Everything started in the year 1993, when the first PC cricket game was launched which was, “Graham Gooch World Class Cricket” which was on the legendary England cricketer Graham Gooch and also the first multiplayer cricket game too. After that many cricket games like,(Only Mentioning the cricket games that got popular) Brian Lara Cricket(1996), ICC World Cup Cricket England(1999), Cricket 2000, Cricket 2002, Cricket 2004, Cricket 2005, Cricket 07, Brian Lara’s International Cricket(2007), Ashes Cricket 2013, Don Bradman Cricket 2014, Big Bash Boom(2018), Cricket 2022 and Cricket 24 to come soon. All these were popular games which came but there are 2 cricket games which are my favorites but somewhere I see a comparison between those two games. The 2 games which are we going to discuss today are Cricket 07 and Cricket 22.
Let’s start with Cricket 07. Cricket 07 was a 2006 game which was developed by 2 companies called HB Studios and EA(Electronic Arts) and it was developed by Electronic Arts under the genre of sports in EA which is known as EA Sports. Cricket 07 game can be called a Quick Play Cricket Game as it had easy controls. This game is still available on Amazon and Flipkart as it can be played with a PS Controller or with the keyboard itself.
Now let’s talk about Cricket 22. Cricket 22 is a 2021 cricket video game which can be called a better and continuation of previous game Cricket 19 is a Series of Big Ant Studios Ashes Cricket. The Game is developed by Big Ant Studios and is published by Nacon. This game can also be called as Quick Play Cricket Game. The game is available on 3 main platforms which are Amazon, Flipkart and Steam. This game can only be played with a controller or better to play with PS4 or PS5.
WHY THESE TWO GAMES CANNOT BE COMPARED?
Let’s just first finish talking about Cricket 07. Cricket 07 and Cricket 22 both are owned and published by 2 different companies. But there is a thing, If you ask a Cricket 07 fan which game is better between 07 and 22 they will definitely say Cricket 07 and maybe they can speak or write their heart out on that if there’s an Oral Essay Competition or If there’s an Essay asked related to “My Favorite Cricket Game”. And I think Cricket 07 is a proper nostalgia for 2000s Kids.
If I talk about what made me the fan of this game was especially their songs of this game. And every person who has played this game does remember the song named, “Toura Toura” by DJ Cheb I Sabbah that song did have a different vibe whenever used to create match and set the rules of overs and venues. There was another good song which was “Long White Cross” by Pluto too was a great song. The second thing that made me repeat everything word by word was the commentary of these 2 greats:
Those who don’t know them, The person on the left is Great Englishman and Former Cricketer of England Mark Nicholas, who gave his voice in the game. Those who watch IPL in English, they can know Mark Nicholas easily. The great man besides him is Former Cricketer of Australia Sir Richie Benaud who was a great spinner, a great commentator especially in tests. Whether it’s in real life or in game Cricket 07, Richie Benaud rocked in both. We can consider him the “Master Of Commentary”. Every Cricket 07 remembers every single line of the commentary whenever they used to say when a wicket falls, or a single is taken, or a boundary has been scored. My Favorite was “MILES! HE HAS GONE MILES”. Also when Benaud Says,”What a beauty from the bowler!” Nobody can make a commentary in a game like Cricket 07. After this game was released, After 4-5 years people started to download Mods of Real names of Indian Cricketers and IPL Mod so they can play IPL. Funny isn’t it?
There was another great thing which was there in the game which was the licensed bats and bowls of Gray-Nicolls, Puma and Kookabura and I think that was the first game to do that for free. There was another funny thing which was the faces of all the players were same whether they were licensed or not. Only the umpires had different faces. Another funny thing for me in that game which I used to do sometimes was suppose if I am playing India VS Australia then what I would do is bowl from Australia and would Bat that too because I always wanted India to Win. In this game, there was also Create Your Player In the game that too you can fulfill your wish to play for India and that too with your favorite players.
There were many tournament options too in the game like Replay the 2005 Ashes by playing the challenges(Ashes Mode), Australia and England’s county tournaments. The Main 50 Over World Cup, T20 Blitz Tournament etc. Another funny yet sad thing in the game was seeing 4 teams having wrong names of players. But let’s just talk about India and their player names:
TEAM INDIA IN CRICKET 07
- Gungly (C) – Sourav Ganguly
- Dravia – Rahul Dravid
- Seway – Virender Sehwag
- Tendehar – Sachin Tendulkar
- Krumble – Anil Kumble
- Hurvaj Singh – Harbhajan Singh
- Lexingten – VVS Laxman
- Kalm – Zaheer Khan
- Naharem – Ashish Nehra
- Monika – Dinesh Mongia
- Partell – Parthiv Patel
- Bengel – Sanjay Bangar
- Agercker – Ajit Agarkar
- Yevray Singh – Yuvraj Singh
- Keph – Mohammad Kaif
- Kerthick – Murali Kartik
- Parthen – Irfan Pathan
- Balije – Lakshmipathy Balaji
- Gemphir – Gautam Gambhir
- Dhenier – Mahendra Singh Dhoni
So Cricket 07 Fans, Got your nostalgia? Let me remind you of something else too, Remember the EA Sports Intro? “EA Sports, It’s in the game”. This line whenever we started the game, That Guy whose name is Andrew Anthony who is a journalist now, He and us we both used to say the intro together. This was The Game Cricket 07 for us. No comparison at all.
But the great thing which happened is when EA left the cricket games, Then only we came to know about a game where we can play our career, we can download any team’s players with their original faces and names though that team was not licensed but we saw real faces of Australia, England, New Zealand, West Indies players in a game. And I am just talking about Cricket 22.
CRICKET 22: NEW GENERATION’S CREATIVE GEM
Let’s first talk about why EA sports stopped making cricket games? The Reason was Gamers were no longer interested in a game with poor gameplay, unimpressive graphics and silly generic names for the players. EA Sports eventually did not feel it was necessary to develop a series which was already running at a loss. This interestingly proved to be the fate of most of the cricket-based video games like for the studios of Big Ant.
We can say that What EA Sports loss in Big Ant Studios profit. Because nobody knew what revolution in cricket games Big Ant Studios will be bringing. I do have played a Big Bash Cricket game in mobile which is also developed and published by Big Ant Studios. The Era of Big Ant Studios in Cricket games started in 2014 with the game Don Bradman Cricket 2014. This game did bring back the cricket game fans. Then in 2019 came a game called Cricket 19 which did became new fans favorite and also started to have some great features which continued in Cricket 22.
Cricket 22 is the most detailed cricket simulation game which Big Ant has made till now. This game is a visual entertainer which provides great cameras, superb matches, updated commentary panel which features Michael Atherton, Ian Healy, Mel Jones, Alison Mitchell and David Gower. This game does have a great depth analysis after every over, every boundary or after every wicket from the commentators.
This game also contains tournaments like Big Bash, The Hundred, The Ashes, England and Australia’s County Championships and Indian Domestic cricket too in the updated version. Though this game is kind of same with Cricket 07 as it contained licensed players of Australia, England, New Zealand and other teams were not licensed.
Same goes here but here Australia, England, New Zealand, West Indies and Ireland are licensed but with a twist which is you can download current players of unlicensed teams like India with same face and with the same bowling option containing their ratings from an option called “My Community”. You can also download IPL teams from that same option and customize the team with real and old players. The best thing about this game is their licensed players. Being Australia my second favorite team I found it so good by seeing Mitchell Starc’s action that surreal. Basically I have not played Cricket 22 but I do have played a tournament which I was a part of and which was our online friends tournament in which I did have won a title as I did start to like the game from there only by understanding it, seeing it.
There’s also a My Career option in the game where you can start your career with domestics, where county teams can sign you, you get a call from leagues like BBL and The Hundred and from the My Community’s IPL teams too. This is what defines Cricket 22 and they just announced Cricket 24 two months ago, excited to see the development in that game.
CONCLUSION:
So, there’s a thing, Cricket 07 was a game which cannot be compared with Cricket 22 for the 2000s kids and Cricket 22 is a game which did bring a revolution in cricket games thanks to Big Ant. For me, Cricket 07 commentary still remains the best which cricket 22 does not have. Cricket 22 did change a lot in games graphics wise what Cricket 07 couldn’t. There are many more reasons to compare these but no need as both are legendary in their own places and this is why they both are my favorite games.
