of stamina because, if you manage to play the full five days,
you’ll be rolling a handful of dice upwards of 4000 times per game. And,
there’s a LOT of book keeping required.

If that sounds too daunting, stop reading
now and go buy yourself a computer game like Cricket 2007 or International
Cricket Captain.

If on the other hand, this sounds like
gaming nirvana and you’ve got supple wrists and sharp pencils, then I recommend
you keep reading.

Inside
the envelope

When IC first arrives in your letterbox
it’s something of a pleasant surprise. The envelop is big, it’s heavy and it’s
full of good stuff in the form of rule books, tables, charts, Player Cards and
a big handful of six sided (or normal) dice, referred to from this point on as
d6.

In addition to the core game you can
purchase a lot of different add-ons. My advice when starting out is to at the
very least also purchase the optional World Wide Weather Charts. These add
dramatically to the richness of the game, especially Test Matches.

Like all good replay games Player Cards are
at the heart of IC.

Owzat, the publisher of the game, and
designer Terry Goodchild go to great lengths to include all the Player Cards
you might need in the basic set, and they are continually updated and
supplemented with some excellent special editions. These include many of the
All Time Great Test Teams of the past, the 2005 Ashes series and the famous
1946 Victory Tests, among others.

The Player Cards need to be cut out when
you first get the game (a sharp knife and metal ruler are recommended). Each
card captures the skill, personality and flair of each batsman, bowler and
wicket keeper.

In addition to the batting and bowling
ratings provided for each player, there are other ratings such as fielding
skill, part-time bowling stats, Captaincy rating (Vaughan in the 2005 Ashes
series is a 3, but in 2004 was only a 1), and whether the batsman is an opener
or not.

Because the game uses both batsman and
bowler cards to determine the result of a ball being bowled, instead of an
initial dice roll to determine which card is read (as is the case in games like
Strat-o-Matic) IC accurately represents the battle between bowlers and batsman
of varying quality.

How
the Player Cards work

The Player Cards have 11 numbered rows
ranging from 2 – 12, which coincide with the result of 2d6. The quality of
balls and shots are placed on each row next to the numbers and are placed
depending on the % chance of the player bowling the ball or hitting the shot
listed.

As every good gamer knows, you have a 2.78%
chance of rolling a 2 or a 12 with 2d6, and a 16.67% chance of rolling a 7.
Using this system enables IC to replicate the skill level of each player from
the best to the worst.

As an example, in the 2004 card set (which
I received when I first got my game), Shane Warne had a 38.89% chance of
bowling a good length ball and a 25% chance of getting the ball to turn
sharply. He had only a 25% chance of bowling a bad ball.

Compare this to pre-Ashes 2005 glory Simon
Jones, who’s good to bad ball ratio was only 50% to 47.23%. This ratio changed
dramatically after the Ashes in 2005.

Each bowler bowls a sub-set of the 12
possible ball types (Short, Good Length, Overpitched, Yorker, Bouncer, Swing,
Lift, Movement Off Pitch, Well Flighted, Long Hop, Full Toss, Turn) depending
on the type of bowler they are, and the skill of each can be represented by
modifiers to these balls. This means that someone like Warne gets a high
modifier for turn of -3, while 2004 Giles only got a -1.

Sounds about right!

Batsman have a similar system, although
specific shots aren’t listed on their Player Card. Instead there is an odd
collection of letters from A though to H, with three additional options – Big
Hit and X or Z (the later two usually mean the batsman has fluffed the shot)
and these correspond to shot played on the Batting Mode Charts (explained
below).

The
sequence of play

So the sequence of play is, roll two sets
of 2d6, one set for the bowler and one for the batsman to generate the quality
and type of ball bowled and the quality of the shot the batsman attempts. I say
attempts, because as you will see the batsman is not always successful in
playing a shot.

Once you’ve rolled the dice and read the
Player Cards, you then refer to the Batting Mode Chart, a simple to read card
which contains 12 small tables, each of which refers to the ball type bowled
(i.e., there is a table for a short ball, one for a Yorker, one for good
length, and so on).

There are a number of Batting Mode Charts,
depending on the style of play the batsman is playing. These are Shutters Up,
Defensive, Normal, Looking for Runs and Hitting Out.

While you will mostly bat on Normal, there
are times when you will opt for the more aggressive or defensive cards. Using
the aggressive Batting Mode Charts will result in increased runs, but a greater
risk of getting out, while the more defensive charts have the opposite effect,
fewer chances of being out, but a slower run rate.

Most outcomes of a ball bowled, such as
whether the batsman is out or how many runs they score, are resolved on the
Batting Mode Char. However, occasionally you will need to refer to one of the
additional charts included with the game. These charts cover circumstances such
as Byes, Leg Byes, Extras, Special Events, Edged Chance, Batsman Struck, Ball in
Air, False Shot, Run Out and Appeal and Out Charts.

In addition, the quality of the ball bowled
or shot played can be affected by other factors such as weather, the condition
of the pitch, the age of the ball, and so on.

In fact almost all the minutia of cricket
is contained in the elegant rule system and while it may sound complex it
really is very simple and after a few overs it becomes second nature to roll
the dice, check the charts and record the result.

What
about fielding?

The philosophy of the game focuses on
playability, minimal record keeping and simplicity. While this is a great
strength, it leads to one of the great weaknesses of the game – the lack of
detailed fielding.

Fielding in IC is abstract rather than
detailed.

There is no board to set a field on, so you
cannot nominate where specific players are fielding. Instead you can set a
field in one of the three abstract modes – normal, aggressive or defensive.

The effect of these modes are triggered by
certain dice combinations and can effect the quality of a ball or shot. If the
field is set aggressively the chances of going out are marginally greater, but
the batsman’s ability to get more runs in greatly increased. The reverse is
true if the fielding in set defensively.

While each Player Card has a fielding
rating for catching and throwing, all you can do with this is nominate at the
start of the game as to whether a field is either close up or an outfielder.
The system does allow you to nominate one player who is very good at fielding
in each area as the key fielder, which increases their chances of being
involved in catches or run outs.

That aside, the system of determining who
fields a ball is random, and there is a strange anomaly of occasionally having
the player who has just bowled a ball also taking a catch deep in the outfield.
There are simple workarounds to this, but it all feels a bit “bolted on” and no
where near as elegant as the rest of the rules.

So, fielding works, no question. But it is
disappointing.

Field settings are one of the key elements
of cricket, and one of the great joys of watching cricket is seeing how
individual bowlers change the field to suit how they bowl, or how the batsman
is batting. It’s a constant ebb and flow.

I can only image that the reason games like
Strat-o-Matic manages to replicate fielding so well is because the game
designer was working with a more or less predictable number of field settings.

Cricket is played on a 360 degree field
with dozens of potential positions. Players move around constantly, depending
on the state of the game, so it would be hellishly difficult to simulate this
and keep the game from becoming too complex and/or tedious to play.

Having said that, if only Terry could work
out how to do it …

:-)

Conclusion

IC does a superb job of balancing the
complexity of cricket with the playability of a classic sports replay game.
While there is a LOT of dice rolling, that is not a negative and pretty much
what you should expect from a game that takes about a third of the time to play
as a real Test Match.

Add to this the amazingly active community
and the commitment to continuing to create new Player Card sets and you have a
compelling and addictive game that you’ll play for years to come.

To buy a copy of the game and some optional
extras like the Worldwide Weather Charts (highly recommended) go to http://www.owzatgames.com/.

For a very active forum about this game and
others from Lambourne, go to the Home of British Sports Replay Gaming at http://forums.delphiforums.com/HOBSRG/

For Forum which touches upon this game and
all other non-computer cricket games, go to http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/replaycricketgames/