Cricket 2002 ( EA Sports, PC General )

By PETER ELEY

(Herald rating: * * * * )

It must be a nerve-racking business picking the cover shots for sports games. EA seems to have got it right for Cricket 2002 with pictures of Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori gracing the box.

It must have been harder a few years ago when anyone with a pair of long white trousers seemed to get an outing in the national side.

Most of the present squad is there this time, but there is one notable omission — Shane Bond.

And that's a letdown as it would be awesome to unleash our fastest-ever bowler on the world's best batsmen, particularly as you get the option of playing on bone-hard pitches.

Intriguingly, Scott Styris is in, along with Dion Nash, who retired earlier this year.

Steve Waugh is still there for the Aussies, but thankfully poor old Hanse Kronje isn't in the South Africa squad. That would have been embarrassing.

Games such as this get yearly updates and the question for many sports games fans is at what point should they upgrade to a new game.

Cricket 2002 seems similar to the last release, although it is better to look at.

There are some new features, including better stats and an improved practice mode.

Most of the teams are fresher, and to be fair to EA, it is hard to keep squads current in such an injury-prone game as cricket.

After a quick bout in the practise nets (and wrestling with some odd controller options) we set up a test series against Australia at Wellington.

The representation was amazingly accurate, although the weather options wouldn't let it rain and we managed to get in some uninterrupted play.

Play was interrupted too frequently by unplayable balls from McGrath, although that was due more to rushing the practice sessions than his ability, fine player that he is.

Just like the real thing, Cricket 2002 demands a high degree of co-ordination and timing, and our first few games found us in one of those slumps Nathan Astle seems to go through.

But we soon picked it up and managed to give the Aussies a decent game at Eden Park. Shane Bond was missed, though. Especially as they had Brett Lee.

peter_eley@nzherald.co.nz