Team selection

You can view any forthcoming matches from your team's page. To pick a team for a match click on the Pick XI link.

Batting order

You can select which players will play in the match and which order they will bat in by choosing a player in each position using the drop down containing all members of your squad.

Changing the batting order

You can move players in your batting order by dragging and dropping the position number of the player. This will move all their individual settings to the new location.

You can change your batting order during a match. As with all team selection changes during a match it will only take effect at the start of the next session (see below). The next player to bat will always be the player who has the highest position in the order (1 being the highest, 11 being the lowest) who has not already batted. This means that if you are 3 wickets down and you promote a player to number 1 in the order they will be the next batsman to bat when a wicket falls.

Captain / Wicket Keeper

You choose a captain and wicket keeper by clicking the radio button next to the player you want as captain or wicket keeper.

Aggression

You may want certain players in your team to play more or less aggressively than the team's aggression level (see Tactics). To change a player's aggression level when batting or bowling choose the appropriate option in the batting or bowing aggression drop down for the player. Choose negative options to make the player play less aggressively than the team's aggression level and positive options to make the player play more aggressively than the team's aggression level.

Runs before batsman

This option is not available in the basic interface.

Some of the tactical options in Cricket Championship refer to designated batsmen or non-designated batsmen. As some of the players in your team will be better batsmen than other the 'runs before batsman' option lets you control (to a certain extent) when the player concerned will be considered a batsman in a particular innings.

Some players, typically your best batsmen will be considered a designated batsmen each time they walk to the crease. Other players, however, will need some time at the crease and some runs to their name before you consider them to be a designated batsman. For example, you would ordinarily want your star batsman to farm the strike when your number 9 batsman comes in to bat. However, if these two batsmen are putting on a good stand and the number 9 has scored 40 or more runs you may opt to consider the number 9 as a designated batsman at this point and therefore your star batsman will no longer try to protect his partner from the bowling.

When two players are batting together that both have a 'runs before batsman' value set, the difference between the two values you have specified will be used to determine when the batsman with the higher 'runs before batsman' will be considered a batsman. The batsman with the lower value will be considered as a recognised batsman with any number of runs.

Bowling options

To indicate that you want a player to be considered as a bowling option for your captain you must enter a value in each of the three bowling spell options for a player. These are: minimum number of overs for a spell, maximum number of overs for a spell and maximum conceded run rate for a spell. If the captain choses to bowl the player he will bowl a spell of at least the minimum number of overs specified (unless the end of a session or innings or the taking of the new ball curtails the player's bowling spell). Once the player has bowled the minimum number of overs for a spell the captain will continue to bowl him until either he has bowled the maximum number of overs specified or the number of runs per over that he has conceded exceeds the value specified for his maximum run rate per spell.

Leaving team selection

When you are happy with your player selection you must click the Select XI button. You can also indicate that the players and options you have specified should be the default for your team by checking the "Set as default XI" check box.

Changing options during a game

During a match you cannot change which players are playing but you can change any of the options for a player. Any changes you make will take effect from the next session of play.