This is Cricklet, a simulated T20 cricket league with full seasons played over the course of a week, all under the watchful (and capricious) eye of the Wicker Man. He has very set ideas about how cricket should be played, and his influence means the fortunes of players and teams wax and wane. Games are played every half an hour, and the season ends every Sunday morning.
If you’d like to get involved, join us on Discord. As well as discussing the game, we play Fantasy Cricklet, where we choose an all-star team of 11 players from across the league who score points based on their performances, and vote for the weekly Hall of Fame elections.
How does Cricklet work?
12 teams, drawn from each of the old kingdoms. They face each other 5 times per season, for a total of 55 games per team. A win earns them two points towards their league standings.
The influence of the Wicker Man manifests itself throughout the season. If a batter is dismissed without scoring, they earn their team a sacrificial duck. It’s a physical thing. We don’t look too closely at them, and we certainly don’t make eye contact with them.
Teams can offer their ducks to the Wicker Man to save a player from being dismissed. We call that a Duckrifice, and we don’t watch what the Wicker Man does with them, but it feeds his power.
Occasionally, the Wicker Man rises up from his position on the playing field, draining the power from one player and gifting it to another. When he’s behind the wicket, he can transfer players between teams. Don’t get too attached to your favourite players.
When players are hit by the ball in front of their wicket, they take on a certain glow. Over the course of the game, the glow builds in them, boosting their power. Fans hold their breath as the player’s power grows, like a balloon filled beyond its limits, until sometimes the energy bursts out of them, arcing to their teammates, leaving them drained.
More than anything else, the Wicker Man hates uncrickletlike behaviour. He allows games to continue past the point where the chasing team has won, but he casts out any players deemed to be taking it too far. They should learn, but they don’t.
On Sundays, we celebrate the Festival. The lucky players announce their retirement, and are replaced by fresh-faced rookies from the villages, who arrive with their own personalities and innate abilities. The unlucky are selected for the Wicker Man. The unluckiest player each season isn’t saved.
Cricket is a sport played between two teams of eleven, who take it in turns to be the batting team and the fielding team. In its T20 format (or “Twenty-Twenty”), it is a game of two innings, each of 20 “overs”. Overs are made up of six legal balls delivered by a single bowler to the batter.
In the first innings, the batting team will send out two players at a time to bat. They stand at either end of the cricket pitch (a rectangular strip of ground), defending the wickets (three vertical poles, or “stumps”, planted in the ground topped by two small crosspieces, the “bails”). The fielding team will bowl the ball (over-arm) down the pitch at the wickets, and the batter will try to hit the ball. The batting team scores points by running the length of the pitch, one point (or “run”) per length. Odd numbers of runs end up with the two batters switching ends, so the second batter will now face the bowler.
Any ball that reaches the boundary of the playing area after hitting the ground awards four runs, and if it reaches the boundary without hitting the ground first, that is six runs.
Batters can be dismissed (or “out”) by several methods, but the main four of relevance for Cricklet are:
Caught:
if a batter hits the ball and a fielder catches it before it touches the ground, the batter is out.
Run out:
if the ball hits the wickets (usually after being thrown by a fielder) before the running batsmen make it to the safe area (marked by a line on the pitch), the batter nearest to that wicket is out.
Bowled:
if the ball hits the wicket after being bowled, the batter is out.
LBW:
if a ball is bowled and hits the batter’s leg, and it is judged by the umpire that it would have hit the wicket, that is “leg before wicket” (LBW) and the batter is out.
Bowlers bowl for a single over, made up of six legal balls. Balls that don’t count towards that limit are “wides” (bowled too wide for the batter to fairly hit) and “no balls” (illegal deliveries for various reasons). Both award one penalty run to the batting team. At the end of an over, the bowler changes ends. No bowler can bowl for consecutive overs, and can only bowl for a maximum of four overs per game.
After either 10 dismissals (leaving the batting team without two remaining batters) or 20 overs, the innings ends and the teams swap over. Scores are displayed as Runs/Dismissals; for example, 200/10 means a team has scored 200 runs with 10 batters out.
Players are made up of their innate abilities (“BAT”, “BWL”, and “FLD” for batting, bowling and fielding respectively) and their three-word personality. But the ultimate indicator of their ability is their statistics, built up over a career of playing Cricklet.
App
Career appearances. Not quite as straightforward as it seems, because the Wicker Man judges some players to have played such an insignificant role in a match that it doesn’t count.
Batting Runs
Total career runs scored while batting.
Batting Avg
The total number of runs scored divided by the number of times a batter has been dismissed, rewarding players who score highly without being dismissed often.
HS
Highest score achieved in a single game while batting.
SR
Strike rate is the number of runs scored by the batter per 100 balls faced.
SR+
How the player’s strike rate compares to others in the league. 100 is average.
100s/50s
The total number of centuries/half-centuries scored by the player while batting across their career.
4s/6s
The total number of 4s and 6s scored by the player while batting across their career.
Dism
Total number of times dismissed while batting across their career.
Wkts
Total dismissals taken while bowling across their career.
Bowling Avg
The total number of runs allowed by a bowler for every dismissal they take. Lower is better.
Best
A bowler’s best single performance, in the format Dismissals/Runs allowed.
ER
Economy rate is the average number of runs conceded by overs bowled. Lower is better.
ER+
How the player’s economy rate compares to others in the league. 100 is average. Higher is better.
Bowling Runs
Total runs allowed while bowling.
Catches
Total dismissals caused by catching the ball while fielding.
Saves
Total times a fielder’s actions have been judged by the Wicker Man to have reduced a batter’s score.
Misfires
Total times a fielder’s actions have been judged by the Wicker Man to have increased a batter’s score.
FR
Fielding rate is the net calculation of saves against misfires, per game played.
FR+
How the player’s fielding rate compares to others in the league. 100 is average.
