Rough guide to formats

[Winston]

Just added all field settings for all three lines for each bowling type as a custom field setting. Named the by what they are as a field setting, e.g. ‘5-4 off 2slp’ for a 5-4 offside field with two slip fielders. Gives the full range of defaults , 6-3, 7-2, 4-5 for all bowlers at any time, irrespective of line. More realistic!!! Still have some others such as a ‘Yorks wall’ - very economical ????.

In my view a good use of half an hour.

[RVallant]

Any tips on the t20 format? Am not quite able to get around how to play the format - I either go very aggressive or 3 bars and I'm struggling! How do I cope?

The problem with T20 IMO is that it is very RNG dependent in CC15. I personally think it is due to how the settled mechanics work. (Note, this is equally the same for the AI as it is for human players in my experience.)

You have to open aggressive, but doing that without being settled = means you have a higher chance of getting out. In fact, in T20 on CC wickets fall too often compared to reality, it isn't unusual to get 10 wickets, when generally you'd be looking at 6 if you're lucky on an average match. If you can survive the initial onslaught and 'settle' you're usually home free, the trouble is 'settling' is so damn slow 99% of the time that you simply cannot drop the rate to 'settle' the bats because it works out as being uneconomical in the long run (and T20 being so short a format, that means wasting 2-3 balls settling and getting out = more painful than swinging and getting LBW first ball. You can do this in OD matches because you can always ramp the aggression up to make up for it later.)

The run rate has to be between 8-9 an over, again that's the statistical average of a T20 International match, the record is something stupid like 13/14 an over, so you'd think 7+ is okay for a domestic cricket 20/20 match.

When I did stats research for T20 it is obvious the game is one of fine margins, if you hit the par score, you're usually okay. But you can drop say, 2-3 runs from the par and you lose almost 20% of your win chance, which is staggering.

Again, there's no real strategy to the format in CC as you can't fine tune the batting style (or even the bowling really, short of field selections) ~ you're really at the mercy of RNG here.

The conventional wisdom in T20 bowling in CC is to bowl wide and 100% defensive, because any aggression from the bowler gets punished. The issues are two fold; 1. bowling with aggression leaks runs (which you don't want) in favour of wickets (which you do want, but not at the expense of runs). And 2. Attacking requires bowling 'in line' which is very line+length and doesn't work in the shorter format, where bowling variety is more important, especially for seamers (but again, you don't have the tools to do that)

In CC 0 aggression bowling is wide of off stump and a stacked off field. In reality you'd be smashed for six and four nearly every ball for doing this, anything wide is thumped away on the off side regardless, and anything wide off and short in the modern format is slogged to the legside, with batters walking across, or simply hooking. CC15 (and I would bet money on the later editions) simply doesn't work in this way, hence why both you and the AI can resort to the same tactics with the same outcomes.

In an ideal world, the T20 engine would be revamped to take into account the batting/bowling tactical set ups of reality, but that's impossible in a game as straightforward as this in terms of user interaction at the moment. (In other words, it would need visible attributes, scouting, bowling and fielding plans of a more in depth nature, things which, if they haven't been implemented in 2023, are never happening, sorry if that's a downer, that's my opinion on the matter, simply because T20 is a very aggressive tactical battle where each ball counts, and so you really do need to get into the very minutiae of a batting/bowling set up, unlike Tests and OD where you can set and forget.)