Card Cricket

From the rules:

Card Cricket was the result of 2 1/1 years' painstaking research into the statistical records of cricket matches going back several years. But it had its lighter side, too. It involved many pleasant days spent watching actual matches - recording every single detail of the games so that Card Cricket would be as authentic as possible.

Equipment:

i) Two packs of cards as follows:

a) Bowling pack (110 cards)

b) Batting pack (108 cards)

ii) A scoring pad which resembles an ordinary cricket score book

iii) A special die - 5 faces showing out and 1 face showing 'not out'.

iv) A chart showing by means of asterisks which batting shots can be played against the various types of balls that can be bowled

v) A loose scoring sheet which serves as an example of how to score with instructions printed on the back.

This is a mechanically simple cricket simulation game. You are expected to 'know' cricket (but why else would you be playing it?), and thus how to arrange and score matches, etc. Each player plays one team (obviously if more than two people are playing the game, they can take the part of different players in the cricket match).

The mechanism is one of hand management. The bowler picks 6 random cards for the balls in the over, which he can play in any order. The batsman has a number of batting cards which varies according to which number he is batting at. The bowler plays a card (a ball) and the batsman plays a card against that ball. If the batting card is a valid stoke for that ball (a cover drive for a half volley outside off stump, a sweep to a googly, etc), then the outcome is as printed on the batting card sometimes runs, but often just fielded. If the batting card is not a valid stroke for the ball bowled, then the batsman is likely to be out (there are appeals and not outs using the die). If he is not out, the batsman replenishes his hand, and the next ball is bowled.