International Cricket Captain General Thread of Miscellany

[Somerset]

I tend to play with the non-power nations (i.e. I go with New Zealand, Zimbabwe, etc.) so I've never come across a freakish player of my own who averages 80+ over their entire career since the regenerated players from those countries tend to be at a lower level than those from England/Australia. I've seen screenshots of players averaging 80-100 though, particularly in the earlier versions like ICC 2002 in which English players would be ridiculously powerful 40-50 seasons into the game.

 

[Cabinet96]

Didn't Hughes have a Bradman esq average for many in the 2009 edition?

 

[Dan]

Didn't Hughes have a Bradman esq average for many in the 2009 edition?

Yeah, Hughes had this habit of making Test 450s on a regular basis. Highly realistic

Have some major selection dilemmas in my NZ game - had to take 18 to Bangladesh.

Gave the fringe guys a run in the warm-up, as I was undecided on a couple of places. Reserve opened BJ Watling ended up making 180-odd, putting on 300 with Jeet Raval. He's undroppable. My middle order failed, declared early and bowled the others out again. Chucked Dean Brownlie and Anaru Kitchen out there to open and try and chase 137 in about 90 minutes. Did it with time to spare, without losing a wicket.

All I know is Derek de Boorder and James Franklin both did nothing and are gone. Jesse Ryder in average form, so he won't make it back in, Williamson did nothing but has to play.

So yeah, I have about 10 batsmen averaging 50+ vying for 6 slots.

Then Mark Gillespie and random regen spinner decided to perform well with the ball. Gillespie's forced his way in at the expense of Kyle Mills, and with a spinning pitch the regen will partner Todd Astle, at the expense of a fourth paceman (Regen genuine AR batting at 7).

Went with the following:
Jeet Raval (averaging 82 in Tests)
Joshua Brodie (averaging 55)
Dean Brownlie (averaging 25, but over 100 this season in FC)
BJ Watling [wk] (averaging 34 in tests, 122 in this season's FC)
Kane Williamson (63 in tests, slightly out of form, but still 60 in current FC)
Sam Wells (40 in tests with bat, 22 with ball)
Sam Aimson [REGEN] (63 with bat, 43 with ball)
Todd Astle (29 bat, 29 ball)
Kevin Stock [REGEN] (debut - 28 with the bat in FC, 23 with ball in current season)
Mark Gillespie (bowl 34-ish - 5/86 and 4/63 in tour match Averaging 18 in current FC with the ball)
Trent Boult (bowling average 61.75, but he's been gunning it in ODIs and T20s, and been on every tour doing technique training. Current FC ave 18)

Cam Merchant, Jesse Ryder both averaging >50 on the bench.
Kyle Mills turned into a test-class bowler
CdG somehow became a useful number 8. Test bowling average ~34
James Franklin, Derek de Boorder and Anaru Kitchen round out the squad

 

[_Ed_]

Whoa, that's impressive!

I just had an incredible County Championship game. Didn't take a screenshot of the summary screen, sadly, but the scores were:

Surrey (me) 426 (young bloke called Kennedy got 246* in only his 6th game)
Middlesex 259
Middlesex 479-7d
Surrey 316-9, won by 1 wicket

What a game. Great comeback from Middlesex, but we got there in the end.

 

[Noble One]

Run-rate must have been high throughout the game. How did the fourth innings play out?

 

[_Ed_]

Yeah, the runs were scored at a decent speed throughout the game. My 426 took 111 overs, while Middlesex batted 73.4 and 124 overs in their two innings. So the RR for all of those innings was above 3.5.

Middlesex declared quite early on day four. I had just over two and a half sessions to bat, so I decided to push for the win and got there in 75.2 overs. There were only a couple of overs left in the day, so every result was possible.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah, Hughes had this habit of making Test 450s on a regular basis. Highly realistic

Have some major selection dilemmas in my NZ game - had to take 18 to Bangladesh.

Gave the fringe guys a run in the warm-up, as I was undecided on a couple of places. Reserve opened BJ Watling ended up making 180-odd, putting on 300 with Jeet Raval. He's undroppable. My middle order failed, declared early and bowled the others out again. Chucked Dean Brownlie and Anaru Kitchen out there to open and try and chase 137 in about 90 minutes. Did it with time to spare, without losing a wicket.

All I know is Derek de Boorder and James Franklin both did nothing and are gone. Jesse Ryder in average form, so he won't make it back in, Williamson did nothing but has to play.

So yeah, I have about 10 batsmen averaging 50+ vying for 6 slots.

Then Mark Gillespie and random regen spinner decided to perform well with the ball. Gillespie's forced his way in at the expense of Kyle Mills, and with a spinning pitch the regen will partner Todd Astle, at the expense of a fourth paceman (Regen genuine AR batting at 7).

Went with the following:
Jeet Raval (averaging 82 in Tests)
Joshua Brodie (averaging 55)
Dean Brownlie (averaging 25, but over 100 this season in FC)
BJ Watling [wk] (averaging 34 in tests, 122 in this season's FC)
Kane Williamson (63 in tests, slightly out of form, but still 60 in current FC)
Sam Wells (40 in tests with bat, 22 with ball)
Sam Aimson [REGEN] (63 with bat, 43 with ball)
Todd Astle (29 bat, 29 ball)
Kevin Stock [REGEN] (debut - 28 with the bat in FC, 23 with ball in current season)
Mark Gillespie (bowl 34-ish - 5/86 and 4/63 in tour match Averaging 18 in current FC with the ball)
Trent Boult (bowling average 61.75, but he's been gunning it in ODIs and T20s, and been on every tour doing technique training. Current FC ave 18)

Cam Merchant, Jesse Ryder both averaging >50 on the bench.
Kyle Mills turned into a test-class bowler
CdG somehow became a useful number 8. Test bowling average ~34
James Franklin, Derek de Boorder and Anaru Kitchen round out the squad

Woah, good stuff. You've got a few players gunning it who shunt it for me. Surprised M4xdoch isn't in your team though. They overpowered him immensely judging by what I've seen from other guys games and mine.

 

[Athlai]

All the tests being played in Auckland is ITSTL.

 

[Dan]

Woah, good stuff. You've got a few players gunning it who shunt it for me. Surprised M4xdoch isn't in your team though. They overpowered him immensely judging by what I've seen from other guys games and mine.

Yeah, was considering trying him, but with so many batsmen already performing I decided to stick to the others for now.

Held India 1-1 in the Test series - despite being completely outplayed. India in the first test made 500+, we made about 480 and declared 8 down (copying Clarke), they made 0/257 in the second dig and gave us 300 to chase in 2.5 sessions. Made it with 20 minutes to spare.

Then they completely outplayed us. Gambhir is scoring a few million runs, Rahane performed well, Sehwag is batting 5 or 6 and still dangerous, and some Parmar guy must be bowling some unplayable off-spin, we couldn't face him at all.

Currently 2-1 up in the ODIs, and won the T20.

Rotating batsmen through the ODIs ATM - another regen by the name of Malcolm Ryan has been decent, Andrew de Boorder got two games on the back of strong domestic form, but didn't score a run.

Been dire in ODIs compared to Tests for the most part, but still managed to take over #1. Gone in with a squad of the following:

Raval, Watling, Ryan, de Boorder, Ryder, Williamson, Oram, Wells, Aimson, de Grandhomme, Astle, Stock, Bates, Boult, Ellis.

Aimson is an ODI bowling specialist - 41 wickets at 17, econ of 4.5
CdG is gun - averaging 22 with the bat at an SR >100, wickets costing 19.75 each, at 4.5 rpo
Ellis is gun too - 11 wickets at 20 in his first 6 games. Also made 98 runs at an SR of 99
Williamson a Test specialist - averaging in the 20s.

Not sure how Raval managed to average 80 in Tests thus far (or 70 in FC

 

[Noble One]

ICC 2005 - Australia 2016

Team news

The big three in Jefferson, May and Hemp have all retired in the 2026 off-season. I didn't record the final records of the trio, however you get the picture from my previous posts how immense these players have been.

First XI

With three first choices retired, this will be the first choice side for our next Test series against Zimbabwe.

1. B Popplewell: 13,904 runs @ 73.96
2. P Winters: 569 runs @ 56.90
3. J Westlake: 3,244 runs @ 61.21
4. R Forrest: 5,591 runs @ 65.53
5. G Fish: 8,139 runs @ 69.56
6. R Birtles: 2,215 runs @ 52.74
7. T Danvers: 6,342 runs @ 39.15
8. L Fry: 1,702 runs @ 22.39, 522 wickets @ 27.02
9. R Corbett: 1,795 runs @ 18.70, 508 wickets @ 29.06
10. N Quentin: 127 runs @ 12.70, 35 wickets @ 33.26
11. M Bent: 418 runs @ 9.95, 217 wickets @ 31.33

I won't recycle through the reserves, however two potential stars have emerged in the off-season. J Ripley with a first class average of 59.94 and H Froggett with a first class bowling average of 23.73. Most exciting is his 2nd XI average of 15.29 which tops the record charts.

Other oddities

- India has eight bowlers with Test averages below 30. Only two of them are spinners.
- The best Sri Lankan spinner averages 40.96. He's a batsman.
- A Rose of the West Indies is the next version of Shane Watson. Opener, 25 x 50's, 1 x 100.
- No bowler in Zimbabwe averages less than 32 in first-class cricket, however no batsman averages more than 37.
- West Indies love the specialist keeper. B Smith has played 210 ODI's for a batting average of 13.21.
- England gave B Forrest 78 Tests to prove himself a batsman. He averaged 27.43.

 

[Dan]

ICC 2005 - Australia 2016
- England gave B Forrest 78 Tests to prove himself a batsman. He averaged 27.43.

Sounds like Mark Ramprakash Mk.II

 

[Noble One]

England gave this spud 26 more matches to prove his worthlessness.

 

[morgieb]

The older ICC games tended to be more h4x apparently.

Not that I noticed it much

 

[Somerset]

Other oddities

- India has eight bowlers with Test averages below 30. Only two of them are spinners.
- The best Sri Lankan spinner averages 40.96. He's a batsman.
- A Rose of the West Indies is the next version of Shane Watson. Opener, 25 x 50's, 1 x 100.
- No bowler in Zimbabwe averages less than 32 in first-class cricket, however no batsman averages more than 37.
- West Indies love the specialist keeper. B Smith has played 210 ODI's for a batting average of 13.21.
- England gave B Forrest 78 Tests to prove himself a batsman. He averaged 27.43.

Haha, classic ICC. I remember in one of my games with New Zealand, Mushfiqur Rahim played about 200 ODIs before he retired and hadn't hit a century despite batting at 5-7 for most of the matches. Not surprised about the Zimbabwe statistic though the Indian and Sri Lankan ones are a little surprising. England selections can be a little bemusing, with a seemingly endless list of quality regenerated players who are shelved only for seemingly poorer players to play a huge number of matches.

 

[_Ed_]

Haha, yes. Although people like Martin Bicknell might argue that's not unrealistic.

 

[Cruxdude]

I have been winning a minimum of 2 trophies every year for the last 3 years in ICC 2005 and a sum total of one guy has represented England in tests that too in 2 tests.

 

[Dan]

A random delivery from Andrew Ellis just went, according to commentary & the umpire's signal, for 6 leg byes. This is despite the fact the batsman left it alone outside off, and the ball thudded into Matthew Sinclair's gloves.

Yes, I have 37-year-old Matthew Sinclair wicketkeeping in a FC tour game.

 

[Somerset]

I've never seen six legbyes but I have a screenshot of six byes which I'll try and find. This was in an earlier version so I can't remember exactly what happened in-game but it seems like its a rare bug in the game thats still yet to be solved.

 

[Jager]

I gave Steve O'Keefe a bowl on his test debut on a fourth day pitch hoping that he'd break a partnership. He took 9/34, which are the best figures I have ever seen on ICC personally. Steve Smith pulled 8/38 in a One Day International the other day, too. This artifical intelligence never ceases to surprise me

 

[zaremba]

What's a regenerated player? Is that when the computer makes someone new up?