I dont know!!! If they are indeed combining with EA, Ross would surely have not mentioned the fact that there are no licensed national sides in this game. Have EA sports ever published a game without licenses?? Also Mike himself stated that EA has the ICC license.....so if they wanted to publish this game, I am sure they would have utilized those licenses to maximise the sales.
I do hope EA stays away from BigAnt. They kind of screw things a lot!!
Well, I am actually a little in the middle now with all this EA thing!! Having known Ross for almost a year now, it seems exactly like his style of saying that they have EA on board!! I mean, looking back at his posts:
a) He has talked about EA a lot. More than any other publisher (infact I dont think he talked about any other publisher at all).
b) He mentioned more than once that EA doesnt publish any game that is not expected to sell 1 million units at full price. Now this is a typical cryptic message one can expect from Ross. In a way he is trying to tell us that if EA does publish a game, it has to be one which has a lot of potential.....so he is highlighting the fact that it is like a compliment for a game when EA decides to publish it. Also, he never ever refuted the claim that EA is publishing his title.
c) It is only after the publisher came into the picture that he has started to talk about the size of his official, the front cover beating AC13 black and blue (when earlier I clearly remember him being a little apprehensive about taking on the Ashes brand). Well....EA is one such name that can beat the hell out of any other game when it comes to cricket. Its a HUGE HUGE HUGE brand!!!! Remember, Ross keeps talking about the front cover, not the actual licensed player per se
! And frankly, one can never ever be so confident (as Ross is) about the front cover even if you have Tendulkar on it, as there will always be a location where the player would not be loved that much. However a Huge Brand like EA on the cover page will make any developer confident.
d) EA prides itself in producing sport games of all kinds. It stopped with cricket as they just couldnt make a good profitable one. If they retained the ICC license, it means that they still cared for cricket, only that they didnt want to put their own money in developing one, based on their past experience. However, if there was any cricket game that would EA would be proud to have under their belt, it would be BigAnt's cricket. Everything is going for it.....The game is just filled with quality (quality that EA games normally boast of), the game did not have a publisher and the developers started to look for one after finishing the game, and there is a lot (and I really mean A LOT) of excitement amongst the fans regarding this game.
What got my mind rolling in this direction was the post from Ross in which he said that
"Things are different when you bring a finished game to a publisher." when someone mentioned that big publishers normally do not let the developer keep the code.
e) We have thrown in the argument that if EA indeed publishes the title they would allow BigAnt to use its licenses, but thats not how it works. They might not have reached an agreement to use the licenses.
f) As a lot of people have already mentioned, the font used for the title does resemble the ones used by EA sports games!! And we got this font only after the publisher came into then picture!
If this is indeed true.....Isrararrafi is gonna become a bigger star than he could ever imagine
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! Also you must remember, Ross is not allowed to post when eating dinner with family 
