After the Brian Lara Cricket series came to a close in 2007, Codemasters published two more Cricket games: Ashes Cricket 2009 and International Cricket 2010. At that time, only Codemasters was publishing multi-platform Cricket video games, since EA Sports had left the Cricket gaming world in 2007. International Cricket 2010 was developed by Australian-based studio Trickstar Games with Codemasters serving as the publisher. The game reviewed fairly well, and Trickstar received a BATFA nomination for their work on the title.
Just when we were thinking that Cricket glory was returning to the video-game world, Codemasters shifted gears and put their focus on racing games. These days, they are cheeky about their once-prominent role in the Brian Lara Cricket series, as evidenced by this 2017 Tweet:
In 2013, Trickstar would release another Cricket game, this time with 505 Games serving as publisher. Die-hard Cricket fans (myself included) were excited for Ashes Cricket 2013, as we had fond memories of its predecessors. Little did we know that this wasn’t going to go in the direction we’d imagined. I don’t think anyone could have predicted what would happen next.
Ashes Cricket 2013 was first scheduled to release in June of 2013, but was delayed until July, and then delayed again until November of that same year.
In the meantime, another Australian company, Big Ant Studios, was working on their own Cricket game, titled Don Bradman Cricket 14 (Sir Donald Bradman was an Australian cricketer who is widely considered the greatest batsman of all time). Fans were excited that there were now two Cricket game-makers in competition with one another, which seemed like it could only guarantee quality products from both studios.
Trickstar was more active when it came to the promotion of Ashes Cricket 2013, compared with Big Ant’s promotion for Don Bradman Cricket 14. Trickstar would share screenshots of the game, and producer Mike Fegan was sharing development videos every week. Judging by their confidence, Ashes Cricket 2013 seemed like it would be the better game. As it turns out, Trickstar’s baby was finally released in November 2013, and in a few days’ time was ready to pack its bags forever.
Although the game looked like it followed the footsteps of its predecessors in terms of animation, graphics, and overall gameplay, it was undoubtedly an unfinished product that ended up with serious bugs. The game was nothing short of a disaster. Critics and fans categorized it as the worst Cricket game of all time — and maybe even one of the worst sports games ever made.
After just a few days of monumental backlash, 505 Games cancelled the game for all platforms and publicly stated that they’d issue a refund for those who bought the game on Steam. This was the right call, as the game was certainly not up to the standards of a normal game, let alone the great Cricket games on whose shoulders it stood.
While this was disappointing, it did give YouTubers a lot of content.
But if you look closely at the gameplay, the commentary team (David Lloyd, Mark Nicholas, and Michael Slater), and the overall design, you’ll see that somehow a very good game was hidden inside it; it just wasn’t as polished as it needed to be. But by releasing in such a disastrous state, the Ashes Cricket 2013 story ended prematurely.
But that meant that all competition had been removed, and Big Ant Studios got an open playing field for Don Bradman Cricket 14.
Considering it was Big Ant’s first-ever Cricket video game, Don Bradman Cricket 14 was a respectable attempt. The game was well ahead of all cricket games in terms of gameplay features and graphical quality. This was a surprise package for Cricket fans, as I don’t think many people expected this level of quality from a studio that was just entering the Cricket space for the first time (even though they had been making non-Cricket games for about a decade prior).
So the disappointment with Ashes Cricket 2013 was short-lived, as it was quickly replaced by Don Bradman Cricket 14, which was ready to create the future of Cricket video games.
The Journey of Big Ant Studios is still ongoing. Since 2014, Big Ant Studios has released five multi-platform Cricket games. So it seems that Cricket is in safe hands for now, and it will probable only get better from here.
