peteee23 said:
I tried a second game but when i was 13-5 I nearly chucked the pc out the window
:laugh
I personally find the batting quite hard too. You do need to play yourself in and get the confidence up, but even then, it's up to you if you want to risk slogging high shots for the boundary with the perpetual risk of being caught.
I'm definitely still learning but I'm finding it's a good idea to try a variety of shots to different type of ball to see what works. Play a few matches without worrying about what score you get or trying to win, but just seeing what shots work in a match situation.
I'm starting to realise that there is a decent choice of shots to play off many balls that I would normally only thought of playing one type of shot to. The more things you try, the more shots you realise you can play, and the more depth you see the game has, unlike that shallow BLIC nonsense.
At first, I was being very careful and doing loads of blocking or just basic front foot straight drives, trying to get the batsman's confidence up, but wasn't scoring much, so confidence was staying low, and I would get frustrated and just try a big slog....and get caught.
But now I am trying far more glances here and there and picking up far more singles and seeing the batsmans confidence rise more quickly, thus offering better chances of success on the more risky big shots.
I've also noticed that when playing short limited overs matches (eg. 10 overs), the top order batsmen's confidence will rise very quickly after a few decent shots. It's worth trying to pick up a couple of singles and then try a few big hits over the circle. You still need to get the timing right but if they come off, the confidence shoots up, and you can start playing more big shots and put together good scores in a 10 over match...unlike my first few matches, where I was scoring about 12 runs in 10 overs...and that was on easy mode :brickwall . But I think the confidence meter is scaled so it potentially rises more quickly in short games so you get a chance to put in a decent score, but rises more slowly in longer matches.
So my advice would be to try lots of different shots in games without worrying about trying to win. Just learn the game for a few days by playing matches without fear of getting out or losing. Then, when you know how to play and have a better idea of what you can try to different types of delivery, start playing competitively.
And don't spend too much time in the nets....learn about timing but that's about it. The commentators advice is often wrong anyway. I got bowled a bouncer, my guy played and missed, it hit him square on the head, he fell over right onto his stumps in a crumpled mess, and the commentators perceptive advice was "good shot!!"
: .