Has it really been 20 years?

[jedimasterlincoln]

Apologies if this is in the wrong place....
I've tried to work out when I first started playing this series and I think I have it down as 1998 when I used my Uncle's computer over the summer holidays and I bought my own. Back then the first season you played was to determine which division of the county championship you would end up in for 1999 onwards. And the one day game was 40 overs. T20 didn't exist! Jonathan Agnew was commentating in the same style as he is now! We even had photos of the "real" players when they came in to bat!

I'm proud to have been able to buy pretty much every version that came out in the UK ever since. I often think about how far this game has come - the features that were introduced and then removed and how much the real life game has evolved allowing the game to move with it. Being a fan of retro gaming I often wonder what it'd be like to go back to the start and play it all over again. I managed to find a couple of screenshots of the early versions, the 2D highlights are charming and the interface is the basic building block of what we see today.

It's a true credit to the initial developers and the team that takes it forward now that it remains a popular game worldwide.

[Sureshot]

I got given the first version as a present by a cricket-mad family member, it helped kick start my cricket addiction. Then about 10 years after that I got the chance to start working with Chris, Andy and Dan.

[jedimasterlincoln]

I think, despite having played and been a Lancashire member when I first started playing, it also gave me a better tactical understanding of the game too.

[bryce87]

I remember discovering an ICC2 demo when I was 12 years old. I would play the demo matches over and over and keep my own statistics with pen and paper.
Once I got the full version, and the subsequent versions, that was it. The game robbed me of my teenage years and a fair chunk of my adult ones too!