Rough guide to formats

[Dick Van Dykes Disco Dog]

Great post, although I would say that in my experience I would disagree a little about OD games. While in real life building a base and exploding at the end can work very well, playing to that plan in ICC can be very risky. I generally start off at 5 bars of aggression and move up to 6 bars when a good batsman is settled, although obviously adjust depending on the situation. I've found this works better than starting on lower aggression, where players just seem to get bogged down.

It also depends on what you are chasing.

If you are already needing 300 then you'd need to start at 6 bars to avoid the RRR creeping past 6.5 in a short space of time.
I'm still not great at posting a score so always prefer chasing having just about learnt sufficient from experience and also new great threads like this one.

[Rexual]

Great post, although I would say that in my experience I would disagree a little about OD games. While in real life building a base and exploding at the end can work very well, playing to that plan in ICC can be very risky. I generally start off at 5 bars of aggression and move up to 6 bars when a good batsman is settled, although obviously adjust depending on the situation. I've found this works better than starting on lower aggression, where players just seem to get bogged down.

[Dick Van Dykes Disco Dog]

Tried attacking the weak bowler for the first time during a 50 over game.

So Up 2 bars when facing him, then down 2 bars for the guy who was bowling and conceding 4-5 runs an over at the other end
The pie bowler went from conceding 6 an over... to 7 .. Then 8 ... then 9 an over .. And bowled out his 10 overs (bug?)

Anyway my required run rate went from 6 with about 20 overs to go down to less than 3.... to my easily chasing down the target with 3 overs to spare.

Can't recommend this tactic strongly enough - cue everyone else to say they've been doing this for years

[RVallant]

i really like the fc match engine for the most part, but again the limited overs engine is trying. batting on four bars in one sayers will see you dribble along at around 3/3.5 an over, anything higher will see your batsman throw their wicket away.

also, whilst i agree that bowling short and wide because its the opposite of the batsman's strengths with high aggression is silly, am i lead to believe that bowling at a batsman's weak points is ultimately pointless? if so what is the purpose of these weaknesses and strengths in the game?

one final bit, are defensive batsman worth avoiding in one dayers? just had darren bravo score the most painful 2 off 21 balls coming in at three.

I don't have that problem, I can usually bat at 4-5 aggression unsettled with one rotating to 6 aggression fairly early - yes, they'll sometimes collapse but more often than not they can run away with it if the conditions are in my favour. Really it's a conditions game, sometimes you just get that bad day or that player who ruins things.

The thing about 'weaknesses' is they aren't strictly weak areas. A batsman with a strong legside preference may like the ball pitched at him in that area (think Ponting) but is still comfortable on the offside, often smacking off-side balls through to the legside a la Ponting's pulls and Steve Smith today of Australia. We wouldn't necessarily say 'the offside is a weak area for these batsmen' just that they predominantly look towards/eat up anything going on that leg side. I think too many people see 'strong XX' and assumes that it means the opposite is a weakpoint. Certainly, this *may* very well be true for tailenders and bowlers, though if you see you're bowling to Monty Panesar and he has a 'strong front foot' you wouldn't necessary pepper him with short balls as he's useless on that front foot anyway!

The purpose of 'weaknesses' is to target those areas a batsman may not quite prefer to have to deal with, maybe pushing him a bit out of his comfort zone. That still has to be managed carefully however, as if you bowl there too often then they'll get used to that sort of ball.

Until Cricket Captain actually implements something like scouting where a scout can say categorically: "This batsman looks suspeciable to the short ball" or "His batting technique leaves a gap our spinners could exploit" it's best to just consider the preferences as just that and stick to a standard line and length 99% of the time. Personally, I think CC should be improving in this area; like the above scouting and stuff as it would REALLY open the game up for proper cricket and bowling tactics - on top of allowing us, the player, to team build and train to eliminate weaknesses and such. Alas!

As for your final question - yes, I'd avoid defensive batsmen in One Day games - They *may* have their value in very cloudy, wet weather opening the batting if you are prepared to 'grind' the opening 10, but personally I stick to aggressive and higher batsmen in the one day format.

[citizenerased]

thanks graham. will give the ball by ball strategy a shot.

[Graham_5000]

i really like the fc match engine for the most part, but again the limited overs engine is trying. batting on four bars in one sayers will see you dribble along at around 3/3.5 an over, anything higher will see your batsman throw their wicket away.

I know what you are saying, but if you play ball by ball until a batsman is settled, you can oscillate between 3-6 stars within any given over, rather than waiting for the bad ball on 4 stars. I tend to premeditate for a ball or two, but drop down to a less risky aggression after hitting a boundary. It seems to work for me reasonably.

If anything, I think there could be a few more low scoring games. It is tough defending 250, but fairly often it is a winning score in real life. We all remember the memorable high scoring games, but there are an awful lot of matches where teams post and defend lower scores.

It is tough to be consistent in ODIs and T20s. Results vary more in the shorter formats, but that is the case in real life of course; the number 1 ranked ODI and T20 nation changes pretty regularly, as it should.

[citizenerased]

i really like the fc match engine for the most part, but again the limited overs engine is trying. batting on four bars in one sayers will see you dribble along at around 3/3.5 an over, anything higher will see your batsman throw their wicket away.

also, whilst i agree that bowling short and wide because its the opposite of the batsman's strengths with high aggression is silly, am i lead to believe that bowling at a batsman's weak points is ultimately pointless? if so what is the purpose of these weaknesses and strengths in the game?

one final bit, are defensive batsman worth avoiding in one dayers? just had darren bravo score the most painful 2 off 21 balls coming in at three.

[estmsm]

Well put up mate! Many hints for those who want to learn!

[RVallant]

Great write up! I learnt heaps from reading this. One thing I wonder about though is whether the suggestion that wickets in hand in the last 10 overs can lead to scoring rates of 10+ per over. My experience in ICC has been that upping the aggression, even with wickets in hand just results in a collapse. Have others had different experiences?

If you do get to the final ten with fully settled batsmen, perfect sun, perfect light, perfect pitch, you should in most cases absolutely destroy the opposition on max aggression. Even if you do collapse the idea is you should be able to still post a score - however, what you need to do is look at the wickets in hand;

If you get to the final ten with both openers still at the crease, eh just go full whack.
If you get there with two or three wickets down, you may want to push aggression to 6 at over 42 and then raise to 7 at 45 and maximum at 48 - You scale the aggression as the overs progress according to how many wickets you have. Thus, the less wickets you have in hand, the less aggressive you want to be in order to bat out the final 50 and thus the less amount of overs you have available to bat at 'max'.

It's a tricky thing to get right, needing a lot of fine-tuning, but as you get more experience you should pick up on that.

Great post. It would be useful for a similar guide to the T20 format as I can never win consistently.

T20's the best I can do is get 50% win. I don't play ball-by-ball that often, which is probably hampering me but I find either they bat well or they get skittled and there simply isn't enough time to 'settle' the bats. It may be my approach is old fashioned for that! :P

Anyway, I realised I forgot to put the link to the Telegraph analysis of the one day format;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/cricket-world-cup/11410885/Cricket-World-Cup-myths-exposed.html

That article includes a lot of statistics, including the power play and the first 10/last 10 philosophy of recent times that I used to compose the One Day tips.

[Robinson]

Just wanted to highlight for the readers something else that was particularly important that you touched on here:

Batting:... you *must* be aware of the conditions of the game. When it is cloudy or very cloudy, often a defensive batsman is better to throw in than an aggressive one as he won't play any shots unless he needs to (in theory).

As well as the general conditions, it is extremely important to focus on the Light Meter. This is just another instance of where playing 'ball by ball' can be a great help to your levels of performance.

If you were not playing ball by ball, you could very well miss a vital change in circumstances.

For example: In one match I was playing a couple of days back in The Ashes, the weather was very cloudy, yet the light was variable. At the time, I had both batsman on three agression bars. They were both completely settled, but I had toned down their aggression slightly due to the conditions. The light meter, despite the dark clouds overhead, was still showing as "very good" -- but not for long. The very next over, it dropped to "good". Then just six balls later, it dropped again to only "ok". Noticing this, I was able to drop my batting aggression further, down to just two bars, to avoid making the same mistake that the Aussies did against me, when it was their turn under the microscope:

Because I was watching the light meter very carefully, and waiting for my opportunity, as soon as the visibility dropped from good to ok - I upped my bowling aggression by a couple of bars, and was able to capitalise by taking two key wickets in that very over.

The point being -- pay careful attention to the conditions, and particularly to the amount of light available, knowing that this can often change on an over-by-over basis. The fluctuating light provides an astute and vigilant Captain with often very small windows of opportunity - in which you can take advantage, but only if you are prepared. This applies not only to very cloudy conditions, but all weather types. Even on a sunny day, the light meter can fluctuate either way by a couple of degrees at very short notice. Pay particular attention when the weather is "unsettled". As those wisps of cloud can pass overhead very quickly, and one minute you're batting away just fine under an azure blue sky - the next you've just lost a wicket, because you weren't paying attention, and didn't notice that the light had dropped from very good to good/ok just since the last ball of the previous over.

The light can and will catch you out if you are not very careful -- and that well settled batsman who was flying along seemingly immovable just moments ago, can very quickly be heading back to the pavillion with his tail between his legs, leaving you cursing how he got out playing such a basic shot. The answer is simple: The light dimmed quickly, you didn't notice because you were flying through the game, and were unable to make some slight alterations to your levels of aggression in time.

So remember -- paying close attention to the light, will both help you take and save you the loss of wickets. It is a game of very fine margins between defeat and victory, and a watchful captain increases his odds of attaining the latter, and preventing the former.

Hope that this (probably obvious) information can be of additional help to some of you.

[J913R]

Great post. It would be useful for a similar guide to the T20 format as I can never win consistently.

[Sureshot]

Great write up! I learnt heaps from reading this. One thing I wonder about though is whether the suggestion that wickets in hand in the last 10 overs can lead to scoring rates of 10+ per over. My experience in ICC has been that upping the aggression, even with wickets in hand just results in a collapse. Have others had different experiences?

I think when you go all out attack there are a couple of key areas that affect just how effective all out aggression can be:

How settled the batsmen are?
When someone does get out, how attacking are the incoming batsmen? An innings won't last long if you're going 8 bars from the start, but if the batsmen has aggressive or very aggressive rating, then 10-15 balls will be more useful than a defensive or normal batsman. Might sound obvious, but it can be worth a lot of runs.

Of course, there's also luck...

I do find playing ball-by-ball has improved my success in short formats, I hit two early boundaries and I'll turn the aggression down to preserve wickets for the last 3 balls of the over, etc.

Great posts, guys. I might sticky this and post it on the Steam forum as well, if the thread starter is okay with that?

[Dick Van Dykes Disco Dog]

What a great couple of posts.
Equally helpful for both experienced and newbies alike

[Raver]

Great write up! I learnt heaps from reading this. One thing I wonder about though is whether the suggestion that wickets in hand in the last 10 overs can lead to scoring rates of 10+ per over. My experience in ICC has been that upping the aggression, even with wickets in hand just results in a collapse. Have others had different experiences?

[Robinson]

A superb write up mate.

In particular, the most important aspect you have covered, and something I often emphasise (in real life cricket) is your section on bowling (or not, as the case may be) to opposition weaknesses:

Bowling at the opposition weakness:

Simply don't do this unless you know what you're doing. If a batsman favours the front foot, offside and you bowl short and legside at 4-5 aggression you're giving him free runs even if he's 'weak' in that area. The field settings do not take into account the length of the ball.

Just because a batsman favours an 'area' doesn't mean that he's weak in the opposite area. I might favour the back foot, but it doesn't mean I'm uncomfortable with front foot shots. 9/10 you should be 'line and lengthing' the ball

Basically: Target an opposition weakness sporadically when the situation calls for it. Doing it immediately without paying attention to circumstances within the match can often cause the runs to get away from you.

Doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell a bowler that I'm only giving him hints at an opponent's weaknesses to give him an extra string to his bow -- they will always have a habit of bowling to it waaay too much.

These days, I tend not to even pass on that information directly. I'll just let them do their thing, and after a while, have a quick word at an appropriate time, and say "hey lad, why don't you try slipping in the occasional shorter ball at this guy's leg stump and see if you can catch him out there?".

Give them too much info, and they focus on it too much, to the detriment of the overall stability and consistency of their spell.

I have a general preference for playing off the front foot, cover driving, with the odd stylish square and late cut thrown in for good measure -- but if you keep bowling short ones on my legside, I'm gonna hook and pull you to the Deep Fine / Square Leg Boundaries all day long son, lol.

Nice to see someone highlighting this often erroneous misconception regarding weaknesses.

Good work mate.