COMPUTER CRICKET Computer Cricket is a simulation of the game of limited-over cricket. The game may be played by either one or two players. The player takes the part of captain of one (or both) of the opposing teams. As captain, the player has a considerable say in the selection of his team and, of course, he has the final say in both batting order and selection of bowlers. Six touring parties are available from which to choose opponents for a particular match. These touring parties are from Australia, West Indies, Pakistan, England, India and New Zealand. TO BEGIN To begin play, simply insert the disk and turn the computer on. The program will run automatically. After the main program has loaded you will be presented with the title screen and invited to make a choice between two options, namely Load Old Game or New Game. The Load Old Game option may be chosen if you wish to continue play in an unfinished game which you have previously saved to disk. (The procedure for this option will be discussed later.) For the present, however, select the New Game option. From this point on, everything is controlled by the joystick and trigger. STARTING A NEW GAME After a short pause (during which the computer gets a few of the basics organised) you will be presented with another screen and invited to select the two nations to play. Use the joystick to move the flashing cursor vertically and press the trigger when the cursor is adjacent the desired nation. After you have selected two nations, the touring party for the first selected nation appears. As stated in the flashing message at the bottom of the screen, you should now select your team in batting order. Press the trigger to kill the flashing message and initiate team selection. Use the joystick to move the cursor vertically and press the trigger when the cursor is adjacent the desired player's name. To assist you in keeping track of where you are, each player's name will, when selected, disappear from the 'Touring Party' column and appear in the 'Selected Team' column. Note that you may correct any selection errors, or re-select your team at the completion of initial selection, by pressing the ESC key. Also note that the outcome o the game will depend to a considerable extent on both the players you select and the order in which you select them. Put good batsmen at the head of the batting order by all means but make sure you have good bowlers and the odd all-rounder in your line-up as well. When you have selected the eleven players for the first team, press the trigger to proceed to the toss. THE TOSS AND SELECTION OF TEAM TO BAT FIRST After a short pause (during which the toss routine is loaded from disk) a coin will appear and the appropriate team captain will be invited to call the toss. When the call is made, the coin spins and alights on either 'heads' or 'tails'. The captain who wins the toss will then be invited to indicate which team is to bat first. Following this decision, there will be a brief interlude while the covers are removed (i.e., more code is loaded from disk). THE MAIN MENU Following the removal of the covers, the main menu appears. As you will see, this menu offers a number of options, the first four of which are chosen through the joystick. The options are:- 1. Display Scoreboard - first team. 2. Display Scoreboard - second team. 3. Select bowler for next over. 4. Richie Benaud's summary. 5. Save game to disk (chosen with the ESC key). DISPLAY SCOREBOARDS Calling up scoreboards is quite simple. Use the joystick and trigger to select the required team's scoreboard and, when you wish to return to the menu from this scoreboard, press the trigger. RICHIE BENAUD'S SUMMARY During the game, should you hunger for more statistics than are displayed on the scoreboards, call up Richie Benaud's summary. There are three main comparative statistics that Richie will dwell upon, namely;- 1. Fall of wicket (i.e., each team's total accumulated runs at the time of each successive batsman's departure from the crease)] 2. Run Rate (i.e., each team's total accumulated runs at the end of each tenth over). 3. Partnerships (i.e., the total runs made by a particular pair of batsmen during their combined stay at the crease). SAVE GAME TO DISK Pressing the ESC key will result in the current state-of-play to be saved to disk. At some future time you may recommence play by choosing the Load Old Game option referred to earlier. SELECT BOWLER NEXT OVER To get the game going, however, your most obvious choice at this point will be to select the bowler for the first over. Choose this option and you will exit the menu to the bowler selection menu. BOWLER SELECTION The bowler selection screen not only allows you to choose your bowler but also provides you with relevant bowler statistics. These are updated every over and include the number of overs bowled, maiden overs, run-offs and wickets taken. The numbers may assist you in determining which of your star bowlers are 'in form' today. After every over, when you return to the bowler selection screen, the cursor will be adjacent the bowler who bowled the last over. yOu will not be permitted to employ this bowler for the next over, nor will you be allowed to use any other bowler who has already bowled 10 overs. A hooter will expose any such attempts at unsporting behaviour. THE MAIN GAME Having selected your bowler, press the trigger to begin the over. At the trigger press, you will move to the main game screen to watch the toll that your chosen bowler takes of the opposition (or, alternatively, the manner in which the opposition demolished your bowler). The result of each ball will be displayed on the screen as well as the current batsmen, the bowler, the batsman on strike, the over being played, the current run rate and, when the second team is batting, the run rate required for victory. The current total runs for the batsman on strike will appear on the right hand side of the screen as each ball is bowled. Should a batsman be dismissed during the over, a scrolling message will appear spelling out the details of the dismissal. This message will continue to scroll until the trigger is pressed, at which time play will resume. Fours and half-centuries will be noted and sixes and centuries will be given somewhat more demonstrative recognition. At the end of each over you have two options: press the trigger to select he bowler for the next over; or pull the joystick back to return the return to the menu for a check of the scoreboards or, perhaps, a quick Richie Benaud summary. (If you go to the menu you can, of course, get back to the bowler selection screen from there as well.) Should an innings terminate (first team batting) or should the game be won (second team batting) during the over, a scrolling message indicating the nature of the outcome will appear at the bottom of the screen. This message will continue to scroll until the trigger is pressed, at which time you will be returned to the menu. If the event is the end of the first batting team's innings, the same menu options will apply as previously described, except, of course, that the former fielding team will now be batting. If, however, the event is the end of the game, the third menu option will be changed from 'Select Bowler Next Over' to 'End of Game Options'. END OF GAME OPTIONS At this point you can, of course, take a quick run around the scoreboards and Richie's end-of-game summary. You may even choose to save the completed game to disk for later printout. However, if you choose End of Game options option, all current options will be eliminated and replaced with two new options: New Game and Print Summary. Choosing New Game option is self-explanatory: the program will be reloaded from disk and you will be back where we started. PRINT SUMMARY If you choose the Print Summary option (which you should only do if you have an Epson printer all wired up and ready to go) there will be a sort delay while the print module is entered from disk. Eventually, a prompt will appear at the bottom of the screen inviting you to type in the venue of the game (e.g., SYDNEY CRICKET GROUND) and press the RETURN key. You will then be asked to input the date (e.g., 21 JAN 85). Type it in and press RETURN. A reminder then will appear asking you to make sure that he printer is 'ON-LINE'. Do so, press RETURN and printout will begin. MODIFYING PLAYER RATINGS There are those, of course, who will not agree with the author's player ratings. Others may go so far as to insist on changing these ratings, and indeed the whole touring party line-up. A utility program is included with Computer Cricket to facilitate modification of the names of touring party personnel and of the related batting and bowling ratings. This program is called 'RATINGS.BAS'. Load and run RATINGS.BAS and you will be presented with a three-option menu. The choices are Print Ratings to screen, Print ratings to printer and Create new ratings. If you choose the first option, each touring party will be listed to the screen with a summary of player and overall team ratings. (As indicated, press the space bar to step through each team and back to the menu). If you have an Epson printer and choose the second option, the Epson will present you with a page similar to the 'Current Batting and Bowling Ratings' sheet. CREATING NEW RATINGS If you choose to create new ratings, you will be asked to indicate which team. When you have answered that question that touring party, complete with the current player and overall team ratings, will appear on the left of the screen. The right side of the screen is used to input the changes you require, whether they be names, batting ratings or bowling ratings. Follow the prompts to input the changed data for all 16 members of the touring party. Note that when you begin this process the overall team ratings at the bottom of the screen disappear. As you enter each player's data the totals for the various ratings (one-star, two-star or three-star) are incremented to assist you in balancing the team's capabilities against the other five teams. The author considers that, for both batsmen and bowlers, a line-up which gives four three-star, four two-star and eight one-star players is a reasonable proposition. However, you are at liberty to set up your touring parties as you see fit. If, just once, you would like to see the 'Windies' defeated, then here is your chance to cheat!! When you have entered the revised data for the last player, new data lines for the main program will be automatically written and saved to disk. (This is the data which will b used when you next play Computer Cricket). At the end of the save-to-disk you will be given the choice of returning to the menu or terminating the program. For the Walter Mittys among us, the RATINGS.BAS utility is a good way to insert our own names into these teams of giants. The author's son, for example, has been known to replace a lesser light in the Australian team in order to assist his idols (Border, Rackemann and Lawson) in the bowling onslaught against the opposition.