Cricket

Dr. D. Carter's Cricket is a pleasant implementation of this very British Sport. You can name your teams (or choose from predefined national squads) and then take to the wicket. Lords this isn't but it does give a pretty good showing of a summer afternoon at a country club, just so long as you remember to imagine you've drunk too much and that's why the players look like this!

Their fast bowler gives it all he's got

All control is by the mouse and from various menus. When bowling you can choose from your players a medium, fast or spin bowler and then click the left, middle or right buttons to denote where to bowl the ball. When batting you can then use the same buttons to decide in which direction you're going to clout it. Upwards tends to work rather well! You must then click select again to run off down the wicket. The opposition fielders run towards the ball and throw it back to the wicket keeper to deal with (or at the stumps if close enough), leaving the batsmen to make the tricky decision of whether to go for that third run or not.

The ball soars over the fielders' heads

Although the graphics are pretty dire and flickery (I don't think the author has heard of screen banking) the game is still quite a nice one. This is the first implementation of computer cricket I've played (although I'm told Brian Lara's on the Sega Megadrive is quite good) and I enjoyed playing it quite a lot, even though I'm not a great fan of watching the real thing.

There is a two player mode to bring a bit of spice to the game, but cricket is hardly a game to get het up about so it doesn't bring much to the action. Overall it's quite entertaining just so long as you don't expect too much.

Other Free Games

32-bit Acorn Gaming is sponsored by