Firstly, huge thanks and congratulations to the developers. Your commitment is much appreciated and has hugely improved the game.
I started an Ashes series with England, lost the toss and Australia batted first. I've bowled 40 overs and Australia are 193/3, which is well within the realms of possibilty, so I'm hoping that it's been a fairly fast innings and the AI tends to average closer to 4 an over. Obviously can't comment on that as this is my first game. My first wicket was Watson LBW to Anderson on the last ball of the first over. I then had Katich caught in the slips, before Ponting was run out (see below). These are the comments I have so far:
Firstly, big improvement. The following are things that I think would further improve the game:
- As far as I can tell, there is no difference between the 'ideal length' (where the cursor goes yellow) for seam and swing deliveries. The seam length is spot on, but I'd like the swing one to be a little fuller - seam bowlers generally try and keep the batsman in two minds (front foot or back foot?) but swing bowlers are trying to encourage the bastman to drive and tend to bowl a little fuller.
- The AI batsman have ignored easy singles on a few occasions, usually having played the ball to fine leg (with a man on the boundary) or having edged through the slips (only had one of these).
- Is there any way to default the bowler selection to the bowler who bowled the last over from that end, rather than going to the top of the list all the time? I keep picking Anderson when I'm not paying attention.
- There are still too many lofted shots for my liking. There should be hardly any in the first morning of a test match.
- I've had one run out, where the batsman played the ball out to the boundary and took two initially. There was an easy three, but they paused for a few seconds before starting the third. It was close, and the wicket was confirmed by the third umpire. I appreciate that having no run outs isn't what we want, but huge pauses aren't realistic.
- When bowling with an off spinner to left handers, the ideal area for the standard off-spin ball are far too wide. I'd prefer them just outside the line of the off stump, ready to spin away. It appears you've tried to put them in the footmark and I can understand why, but batsman can leave them alone all day.
- Most of the fields are stupid. Captains will hardly ever have a player in the ring on on the boundary in the same direction (ie a mid-on and a long on) but almost all of the pre-set fields do. I can set my own custom fields to be sensible but if the AI can only choose from yours it won't be good.
I will keep playing and add to this list, and I will post batting comments when I've bowled the convicts out
Thanks for your continuing work to improve the game.
.
