Cricket is the one board where the format changes what "good" means. You are assembling a side across a record that opens in 1877, through versions of the game that barely resemble one another.
Read the full story ↓8 seats: BAT1 · BAT2 · MID · WK · ALL · PACE1 · PACE2 · SPIN. Eight seats: top-order bats, a middle order, a wicketkeeper, an all-rounder, two pace bowlers and a spinner. The all-rounder is the seat that decides balance — take a weak one and you are effectively a bowler or a batter short for the whole run.
A spin opens one side in one era. National sides from two different decades can be almost unrecognisable from each other, so the era a round deals matters more here than the country on the card.
14 games, then a 3-game playoff gauntlet at 12 wins — 17–0 for the sweep. Fourteen matches, then a three-game knockout — seventeen results in all. The knockout is where runs die: there is no aggregate and no second leg, so one bad session ends it.
The record runs from 1877 with 125 recognised figures, across formats that barely resemble one another. Wisden recognition and each format's own honours are what the cards carry, because a great season in one version of the game can read as ordinary in another — the honour names which game a player was actually great at.
A great season in one format can read as ordinary in another, which is why the honour matters as much as the average: Wisden recognition names which game a player was great at. Conditions matter more here than anywhere else on the board. The same bowling attack reads completely differently on a turning pitch than a seaming one, so an attack that covers both — pace and spin together — is what carries a side through fourteen matches and a knockout. How the ratings work · the full rulebook.
Take a cricket board The cricket game
From the cricket record book: how long a pro career lasts and every perfect season.
Each round opens one side in one era. You cover the top order, the middle, the gloves, an all-rounder and the bowling, then fourteen matches and a knockout play through.
Eight — two top-order bats, a middle order, a wicketkeeper, an all-rounder, two pace bowlers and a spinner. Seats: BAT1 · BAT2 · MID · WK · ALL · PACE1 · PACE2 · SPIN.
Fourteen wins and then three more in the knockout: seventeen from seventeen, with no second leg to fall back on.
