Cricket Captain 19

[Utter Shit]

Anyone play this? How do you become not shit at it? Maybe I'm digging my own grave by picking England but fuck me I am SO BAD. One of my openers (often both) gets out for less than 20 in more or less every single innings, and when bowling if the other side get a partnership together of more than about 40, it invariably ends up hitting 100, 150, 200, you name it.

Any advice?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's very tough on normal or above.

If you play on easy it's largely a tad too easy.

I think if you play ball by ball you can tweat field settings and apply pressure. Realistically it's a simulation played by an arcade audience.

Test squad selection:

At the start of the England game I recommend getting Ballance back in the team on this one at 3. He is a step up. Never averages above 40 but it's a step up. Browne and Duckett to open, Joe Clarke and Pope in the middle order. Bairstow is unusually good on this.

Archer takes a while to come good. Play Joe Leach straight away, he will get several hundred wickets in his career. Dom Bess is another decent performer.

Backup seamers are an issue once Jimmy and Broad get over the hill. Coad is decent though.

It's 2023 on mine and my team is

Browne
Duckett
Ballance
Root
Clarke
Pope
Bairstow
Archer
Coad
Miles
Leach

Bess and Monks to come in depending on the situation. Will Jacks is a batting all-rounder spinner, also develops into a test class performer at 7 or 8

One day selection:

For bowlers, Look for economical but with a decent strike rate

Batsman - a good strike rate at an average of 36+

And ditch people if they get out the same way and dont respond to training. Burns, Sibley, Livingstone etc, all victims of my slicer.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Also One day innings tempo is crucial. The first 10 overs and the 30-40 over period are really important. You have to stick or twist depending on wickets in hand, while sussing out which batsman is in form and enjoying which bowler.

By contrast the CPU will invariably settle for 33-0 after 10 and try to up the tempo in the middle overs. You will generally find that's where the wickets fall. Often switching to one seamer after 10 or so overs of spin in the middle overs makes the breakthrough.

Again, for England, personnel is an issue. Your amazing set of batsmen aren't replenished and the bowlers, Archer and Rashid aside are not great.

[Cuellar]

One of my openers (often both) gets out for less than 20 in more or less every single innings, and when bowling if the other side get a partnership together of more than about 40, it invariably ends up hitting 100, 150, 200, you name it.

Are you sure you're not just looking at the live cricket scores???!!!

Ha ha!!

[sevendaughters]

I've got three saves on the go - Zimbabwe, a Ranji Trophy team, and England. I never play T20 because playing ball to ball isn't really suited for this game. 50 over mode I find sometimes a bit arbitrary too, but also I've had some amazing wins and soul-destroying losses. I went from shredding South Africa by 150 runs to losing by 90 runs to Afghanistan in 1 game. I've had England need 3 to win off an over and they just block and leave on near max aggression. That shit is really annoying.

The Zimbabwe game is hugely frustrating but also the one where I feel I'm achieving something. My bowlers can't really do much so you're just hoping beyond hope to bat first and score a defendable total (I think the AI overattacks in replies). I've actually only just realised how to select players who haven't previously been selected (i.e. domestic players) and some of the changes I've made have been moderate improvements. The test side is now #7 in the world and has a nice bowling balance of pace, medium, and spin.

My advice in tests/FC games is to rarely crank the batting aggression beyond green 3 unless it's flat and they're set, or if they've momentarily brought the field up. Resist the temptation to have a player hog the strike unless it's a dire situation. Like real life, it's in the lap of the gods to a certain extent. Defend too much and you never get going. Attack too much and you're out quick.

Bowling I find you can do stuff. Click on the incoming batsmen to find their strengths and bowl against that. Like playing on the front foot? Bowl short. Strong on their legs? Dry them up outside off. Some stuff I do out of force of habit. Leg spinners don't need to come around the wicket, whilst off spinners and SLA bowlers should attack from the off-side (ie. left arm over to left hander, off spinner comes around).

Medium pace bowlers can be absolutely destructive in the right conditions. Worn pitch, second innings, or overhead gloom usually sees these unthreatening fops turn into Derek Underwood. Don't overlook them because they appear to lack muscle. They rarely get tonked and can bowl 7/8 over spells easily.

In shorter games it's rarely profitable to bowl long spells for anyone. People seem to get worse the longer you keep them on, so keep rotating bowlers. Occasionally I'll have a spinner bowl through for 30-35 runs and that's fine. Sometimes a non-bowler for 1 or 2 overs can help keep the runs down too.

[Utter Shit]

It's very tough on normal or above.

If you play on easy it's largely a tad too easy.

I think if you play ball by ball you can tweat field settings and apply pressure. Realistically it's a simulation played by an arcade audience.

Test squad selection:

At the start of the England game I recommend getting Ballance back in the team on this one at 3. He is a step up. Never averages above 40 but it's a step up. Browne and Duckett to open, Joe Clarke and Pope in the middle order. Bairstow is unusually good on this.

Archer takes a while to come good. Play Joe Leach straight away, he will get several hundred wickets in his career. Dom Bess is another decent performer.

Backup seamers are an issue once Jimmy and Broad get over the hill. Coad is decent though.

It's 2023 on mine and my team is

Browne
Duckett
Ballance
Root
Clarke
Pope
Bairstow
Archer
Coad
Miles
Leach

Bess and Monks to come in depending on the situation. Will Jacks is a batting all-rounder spinner, also develops into a test class performer at 7 or 8

One day selection:

For bowlers, Look for economical but with a decent strike rate

Batsman - a good strike rate at an average of 36+

And ditch people if they get out the same way and dont respond to training. Burns, Sibley, Livingstone etc, all victims of my slicer.

Sounds like my issue is I'm using entirely the wrong personnel, and that's just for a start. My usual team is...

Jennings
Burns
Root
Pope
Stokes
Buttler
Curran
Archer
Broad
Wood
Anderson

Jennings in particular is just a useless twat. If I get him to play defensively and bed in he goes out meekly around 15-20, and if I go more aggressive he generally goes out for less than 10. The only reliable scorers are Root and Buttler, and then my bowlers are crap. But that is presumably due to errors on my part because it's a good bowling line up (at least in real life, I assume the database replicates it). I only play test matches at the moment and it starts with last year's Ashes - I either get absolutely battered, or I put in a good batting display but am unable to take advantage and it ends up petering out to a draw.

I'll re-read your tips tomorrow and have another go, cheers.

[sevendaughters]

my 15 man World Cup squad for ENG was

bats: Bairstow, Roy, Root, Morgan, Buttler, Hales
all-rounders: Stokes, Jordan Clark, Woakes
pace: Wood, Archer, T Curran, Plunkett
spin: Rashid, Leach

it underwhelmed, generally. Archer usually starts a new CC19 game hot but his form bar never raised above 1 star.
the bats were so good I could usually carry an extra bowler/all-rounder to go with conditions. drop whoever is out of form.
Rashid was the star bowler. Leach began dry and clinical and ended up very leaky.
Stokes was the partnership breaker throughout.
Jordan Clark was a reasonable selection. He never gets tonked, picks up a wicket here and there, and is a good #8.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I found Willey largely does a reliable job, especially middle overs if he doesn't pick up new ball wickets.

He is more reliable with the bat on this too.

They didn't make Woakes handy enough in odis though. Had to move on after a while.

[Harry Badger]

Was gonna post this in the NPC thread but fuck it. Ever get unusually attached to a computer generated player?

Had a guy in the 2005 edition playing as Glamorgan called Andrew Ellsion. Wicket-taking off-spinner who also gave the ball a big thump. Used to promote him up the order in T20 and he'd invariably get a quick thirty or so. I was so proud when he got called up by England though he only won four caps.

I still think about him sometimes :(

[sevendaughters]

Was gonna post this in the NPC thread but fuck it. Ever get unusually attached to a computer generated player?

yeah. Richard Guinness. young batsman that came through at Lancs. scored 1100 runs in debut season including back to back centuries against Yorkshire and Surrey. eventually selected by England and hardly saw him again.

[Harry Badger]

I reluctantly captained my works team in a six-a-side indoor game tonight. Shipped 143/1 off 10 overs then all out for about 60. Fucking nightmare, but better than my previous outing where I had my wrist smashed by my own teammate in the post-wicket huddle as he let a warm-up bouncer fly at me from ten yards.

I'm a lot better at ICC though. Main tips -in test matches don't be afraid to have your batsmen on 1 aggression for a good long while before slowly increasing. And keep an eye on their tiredness. Bring down the aggression if they are tired and a break is approaching. As for fielding, I find if a batsman is set, simply putting men in his favourite areas is enough to bring a wicket. Save your most effective self-set fields but don't be afraid to tinker with them.

[Inspector Norse]

Was gonna post this in the NPC thread but fuck it. Ever get unusually attached to a computer generated player?

On my CC17 save (currently in the year 2050) I have taken screenshots to preserve for posterity the career stats of a few players as I retire them from the test side.

On that game I do find myself cheating a bit by saving mid-match and reloading if stupid shit happens - the aforementioned blockathons at the limited-overs death for example - but that after a few years, thr newgen database goes haywire and you have literally dozens of guys with first-class batting averages of 50+ or bowling of 20-21 (though absolutely no decent English all-rounders despite other countries having entire ODI lineups of Stokeses).
And they're all called things like Horace Gratrix because the name generator is based on the 1953 County Championship season, and the name editor only seems to work if there is not a game of cricket going on anywhere in the workd.

Also, when I play against Australia they seem to rotate their openers every game even though one pair keep making massive scores and the other pair are pub standard.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Ah yes I've noticed other countries chopping and changing players even though some of them are undroppable titans. Injury, perhaps...

[Utter Shit]

I'm a lot better at ICC though. Main tips -in test matches don't be afraid to have your batsmen on 1 aggression for a good long while before slowly increasing. And keep an eye on their tiredness. Bring down the aggression if they are tired and a break is approaching. As for fielding, I find if a batsman is set, simply putting men in his favourite areas is enough to bring a wicket. Save your most effective self-set fields but don't be afraid to tinker with them.

How can you see a batsman's tiredness?

[Utter Shit]

Right, I've just finished getting pummeled in the Ashes (oo-er missus), two meek draws and three big defeats. Got a two match series against New Zealand now, how about this for a line-up?

Robson
Crawley
Root
Stokes
Pope
Buttler
Curran
Archer
Broad
Leach
Anderson

[Utter Shit]

Right, I've just finished getting pummeled in the Ashes (oo-er missus), two meek draws and three big defeats. Got a two match series against New Zealand now, how about this for a line-up?

Robson
Crawley
Root
Stokes
Pope
Buttler
Curran
Archer
Broad
Leach
Anderson

Fucking bollocks mate. Only Root, Buttler, Pope and Stokes averaged more than 30 over the year.

[Harry Badger]

How can you see a batsman's tiredness?

It's the red line around the 'settled' bar.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's the red line around the 'settled' bar.

Never even noticed that. Doesn't sound like Utter Shit's problem is batsmen getting pad rash, though.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Browne and Duckett are good foils to open with. Browne is a doughty, Cook-like opener, Duckett takes on the new ball, aggressive player.

Browne's issue is not converting. He must have about 20 scores above 90 for my side and only 7 are centuries. Not the worst problem to have though.

Sibley, Burns, Jennings... I even tried Lyth again. None worked.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Ah, realised why the red line by the settled bar isn't there. I'm playing the mobile version.

[Harry Badger]

Ah, realised why the red line by the settled bar isn't there. I'm playing the mobile version.

Hmm, I'm playing the 2017 version right now on laptop and it's not there. Was definitely there on older versions though.

[sevendaughters]

my Zimbabwe save is getting better. I'm in the Test Championship and a couple of honest-to-goodness decent batsmen have been generated. form is up and down, drew a test series in Ireland, and then just beat England at Lord's. can't win an ODI series to save my life.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

5 test series against SA at home from having crushed NZ away from home.

Lost every toss. Subject to 8 opening stands of 100 plus. Thrashed 5-0. It has taken all week to get through this series, every day subjecting myself to this torturous punishment. Nothing worked, none of the selections, all my best players turned in shit performances. Was barely in any of the games for any more than 1 session. Easily the worst feeling ever from playing any game.