Ok well if I've failed the Blockerdave courtesy test then I guess I should probably think twice about my conduct.
To take the issue of why you'd want to hear a something negative if you run out a senior partner, the only thing I can suggest is that Dakota should try running out a professional batsman with a bad call in a serious game and see what the reaction is. A curmudgeonly Aussie pro would probably be the ideal choice.
I think the on-field chat really works in Pro Cam, but there's a lot of stuff that's par for the course in serious cricket that I miss, the same way I miss taking guard. Hearing the captain give orders, getting specific sledges or comments on your shots from the bowler / keeper / slips / short leg, for instance. But clearly there's a limit to how much you can cram in there. It needs to be stuff that makes sense in terms of the DBC game mechanic, and if you're actually going to interrupt the game with something like a mid pitch conference, it needs to be something that serves a definite purpose and that responds meaningfully to user input.
Bad calling is probably the most urgent situation where you need a mid-pitch conference in a real game, and it translates quite well to DBC because you have full control over your calls and you have the opportunity of making very bad or very good ones, and the process of deciding on taking a run is very close to real cricket - with the caveat that your partner will happily run on anything, no matter how suicidal, and running him out with a terrible call doesn't seem like a big deal. Fostering the illusion that your partner is a real person who doesn't want to be run out has surely got to be a plus for the game in terms of immersion in career mode, if for no other reason that the more real all the ai players seem, the more real the game seems and the more meaningful your achievements seem.
I love the current on field chat for exactly that reason. The oohs and aahs when the spinners are on remind me so much of real batting. It's ace. I would love to have a bit more of it. I'd love to see the illusion that they're really responding to my in-game actions strengthened. Even better if they can respond to patterns in my play over numerous games, in the way that real fielders behave differently depending on the reputation of the batsman.
With the current engine, on the other hand, a conference about what's happening with the pitch or the bowling is more of a window dressing idea, because the ai doesn't really seem to work to bowling plans or have the kind of variation between different bowlers or pitches that would make that sort of advice meaningful and useful in an in game context. And the interaction with different types of ball movement is fairly minimal, because, in contrast to the continuous nature of real batting responses, you've completed your shot input before the movement actually happens in DBC, and as I mentioned earlier in the thread the really important factor in real life batting - working out the interception point and having to precisely coordinate the bat to reach that location - isn't simulated. You make a very generalised judgement about the delivery, and the game gives you quite a lot of leeway with shot choice / execution to avoid it being impossibly hard.
If, however, the batting system improves in terms of being able to exercise finer / later judgement in responding to movement, and there's a really definite sense of different bowlers having particular delivery repertoires, unique delivery characteristics and proper bowling plans, then ambient chat from your partner about batting conditions and bowling plans would be an ace idea, and I'm all for it.
And in a situation where, lets say, you're a bowler batting with a senior player and he wants the strike, a quick word in your ear to look for the one just makes so much sense, and it needn't interrupt the game at all to achieve it. The game benefits from the user explicitly knowing the tactical situation and intentions and chat from the guy at the other end would be so much more naturalistic then a hud message.