I think you'll find that technically C99 is a prequel not a sequel...
What you have to understand is that however awful it feels by modern day standards it was still the best available at the time. I tried playing Cricket 97 recently and couldn't see how I'd ever liked it but it was the best there was then.
Until c2k2 and c2k4 came along cricket gaming was in a pretty poor state. Arguably it hasn't really moved on since that breakthrough either.