Brian Lara Situations
Situation Name - The 1993 series revisited
Difficulty Rating = 6 (ratings go from 1 easy to 6 nearly impossible)
In 1993, the Ashes were won by Austraila after defeating England 4 - 1. In this situation you have a chance to share the spoils,
firstly you must avoid a defeat in this the 4th test. England trail by 296 runs with 10 wickets remaining but more importantly just over 4 sessions
to survive, then win the next 2 tests.
So how did this all happen ?
We'll being a guy who really liked the Atherton - Gooch opening partnership I recreated it for the 1993 series and replaced the rest of the England
team with the actual players who played for the country's during that Ashes season (with the correct averages).
I then tried it on an autoplay match. No prizes for working out that England lost! - So I started a test season for 1993-4, using the test season option. I then
picked the England team. I then started playing the first match, quite easy at 80/1. Then disaster, very overcast conditions 3 breaks for rain and loads of men
round the bat made me loose wickets quite quickly including the very brittle tail for less than 20 runs.
I autoplayed the Aussie Innings - 300 odd, then started playing again, more rain and a catch claimed and given against Robin Smith that infact bounced just as the fielder
picked it up! - mind you the fielder did catch McCague on the boundary and didn't claim it. Rough justice though - Smith's wicket in exchange for McCague!
Second test at Lords - more rain, and even more rain, match drawn.
The 3rd test equated to an absolute white wash loosing by and innings and 9 runs after the Aussie had scored 487/4 declared.
The 4th test started no better - the Aussies scoring 500 odd for 1 declared!!,
so this is what makes the difficulty level so high. Bowling out the Aussie for a chasable total and then actually chasing and not collapsing. The pitch at the oval should suit Tufnell
but that may be too late as you must draw the 4th test and win the 5th before moving onto the Oval.
Why the big problem ?
Look at the bowling averages of the England players - Bicknell 67.5, McCague 44.75, Illott 38, Tufnell 36, the batting does fair a little better - Smith 49, Gooch 43, Atherton 35, Gatting 37.
Compare that to the Aussie averages and you'll see why it is so hard - Slater 50 with the bat, Taylor 45, Boon 46, Border 51 - 38 with the ball.
The danger men of Hughes 27, Warne 28, May 28, McDermott 28.
Your first problem (fairly easy) is surviving 4 sessions and a bit. Not too many people round the bat - not too bad. Wait till your 160/5 with 4 hours left against Warne and May on a turning pitch.
Overcoming the Manchester rain and the fact that Lancashire's home pitch has always naturally favoured the Austrailian Bowling - this makes it a very large task indeed. Manchester stereotypically will give a poor
rainforecast, (well according to the manual it does) this may serously damage your Ashes drawing hopes if the rain comes. Remember you must win 2 out of the remaining 3 tests (this is the 4th in a 6 match series).
In effect you may need to win this match (the 4th test), to draw the series. Winning the series is possible, but it would need a very special performance - I take my hat off to anyone who can do it! Considering firstly you need to score
over 296 runs then bowl Austraila out in the time remaining for a score less than yours!!
One good point : - there are 3 squads that are presets, one of these squads is 'slightly' injury hit - as of the squad that played in the 6th test. You may get lucky and play this squad in the 5th test
and that beat the better squad in the 6th test. It is possible - but it is so, so hard.
You may want to giggle at this slight bug in the England batting (well it was put in for a good laugh really - I just forgot to remove it!),Peter Such batting at 6! you may want to put Such at 10 or 11.
Tip : You may want Gooch to face
the first ball - this happened in real life but more importantly the first ball of the inninngs is generally wide and Gooch is the best person to put the bad ball to the boundary be it on the floor or
in the air!
Download this game and copy it into the savegame directory
The 1993 Series click here to download
The sounds :- Austraila
(to put your old files back go to the CD and copy over the complete PC Sound folder to be sure not to miss out any wave files.
England files copy these into the directory "mteams/England/"
Copy the following files from the following location (FROM) to the new location (TO)
Boon FROM mteams/Austraila1994/2_.wav and _2.wav TO mteams/Austraila/2_wav and _2.wav
Border FROM mteams/alltime/5_.wav and _5.wav TO mteams/Austraila/5_wav and _5.wav
McDermott FROM mteams/Austraila1994/3_.wav and _3.wav TO mteams/Austraila/8_wav and _8.wav
May FROM mteams/Austraila1994/1_.wav and _1.wav TO mteams/Austraila/9_wav and _9.wav
The Austrailian team names are roughly correct as of your files in the Austraila directory, although the following
names should be copied, the remaining names may need a little juggling: -
Unfortunetly I can't tell you what to replace with what for the England side as I accidentally deleted the England
MTeams folder of England although I can remember that Butcher gets changed to Gooch
LINKS
Botham style tatics could be employed if you think that you can't overcome your next problem :-
Manchester is your next ground to play on in the series -