Apparently Australia won the first test of the real-life Ashes this morning. Apparently cricket is a sport where you can win a test, as opposed to, you know, passing or failing. Anyway, the point is I know little of the sporting activity known as cricket. Which is why review duties were handled by Nathan Lawrence, our resident cricket expert. In that he's played many a digital game of cricket in his lifetime.

And was pleasantly surprised by the great Ashes Cricket.

When Ashes Cricket was announced, I was nervous. On one hand, the less-than-stellar critical and fan reception to Don Bradman Cricket 17 could, theoretically, have helped right the ship. But you never know. Sometimes devs double down on bad mechanics. But you’ve already read the review subhead and likely scrolled down to the score before reading the justifying text, so you already know that Ashes Cricket is a relieving return to familiar form for Big Ant, and a lot of fun for cricket fans.

The batting is back to where it should be. The fielding is the best that Big Ant’s ever made. And the bowling is tight, even if it feels as though you’re at the mercy of AI mistakes on higher difficulties to score wickets.

Click Here to Read Our Full Ashes Cricket Review

Geez, a decent cricket game. That's a rarity.

I am so freakin' relieved, Melrick. I feared the worst!

I always assume the worst when it comes to cricket games, because it's usually easier that way. Nice to be wrong for a change.

I finally got over my anger at this being released in lieu of DB17 being patched and despite the hefty price tag I wasn't disappointed. Biggest problem is that the creation community has been splintered and there's slim pickings when it comes to adding real looking players who aren't Australian or English to the game. Small annoyances remain like not knowing the names of the fielders when settings custom fields... Smith doesn't field at fine leg (or maybe he will now hehehe) dammit!

Are there any sand paper hacks for this one? To make it feel authentic

There was some team edit menu and when you deselect a player it says 'Do you want to end the career of x' which was funny when I clicked on David Warner and selected yes.