How about an ability to analyze a player in greater detail? All we have are the following:
PACE BOWLERS: Speed, as done by four increments (F, FM, MF, M), delivery arm, average and economy rate.
SPINNERS: Type of spin, average and economy rate.
BATSMEN: Attacking vs Defensive, Off/Legside preference, RHB or LHB, average.
What would be ideal, in an ideal world:
PACE BOWLERS: Speed, as done by both four increments (as above), and then, in a match, KPH, so you can tell the difference between, say, Brett Lee and Akhtar vs, say, Pretorious.
Ability to move the ball; either as initial swing, cut, or reverse swing. This would be handy in telling the difference between Matthew Hoggard, who gets normal swing, and so you give him a new ball, Glenn McGrath, who can cut the ball throughout the innings, and Simon Jones, who can reverse swing and so you would give him the old cherry.
Economy rating as a bowler would be nice, or perhaps a way to indicate a bowlers' strengths, perhaps a way to indicate Harmison's steepling bounce, McGrath's absolute consistency or perhaps (to go back a few years) Younis' steaming yorkers. Even just putting number values on "consistency", "bounce" or "aggression" (ie bouncers and yorkers) would be nice.
SPINNERS: To have just two numbers, a bowling arm and a bowling type seperating Giles, Warne and Murali is to oversimplify the quality of these three. Spinners need figures such as accuracy, drift, ability to use flight, aggression and of course turn. For a spinner, the ability to bowl different deliveries is paramount; Warne's flipper, for example, is no longer as good as his leggie and would need to be represented as being so (ie: Leggie 98/100, Flipper 85/100). It is here that Murali's ability to bowl the doosra would shine.
BATSMEN: There's not too much I would change here. Ideally it would now be easier to match batsmen to bowlers if we know what the bowlers do but the bare bones of batsmen's individual characteristics are already on screen. It would be nice, however, to see ways to have Flintoff's and Hayden's power, Ponting's ability on the pull shot and his tendency to get out early, and Trescothick's weakness on the off drive but strength on the onside put into numbers, just so they could be more accurately represented. Speed between the wickets would be nice too.
Another major change would be to see each player's fielding ability such as close catching, outfield catching, running, throwing accuracy, throwing power. This especially applies to wicketkeepers and is central to the whole Geraint Jones vs Read debate: the better gloveman vs the better bat.
This of course opens up a whole new aspect to training - the idea of training specific elements in a player - but that should come later!
One little thing which could so easily be incorporated would be having the stats of all players who ever played for your club recorded for posterity.
I realise that this is just a wishlist and I already love the game as it is. There is a level of unknown and guesswork about how good players really are in this game that there isn't in most soccer games and I wouldn't like it to lose that ambiguity - how would you do that? Best of luck to the team in charge, anyway.
