A nice try, but flawed and needing major improvements to come a contender for realistic sports games on the Wii.
Visually, the game shows the Wii's graphical flaws when compared to the PS3 and 360. They are only just above the standard you would've expected on the PS2 for instance, none of the players really look like their real world counterparts and the stadiums aren't exactly going to make you feel at home playing this game. The animations are pretty varied but occasionally seem very poor and incomplete, an example being after a batsman has hit a defensive ball he freezes in the position until your next bowl.
Audio isn't so bad, with a good commentary team being the highlight (such as 'Beefy' and Shane Warne), albeit it does become rather repetative as has become a stale problem on sports game on all consoles.
The game itself is a nice attempt, I can see where they were trying to go but they've not really given it the best they could've and in some departments the game just feels incomplete and half-arsed.
Batting is simple, though without compatibility with MotionPlus it doesn't really feel like you're out there on the field as is the point of most Wii games. When swinging for the ball you do get the option for a standard hit which almost always goes for 4, or a defensive shot holding A as you swing. If you fancy a 6 you can hold B and go for a lofted shot with far more power and will again almost always result in either a 6 or being caught out, depending on your timing, something that is a key element in the batting game. On Village and County (aka Easy and Medium) you'll find batting more of a slog fest than anything else and you'll be racking up the runs quite easily. I've yet to get round to batting on International (Hard) but I can't imagine much of an increase in skill required.
Bowling is a little trickier. Once more, timing plays a major part, albeit perhaps a little misleading if following the tutorial. The power bar has been ditched in favor of a timing bar, with red to green and the moment between the perfect bowl and a no ball being horribly small. Getting the timing in the yellow rather than green or white tends to lead to the batsman missing or clipping an edge more often than not. The over aggressiveness of some batsman will usually lead to you being smashed every which way into oblivion and finding yourself giving very expensive overs. Spin and swing are simple enough to get the hang of, with a simple twist of the wrist one way or another as you bring the WiiRemote down to bowl.
Fielding is largely automatic, with 5 preset fielding options that you can switch before bowling and the ability to fine tune the formations. The major problem with the fielding is the AI can quite easily become quite stupid, catches seemingly far and few between. Runouts are also far and few between sometimes, but both depend on your formations. What has really bugged me about the fielding is their inability to run at any real pace, often the fielders seem completely disinterested and unable to run faster than an asthmatic ant. When compared to watching fielders in the real game of cricket, you'll notice the difference.
Other flaws include the lack of a stat tracker, and a rather half arsed skill option. A nice little player growth system would be nice, such as that seen in FIFA 09/10.
Overall, this is far from a perfect game and even die hard cricket fans will find it hard to find likable. With any luck however, Codemasters will release some form of patch or at least listen to the complaints and make a far better effort with the next installment, should they be allowed to even keep the license for it. Despite the hype, it certainly isn't the cricketing version of say FIFA or PES.
Nice try Codemasters...but the tendency to become an infuriating game is certainly making me think about getting my money back.