Hey everyone,

My brother visited from NZ recently and we found and unpacked our Subbuteo cricket. We're both in our 40's now, and it'd been in it's box all packed away for 20-25 years. But - what an awesome and under-appreciated game it is. Being up with the times, we found a new format of cricket to play - T20. That's 20 balls-a-side - it's the game of the future I then found this forum when I went searching to see if anyone else still plays it, and here we are. Anyway, while playing we were pleasantly surprised to see that we still had the knack of bowling spin. I've seen a few posts on this forum from Dec 2009 and Jan 2010 from people looking for tips etc who I thought might appreciate a demo, so here goes...

First of all, you need to bowl by facing the bowler forwards, with the metal loop at the back.
Position the loop at an angle, and place the ball in it. Like this:


Now, flick the bowler's head from behind the send the ball over his head. It takes some practice to get it right, and early on you may find the ball falls short a lot. It takes a little more power to get the range right than if you are bowling "normally" (with the loop flat). With the loop facing to the right, aim to pitch the ball to the left (if you are bowling), and it will hit the pitch and spin quite sharply inwards.

Here are 2 videos of Subbuteo cricket spin bowling in action:
Bowling spin part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGAl2PXjSi0
Bowling spin part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlqaBu-HzLY

Hopefully you can see the turn, it's not that easy to bowl consistently, but it's even harder to play against as a batsman
It's a wicked game, if only more people had been into it. Rugby was a bit crap tho, let's face it. Any other Subbuteo cricketers still out there?

And that's stumps.

brilliant must admit I've never tried the cricket but...

I have played a bit of cricket since getting back into subbuteo a year or so ago!
Agree that its a great game and yes, I too adapted it to T20....although 20 overs a side surely (rather than 20 balls per side? ).
I used to play for hours as a kid, tests, one day internationals etc, but the duration of the game meant it is time consuming...whereas a quick T20 can be done and dusted in a couple hours.
I was always one for "enhancing" the rules to make it more realistic..... did this to replicate fielding restrictions in T20 by using additional wicket keeping stops (made from plastic 90 degree corner trim available cheap from B & Q.

I use 5 stops, strategically placed behind fielders in overs 1-5, plus the WK stop, then reduce it to 4 stops in overs 6-10, 3 stops in overs 11-15 and 2 stops in overs 16-20. This allows acceleration and a final thrash in the late overs. You could adapt it further for powerplays!

I also devised additional "local rules" for batsmen which ensures you don't get number 11's making centuries!!
For example, Batsmen 6-11 can be caught if the ball lodges in the "stop" as well as in the fielders recess, batsmen 7-8 can be caught (in the fielders recess) off the bat & off the wicket base (i.e. without contact with the bat) by the WK & 1st slip whilst number 9-11 can be caught off the wicket base if the ball lodges in the stops. I also give fielders 2 attempts for run outs for the lower order batsmen.

These sort of rules make the scores quite realistic, making it harder to score with the lower order batters.

The possibilities are endless! Would also recommend downloading one of the scoring software utilities, makes scoring so much more easy. Just search for connected threads on here as it has been discussed previously. Makes the game flow when you can score by clicking a mouse (and it workis out runs required etc etc).

I've just noticed this thread. Fantastic spin Warney

Im a big fan of Subbuteo cricket. Great to see examples of how each person has adapted the rules to make the game more exciting. Im currently in the process of painting up my fielders to replicate the current Australia twenty/20 kit. Once done i will post up some pictures and also plan to paint up the rest of the fielders to represent each nation. Currently thinking of holding a mini Subbuteo cricket world twenty/20 tournament for some time in the near future if anyone is interested. Has anyone else modified the rules , changed the game, or have any stories to tell regarding Subbuteo cricket?

Agreed - in a different post were some brilliant rule amendments, including one guy who used a ball-bearing in the first 10 overs to simulate it being difficult to score off the new ball, and made an oversized bat that got used when the batsman had over 25 runs to simulate that he had his eye-in and could score more easily Genius.

We play T20 as 20 balls-per-side rather than 20-overs, as (a) it's over really fast so we can just play a lot of matches instead of one long one, and (b) it has the short-term excitement of real T20. I think with the cricket that if you go to the lengths of recording everything that happens, as you should in order to track who has bowled how many overs etc, then 20 overs can take a while and feels a bit more like a test match ) Perhaps we lack the patience we had when we were playing 20 years ago

It is a great game tho. We had a massive football setup as well, and played both a lot. And "Football Express". Those were the days when it was football in the winter and cricket in the summer, instead of the big overlap and constant football we have now, so it seemed perfectly natural to swap between the two subbuteo games when the seasons began & ended.

Brilliant cash for Subbuteo as well - the only difference between the teams was the colour of the caps, (if you don't count the West Indies). I never ever saw a Pakistan or Indian team, I wonder if they ever made them?

Ps: Flick - would be well up for your tournament if you manage to get it going

It was my "enhancements/post" that you referred to Hoodster, so thanks for the compliment!!

I havent tried the 20 ball approach but may give it a go. As I have said to Flick in a PM, i would recommend that any cricket fan downloads a scoring software package (mine was free) as this makes scoring and the maths so much easier as it records scores/bowling etc at a click of a mouse and also works out runs required/run rates and all sorts of stats. That makes a 20 over game so much less time consuming. I always found that writing down the scoring after every ball was one pf the frustrations of playing Subbuteo cricket (I devised a system where I remembered the score and only wrote it down at the end of each over, but that isn't always easy).

Have a look at http://download.cnet.com/Laver-and-Wood ... 73041.html

Cheers.

Yep, that's how it's done, hoodster.

If you have the original literature, it's in there somewhere.

But good on yer for working it out yourself.