Be Excellent To Each Other

Well, what a last session of the day. I've gone from 199/1 to 324/5. Not great losing four wickets, and some of the dismissals were really stupid of me. However, I was 249/5 at one point and lost all four wickets for five runs in a crazy couple of overs. I'm going to try to bat on until tea on Day 2 and post a massive score. I still have five wickets left and Colly and Fred are now in on 41 and 27 respectively.

I this thread - so many different batting stories and stats and such.

I finishing a storming session a couple of hours back, and unlocked a handful of Achievements which I wasn't even especially aware of or aiming for, winning my 20/20 final in the process.

I still have it set on "easy", and I'll stick with this for a while yet but I think soon I'll have to push it up a level.

By the way, what does everyone think of the commentary? I quite like it - much of the banter appears fairly natural, though obviously there's a fair bit of repeat here and there. Mostly I find I'm concentrating so much on the actual game, that I don't tend to hear some of it anyway.

I like the idea of the commentary, but when you've been playing a Test for the last three hours and you hear Tony Greig talking about how he used to be able to get a ball to reverse swing when he was in school for the tenth time, it wears mightily thin.

So, just tried playing against a random at T20. It was delicately poised at 144/5 after 15 overs (me batting), when my opponent decided to stop playing. He didn't do the decent thing and quit out, but just left it running and stopped bowling, which irritatingly meant that I had to wait 30 seconds after the bowler appeared at the end of his run up for a ball to be bowled. It took about 25 minutes to play the last five overs. I was buggered if I was going to quit out and let him take the victory (which I guess is what he was banking on).

At least I managed to get 120 gamerpoints out of it in his innings, and I'm now 327th in the world on the T20 leaderboard.

Yeah, fair point, though I haven't yet tried a full Test so this isn't grating with me so much at the moment.

There is something particularly grating about Tony Greig's voice as well.

I agree with that, and forgive my ignorance, but is he South African or an Aussie? Sounds a bit of both to me.

He's a South African, who happened to be England captain.

He also grew up in Australia, I think.

Oh dear, I appear to have played this when wasted last night. I've gone from 350-5 to 380 all out. Whoops!

Hahahahahahaha
Twat

Also, does the ODI achievement have to be a 50 over tourney? Or can you do it with 5 overs?

Don't know.

5 overs is fine.

75G please

I was just going to reply to your first post and say that no, it didn't matter about the amount of overs as I won it myself very quickly, and got the Achievement... but then you went and won in five overs anyway!

I went up a skill level earlier, from easy to medium, and I'm embarrassed to say I struggled a bit, but that said, I know if I was more accurate with my bowling I would do better, so I know what I need to do to improve.

Tomorrow I plan to start my first Ashes.

Ooh, good luck. Don't play it drunk is my advice.

Just make sure you bowl a decent line and length, and the wickets will come, don't go changing too drastically if you get hit for 12 or something off one over (make sure the reticle is more yellowy).
And take your time, there are 5 whole days to get a result out of, if you go smashing it around the park, you'll set a lower score and finish the game by lunch on day two!

I batted for 96 overs in my last innings - what did you do in your longest Test innings, nickachu?

45ish was the longest

score of 350odd

Forgot to save my game last time. Oops.

Started off a new Ashes series.

Aussies batting. Anderson has been bowling well but Freddie's all over the shop and has been shipping runs like crazy. Jimmy has 2 for 14 off 5 overs (including a golden duck for Ponting when he miscued as I bounced the little bastard first up!). Fred has 0 for 39 off 5, though I did drop Clarke, and missed a run out chance.

Oddly, Freddie has 2 maidens, meaning his other 3 overs went for 39 runs!

Aussies 53/2.

Anderson takes another!

Then Broad comes on as first change for Freddie... and bowls Clarke first ball, playing on to a short delivery!

Aussies 60/4 and reeling!

UPDATE: Australia now 90/7 at drinks. They're scoring at a fair clip, but Anderson and Broad are taking wickets. Jimmy has 4/26 and has bowled straight through thus far. Broad has 3/25... off two overs!

Finally got that sodding batting challenge achievement, bloody spinners.

Attempting a test myp style.... already failing.... 9 overs, 58/0 Strauss 36 off 26 and cook 21 off 29.... Strike rates are a bit too high, but I can't help buy smash it for 4 when they bowl it short!

Bollocks, cook's gone lbw after trying to hit one off the front foot which changed direction rapidly.

Aussies all out for 104. Broad takes 5/35 and Anderson 4/30, with one suicidal run out.

England are in the box seat and need to push on here!

England 49/2 at lunch in response to Australia's 104 all out.

Strauss chased a wide one when well set, and Cook was lbw to a ball pitching suspiciously outside of leg stump.

KP hammered Siddle out of the attack as he was bowling leg side filth, and is on 36 off 24 balls. At the other end, Ravi Bopara has a watchful 2 off 26 balls. Proper Test batting from Bopara!

BUGGER! Bopara caught behind off the spinner, playing a weak defensive prod. 4 off 30 balls.

Noooooo! KP top edges an attempted hook and perishes for 84!

It's so frustrating when you get to 80+ and get out

England post a slightly disappointing 219 all out in reply to Australia's 104.

KP got 84, but after him there were only cameos from Prior (35) and Swann (24) to bring the team up.

Still, a healthy lead.

Lunch of day 1, 194/2
Playing NZ
Strauss is 102* off 103 balls (Yes I know myp)
And Pietersen is on a quick 20* off 12 balls.
Bopara was caught out after miss timing a drive for 46. But looking pretty solid. Just gotta keep strauss at the crease for his 300, and the achievement!

Strauss has moved onto 154 off 127 balls..... oops!

UPDATE: Strauss now 204 off 158 balls.....

Got the 300 runs!

off only 197 balls!

552/2 at tea.

Gah! Strauss out for 339!

Decided to hit it around a bit will colly, before declaring on 709/4.

Should be able to get the win by an innings achievement now

Yeah, see this will likely be my failing until I learn a new method. When you're very confident you can attack the ball and, if not guarantee a 4, at least hit it far enough to get 2 runs, it's so hard to not twat the ball away.

Must... learn... restraint!

Actually, that reminds me of a comment in the EuroGamer article from the other week - they said something like, "You must think 'cricket', and not 'video game'", and I can see what they mean with regards to playing a Test match.

This is why I like to play as the Pakistan team. It gives you permission to swing your bat like a lunatic even in test matches.

Knew you'd love that

It's like boasting to women that you can finish sex in the quickest time possible.

I notched up 709/4..... You cannot complain about that!

And bowled NZ out for 210 in their first innings, now to bowl them out again

Are you playing on Easy?

The Aussies batted very sensible with a defecit of over 100 runs... until I brought on Swanny and they smacked him for 31 runs in two overs. That brought Flintoff back to bowl, and his second spell was far better than his first. Between him and Anderson the Australians collapsed from 74-1 to 87-6.

Freddie has 4-23 off 5 overs, and Jimmy has 2-12 off 6.

The Australians need to get 28 runs to even force me to bat again!

Normal.

I just hit balls that can be hit, and only leave ones that I definately know will be out if I attempt them

It is impressive scoring, I'll give you that. I can do it too, I just limit it to T20 matches - I just like playing authentically. I played Australia at T20 earlier and managed to get Colly 99 from 49 balls. He got run out on the last ball trying to run a 2nd for his century.

I had an awesome partnership of Strauss and Pieterson before strauss was run out after a bit of a kerfuffle, and the slow reactions of them turning back. But strauss ended up 339 and pieterson got 256* when I declared. Think the partnership was about 480runs

Did you get the batting trophies for breaking any records?

got the most boundaries... but I'd already got a double hundred before

At Stumps on Day One:

Australia 1st Innings 104 all out (Broad 5-35)
England 1st Innings 219 all out (Pietersen 84)
Australia 2nd Innings 154/7 (Flintoff 5-41, Hussey 42*)

Aussies leading by 39 runs after a solid partnership between Hussey and Johnson... though I did drop Johnson. Oops. And this innings alone I have bowled 28 no balls. And conceded 59 runs from THREE overs of spin.

Try and get the win by 10 wickets achievement when you bowl them out. I think that'll be quite a tough one to get

Oops... 59-3. I ran out Cook going for a quick single in the first over. Strauss ended unbeaten on 22.

1-0 to England!

surely win by ten is easiest to do with a small 4th innings total to bat for?

Yes, but getting to that stage will be trickier than winning by an innings or not losing an early wicket