Team India – Database, Player Names, IPL Bug Fix

[suhit_n]

Well, I’d like to begin with a huge thanks to the game developers for their untiring efforts to keep this highly addictive game constantly updated!
Chris, Andy and Sureshot have been listening to community feedback since quite a while, and this is perhaps the only reason I have decided to start this thread despite being an otherwise dormant forum member.

I’ve been playing every edition of this game since the last 4 years, and have watched the game constantly improving with every version.
Being a cricket simulation game, the player database forms the core of the game which is supposed to reflect real world player selections, and preferably results as accurate as possible.

While the player database of other Test Nations has been very accurate, the Team India database has never really reflected the current real world team in every version. Although the latest database is a huge upgrade from the previous versions now selecting the likes of B Kumar and S Ahmed, on the whole the database needed a much deserved revamp.

Probably the lack of feedback from forum members has led to this, but I hope at the very least a few of the forum members from a country with a population of 1.23 billion people would agree to the database changes and bug fixes I have proposed.


The Team India revamp consists of three parts
1. IPL Bug Fix
2. IPL Revamp
3. National Team Database
4. Player Name Changes


1. IPL Bug Fix

The addition of IPL has made the game even more exciting, although a few issues still exist in an otherwise exciting game experience.

Bug 1: The 1^st fix required is for the issue of ‘Chennai selecting more than 4 overseas players in some of their matches’

The game AI selects 1. F du Plessis; 2. M Hussey; 3. A Morkel; 4. D Bravo and 5. A Dananjaya

I have tried to reproduce the issue, and it has occurred in 5 out of the 15 test careers started. I am not quite sure if the issue exists with the other IPL teams as well, but I happened to notice it in the 1^st game of every career I played against Chennai.

Here are 3 screenshots of Chennai vs Punjab, and Chennai vs Mumbai respectively:


A save game with the issue is available to help out the developers, and would like to know how I can send it to them for the appropriate fix.

Bug 2: Only 3 overseas players are selected by AI IPL teams
Now it is highly possible for an IPL team to play with only 3 overseas players realistically, but that has happened on just 2 occasions since the inception of the IPL in 2008. Both the occasions by Rajasthan due to unforeseen circumstances - unavailability due to national team call ups to a few overseas players which was further marred by injury to the reserve overseas player and definitely not by choice.

We can therefore conclude, there is simply no reason for a team to not field the full quota of 4 overseas players because:
a. They have bid much higher for most of the overseas players, and it would seem fit to get the value for the money they have had to pay
b. Overseas players would definitely have more experience at the international level, as compared to domestic fringe players
c. Overseas players, usually superstars and well-known names attract larger crowds
d. Endorsements, duh!

The game AI selects a maximum of 3 overseas players in certain matches. The below screenshot shows Mumbai fielding 1. R Ponting; 2.G Maxwell and 3. J Oram


Somehow the game selects domestic player S Yadav who has actually not played a single game for Mumbai in the real world, despite the game having the choice to field the likes of T20 specialists - L Malinga, M Johnson, K Pollard, P Hughes, N Coulter-Nile, D Smith as well as others such as J Franklin and A Blizzard, who were not injured and had no national team call ups at that time (1^st season).

The above situation is just a single example, but the bug appears far more frequently than expected recurring with Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Again, the bug appears in the same save-game as the previous bug, and is available to the developers if required.


2. IPL Revamp

Again, the IPL AI selections need a complete revamp to make it more competitive and interesting.

The following suggestions are based on real-world statistics (IPL 2013) and are not subjective in any way.

Here is a stat-based team-wise list of possible team inclusions and exclusions below.

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Chennai
(Domestic) Exclusions:
I Ahmed - Not played any games for Chennai this year

Inclusions:
M Sharma - Has played 15 games of a possible 18, including the semi-final and finals, taking 20 wickets and averaging 16.30 in bowling with his consistent performances meriting his inclusion in the Indian National Team

(Overseas) Exclusions:
F du Plessis - Not played any games for Chennai this year

Inclusions:
C Morris - Played 16 games, 15 wickets

*As mentioned, the game selects 5 overseas players, but sometimes it correctly selects 4, thereby replacing S Badrinath with I Ahmed which should never occur as S Badrinath plays every possible game for Chennai since 2008, this year making 18 appearances. Thus if selected correctly, including a bowling all-rounder C Morris, the team gets balanced by selecting a domestic batsman in S Badrinath when F du Plessis is excluded.

---

Delhi
(Domestic) Exclusions:
Y Venugopal - 1 game
B Chipli - 1 game
M Gautam - 3 games
A Agarkar - 4 games

Inclusions:
U Yadav - 16 games, 16 wickets
K Jadhav - 12 games, 1^st choice wicket-keeper. NV Ojha is their 2^nd choice keeper, not M Gautam as 1^st choice
S Nadeem - 12 games, 14 wickets, upcoming talent
A Nehra - 10 games, 11 wickets
U Chand - 9 games, super talent in real life

(Overseas) Exclusions:
J Mendis - 3 games
A Russell - 3 games

Inclusions:
M Jayawardene - 15 games, 331 runs, plays most of Delhi’s games in other seasons too
B Rohrer - 8 games, 193 runs

---

Punjab
(Domestic) Exclusions:
P Valthaty - 1 game
N Saini - 0 games
S Sharma - 4 games

Inclusions:
Mandeep Singh - 16 games, super-talent in real life, but is picked by game AI in only 50 - 60% of Punjab’s matches. Should be selected in every match.
M Vohra - 12 games, 161 runs
G Singh - 11 games, 108 runs

*R Satish (9 games) or M Gony (8 games) should be reserve domestic players to be picked if required

(Overseas) Exclusions:
A Mascarenhas - 1 games
L Pomersbach - 3 games
R Harris - 3 games

Inclusions:
A Gilchrist - 13 games, captain of Punjab, 1^st choice keeper instead of N Saini
D Miller - 12 games, 418 runs
A Mahmood - 196 runs, 15 wickets
S Marsh - 8 games, should be reserve overseas player to be picked if required

---

Kolkata
Domestic correctly picked by the AI, well done!
(Overseas) Exclusions: R McLaren - 2 games

Inclusions: S Narine - 16 games, 22 wickets, 15.9 bowling average

*S Senanayake (8 games, 9 wickets preferred due to spinners pitch at Eden Gardens) should be reserve overseas player to be picked; The game AI should not pick B Lee (3 games) and R ten Doeschate (4 games)

---

Mumbai
Domestic correctly picked by AI, except for the above mentioned bug selecting S Yadav (0 games for Mumbai this season) instead of a 4^th overseas player
(Overseas) Exclusions: All 4 overseas players are wrongly picked by AI
J Oram - 1 game
G Maxwell - 3 games, may not necessarily be dropped as it may look realistic next season
R Ponting - 6 games

Inclusions:
K Pollard - 18 games, 420 runs, 10 wickets
M Johnson - 17 games, 24 wickets, 19.12 bowling average
L Malinga - 17 games, 20 wickets, 23.40 bowling average
D Smith - 13 games, 418 runs, 32.15 batting average
*D Smith to be changed to an opener in T20s

---

Pune
(Domestic) Exclusions:
K Upadhyay - 2 games
M Manhas - 3 games

Inclusions:
R Uthappa - 16 games, 434 runs, 27.12 batting average, 1^st choice opener for Pune
A Dinda - 14 games, 16 wickets
R Sharma - 11 games, 9 wickets

(Overseas) Exclusions:
W Parnell - 4 games

Inclusions:
A Finch - 14 games, 456 runs, 32.57 batting runs, opener for Pune with R Uthappa

*2^nd overseas player - Angelo Matthews correctly picked by AI, no issues there
*3^rd and 4^th overseas players can be any of M Marsh (9 games), L Wright (6 games) and S Smith (7 games) but never W Parnell. Picking A Dinda and R Sharma, opens the 4^th overseas spot for these players.

---

Rajasthan
(Domestic) Exclusions:
A Menaria - 1 game
H Singh - 1 game
S Baby - 4 games

Inclusions:
D Yagnik - 12 games, 125 runs, 1^st choice wicket keeper, not A Menaria
S Samson - 11 games, 206 runs, super-talent in real life
A Chandila - 8 games, 6 wickets

(Overseas) Exclusions:
B Hogg - 1 game

Inclusions:
K Cooper - 14 games, 19 wickets, 23.63 bowling average

*J Faulkner should be changed into a bowling all-rounder

---

Hyderabad
(Domestic) Exclusions:
S Rana - 0 games
D Ravi Teja - 2 games
B Samantray - 8 games, played only to replace S Dhawan (injury)

Inclusions:
A Mishra - 17 games, 21 wickets, 18.76 bowling average, consistently top performer in most IPL seasons, meriting his inclusion in the Indian National Team
H Vihari - 17 games, 241 runs
I Sharma - 16 games, 15 wickets
Ashish Reddy - 12 games, 23.33 bowling average

(Overseas) Exclusions:
Q de Kock - 3 games

Inclusions:
T Perera - 16 games, 233 runs, 19 wickets
C White - 13 games, 209 runs

*D Steyn is correctly picked as 3^rd overseas player
*Either K Sangakkara (9 games) or D Sammy (10 games) should be picked as 4^th overseas player, and never both at the same time by dropping C White.

[suhit_n]

Team India – Database, Player Names, IPL Bug Fix

Bangalore
(Domestic) Exclusions:
S Warrier - 0 games
S Sohal - 0 games
A Mukund - 1 game

Inclusions:
J Unadkat - 13 games, 13 wickets, super-talent, merited a place in the current Indian National Team
A Karthik - 12 games
M Kartik - 11 games, 9 wickets

(Overseas) Exclusions:
D Vettori - 0 games
A McDonald - 1 game

Inclusions:
C Gayle - 16 games, 708 runs! Top scorer of IPL 2013, 59.00 batting average, 175 runs highest score
R Rampaul - 10 games, 13 wickets, 20.07 bowling average

---

All of the above possible team inclusion/exclusions are stat based and have been devised after studying every IPL league match.

Hence, if correctly done, there is the appropriate balance between the number of batsmen and bowlers, also taking into account the required 4 overseas player limit.
The above changes in team selection will not only reflect real-world teams, but also make playing an IPL career way more exciting and competitive, by increasing the difficulty and overall competition quality.


3. National Team Database

Well, finally comes the highly debatable subjective topic on player ratings.

The Indian National Team is currently No.1 in ODIs, No.3 in Tests and No.3 in Twenty20.
But the Indian National Team database has never really been able to reflect the sheer quality in the Indian batting department.

Here are a few changes required to reflect the current Indian National Team status:

A. Virat Kohli is currently No.1 in ODIs and No.3 in Twenty20, and definitely deserves a massive upgrade. Being at 24 years, and India vice-captain, his best years are ahead of him and the game should reflect his potential for development. He smashed the quickest and the third quickest centuries by an Indian in ODIs to power two 350-plus chases against Australia, and is among four batsmen to have scored more than 1000 runs this year.

B. India's openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, both of whom were in form against Australia, have also risen sharply in the rankings. Rohit Sharma, who broke the record aggregate for a bilateral series with 491 runs, has leaped 25 spots to a career-best 15th place, while Shikhar Dhawan, who is enjoying a golden 2013, has moved up to 12 places to be No.11 in ODIs.

The game never picks Rohit Sharma, but picks Virender Sehwag instead. It seems hard for V Sehwag to make it back to the National Team and his ratings need to be downgraded, while massively improving R Sharma’s ratings at the same time.

Also R Sharma needs to be changed to always open the batting for Team India in T20s and ODIs, after having cemented the spot in the National Team.

C. With MS Dhoni at No.6 and Suresh Raina No.19 rankings, India have five batsmen in the top 20 in the world. The game picks MS Dhoni correctly now, but he never performs to the ability, he should have been at considering his performances for the National Team. Dinesh Karthik on the other hand seems to perform better in-game. MS Dhoni deserves a massive upgrade too, or at least rate him higher than D Karthik.

D. After Ravindra Jadeja’s performances against Australia earlier this year, as well as in the IPL 2013, he is now rated No.3 in ODIs (Bowling) and at No.5 (All-Rounders) in the world and definitely deserves an upgrade to his bowling ability if not batting.

E. Amongst the downgrades, V Sehwag should not be picked anymore amongst the batsmen. S Tendulkar will have retired from all forms of the game after the WI test in India this month.

F. The bowling line-up is almost always picked incorrectly. While Bhuvneshwar Kumar, R Ashwin and S Ahmed are correctly picked, the others are always wrong.

P Ojha should be the preferred spinner instead of H Singh.

Umesh Yadav > I Sharma > J Unadkat > M Sharma > P Awana should be picked amongst the seamers in the above order instead of the likes of I Pathan, P Kumar and V Kumar who will never make it to the National Team considering the above mentioned talent and their relatively much better performance since the end of last year.


*Potential Talent:
After a few years, the game begins to pick obscure talent who would otherwise in real life never make it to the National Team. Some of the names cannot even make it at the domestic level.

On the other hand, the scintillating performances of the likes of Sanju Samson; Vijay Zol; Baba Aparajith; Hanuma Vihari and Mandeep Singh in the batting department at the domestic level have alerted the selectors, but the batting line-up is full of starts already. The game should reflect the ability of these youngsters after a few years, and should pick them up instead of the obscure names.

Unfortunately, there’s not much bowling talent in sight for the next few years.


4. Player Name Changes

And for the last part of my long list of suggestions is a few player name changes/corrections:

India:
MS Dhoni should be Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Ravi Ashwin should be Ravichandran Ashwin
Shami Ahmed should be Mohammed Shami
Baba Apparajith should be Baba Aparajith
Abu Nachim should be Abu Nechim

Sri Lanka: Tissara Perera should be Thisara Perera

I would be eternally grateful if at least a few of the proposed suggestions can be considered by the game developers.

On behalf of all those customers who have bought this year’s edition, I hope a patch is released to address the above mentioned bug fixes and player database changes including IPL call ups. That is only because, all the dedication and research involved in studying IPL team selections and the time spent on the game should prove fruitful for this year’s edition and the game customers.

I’m sure the next year’s game edition would be even better, but before March would be the IPL 2014 auctions and the above mentioned team line-up changes would mean useless if not included in this year’s edition.

Finally, this is a thread for discussion and would love to hear the views from the community - fellow Indians, as well as the rest of the world.

(P.S - I'm currently running the latest 13.05 Patch on ICC 2013)

[KGKOOLKAT777]

To add to this they should have a full first name not just an initial (regens that is)

[suhit_n]

Thanks KGKOOLKAT777 for having read through the long post, and also for the suggestions for the next patch.

A few more changes are required for the Indian National Team database:
R Ashwin has been ranked at No.8 in Test Bowler Ratings, the third best spinner in the world only after S Ajmal and G Swann.
Having taken 92 wickets in 16 tests, while registering nine 5is only speaks volumes about his ability.
He definitely needs a massive upgrade and should be India's best bowler and spinner, to be always picked by the game AI ahead of H Singh.

P Ojha and A Mishra to be rated as the 2nd and 3rd choice spinners and should be picked when required by the game AI instead of H Singh

L Balaji and I Pathan should be heavily downgraded and must almost never be picked by the game AI as they are long out of the National Team - and will probably never make it again

I Sharma needs to be downgraded quite a bit

I had previously suggested Sanju Samson; Vijay Zol; Baba Aparajith; Hanuma Vihari and Mandeep Singh to be considered as the future stars of the Indian National Team in the next database instead of the game AI picking obscure names over the later years.

A few more than obvious suggestions for the list of super-talents include:
Unmukt Chand; Parvez Rasool; Manish Pandey; Rishi Dhawan; Mohit Sharma; Ishwar Pandey and Shahbaz Nadeem

Most of the above players are currently playing excellent domestic cricket over 2 years, after having won the U-19 World Cup. They have huge IPL contracts and are usually the first names on the team sheet for their respective IPL teams.

[KGKOOLKAT777]

It is also good to have a bit of variety in the saves so there are a few surprises.

[GrahamB]

The match engine is going to start selecting teams based on stats within the game soon enough, so you're never going to be satisfied with what happens.
Just enjoy the game for what it is.

[pearljammonkey]

Agreed. The heart of icc is about the future and being able to play for unlimitef seasons. The 'accuracy' of current real world player ability is so subjective and constantly changing anyway so it's a waste to give time to it in comparison to improving the match engine and increasing the stats. My opinion anyway, having played since the original icc.

[KGKOOLKAT777]

The match engine is going to start selecting teams based on stats within the game soon enough, so you're never going to be satisfied with what happens.
Just enjoy the game for what it is.

Agreed. The heart of icc is about the future and being able to play for unlimitef seasons. The 'accuracy' of current real world player ability is so subjective and constantly changing anyway so it's a waste to give time to it in comparison to improving the match engine and increasing the stats. My opinion anyway, having played since the original icc.

I agree but I also believe that some of the bugs mentioned here as well as the first name bug should be fixed.