At long last - the cricket equivalent of Football Manager has arrived for cricket game fans!
Immediately upon playing the game you get a sense of the depth of stats available to you - want to see who has scored the most boundaries in the Indian domestic competition this season? Go right ahead! The player database is vast, although often a little poor in foreign lands, and each player has various attributes rated out of 100.
The major bonus was that these stats were not tucked away by a troublesome user interface - everything is typically one or two clicks away and is wonderfully presented with a skin that would appear at a glance to be customisable (appearance wise at least) by the avid mod creator.
So, once you get past the process of signing players, selecting the best starting line up for the match conditions it is onto the match experience. We aren't just forced to click and view statistics in this game - we can see a very Football Manager-esque top down 2D pitch view - accompanied of course by informative text commentary.
The whole experience whilst playing was that this is a game that has been made by cricket fans for cricket fans. It isn't a football simulation hashed into a cricket game - for instance, which game previously has taken you back to the management options at the end of a days play? Its almost like being taken from the ground to the team hotel, ready to travel back the next day.
Its not perfect however - but for the first in what will hopefully turn into a very progressive series, it is an excellent, solid start - not exactly surprising given the Trescothick tie in...