DREAMING OF NZ
I’ve decided to start a women’s career save in New Zealand. Multiple reasons for this:
- bug leading to game crash in the Vijay save
- been meaning to play a save that’s less ‘roleplaying’ and more like myself - an idealized version of myself anyway
- been daydreaming about leaving the USA and sort of obsessed recently with the Pacific exploration of indigenous peoples
- been meaning to start a women’s career mode save. Women’s cricket is a bit different than men’s — shorter boundaries, lighter ball, etc — and figure it’s a good way to explore different game mechanics
PART 1: WHAKATĀNE
part 1
I was looking for countries to play a women’s career save in, and it turns out most countries have pretty poor women’s cricket infrastructures. Since I didn’t want to do an India save, my options were really between England, Australia, NZ. Out of these, I wanted to play in NZ. I decided to play for Northern Districts since they’re the part of NZ with the highest Maori population (per wiki), and when I was looking for clubs to play with, this caught my eye: pretty fitting for a women’s cricket save I think.
The Maori name Whakatāne is reputed to commemorate an incident occurring after the arrival of the Mataatua. The men had gone ashore and the canoe began to drift. Wairaka, a chieftainess, said " Kia whakatāne au i ahau " (“I will act like a man”), and commenced to paddle – something that women were not allowed to do. With the help of the other women, the canoe was saved.[3] Wairaka’s efforts are commemorated by a bronze statue of her at the mouth of the Whakatāne River, which was installed in 1965.[4][5]
It’s uh… little. population 16.7k, like 10 minutes across driving.
created my character who is basically a hotter version of me? opening batter who can bowl wrist spin but doesn’t. aggressive batting mentality and i’m looking forward to trying out batting style 3, which has different shots than the batting style Vijay plays (#6).
sidenote, this youtuber is one of my fav Cricket 22 youtubers, he has a very chill vibe.
CRICKET 22 | All Batting & Bowling Styles in Cricket 22! - YouTube
One #exciting rule I’m setting for myself on this save is I will be using savescumming basically never, or at least, only for really really bullshit things. I’m just going to play the game and see how I go.
right off the bat it feels like hitting to the on side is much better, and much easier to score 4s on the ground with the shorter boundaries. really like the look of this batting style as well, some #glorious drives
most recent patch seems to have made fielders smarter, see how they run to help each other out
https://i.imgur.com/lDp72n9.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/CAuEjGr.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/FX8io2V.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/GrlqK8h.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/wxHVtOi.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/pAfgAjm.mp4
in my first couple matches i’m not scoring anything crazy, the fact i’m not savescumming means dropped chances and nearly-getting-out has some more drama to it
and i do actually get out trying to play my shots, i guess i’m supposed to be the aggressive opener so i don’t mind too too much. towards the end of my play session i try to buckle down a little more and score some 50s
bowled
lbw’d
and 2 50’s
scores for the club level career so far
last note, check out this crazy aggressive field set. all your fielders are standing next to the wicketkeeper, how are you going to stop runs?
actually having a decent amount of fun here, it’s a very different vibe than the men’s career mode. the bowling is slower and the boundaries closer, it’s much more about strokeplay and picking the gaps, less struggling to keep up with the pace of the ball. i think maybe the fact that I created a specialist batter also matters here, as opposed to an all-rounder, her skills are much higher especially with controlling shot placement.