I still find bowling really hard in the game, I've been playing test matches against Australia with England on county level.
I usually manage to get Langer out fairly easily for under 30 or so, usually bowl him withn late swing.
Hayden though is a big problem, I got him out on 99 in the end because his confidence meter was down I guess. Kept bowling away swingers and then got him with the in swinger.
I can't seem to get Ponting out, he made 130 odd and then I bowled a full toss with Ashley Giles and it bowled him lol!
Martyn and Clarke fell fairly easily in terms of low runs but batted for ages, I finally got both of them with the 'trademark Giles doosra'. I'm surprised he didn't use his doosra in the ashes...... can't imagine why??
Left handers seem to be annoying, Katich and Gilchrist seem quite hard to get out, eventually just kept bowling with Giles here there and everywhere because no plan seemed to work and Katich put one up to a fielder. Harmison then tore apart Warne, Lee, Gillespie and McGrath in one over.
So I think that in some ways it's to hard to get some batsmen out but then on the other hand it's quite realisitc. It's not as though I can't get them out, it's just annoying because you need a lot of patience. Hence me never completing a proper test series yet. Tailenders need to be improved as well. Basically you only need to take 6 wickets and then they won't score anymore.
So anyways they made about 320 off about 95 overs. I then batted and made 750 odd in about 45 overs!! Giles hit a 20 ball hundred and Hoggard top scored with 140!!
Batting seems pretty easy, even on county mode. I tried test mode but it just seemed to hard to get people out.
I then bowled again and after about 120 overs all the batsmen hit similiar kinds of scores although Hayden got his hundred this time. I got them out for about 400 though and won by an innings.
One thing that I think is good about this game is there does not seem to be a ball that gets everyone out. Like some cricket games such as Cricket 2005 you could bowl with a medium pacer, bowl a bouncer but only a slower ball as slow as you can and it would york them every time. One of the Brian Lara games for the mega drive you could edit players and make their bowling skills really bad, they would end up bowling a donkey dropper right up in the air out the screen and it would come down on top of the stumps lol.
So I think this is a good thing because if you know a certain way to get batsmen out it's so hard not to use it if they start smacking you around the park! Although Giles legendary doosra is pretty tricky, not to mention his 70mph quicker ball. Completley realistic of course