Battrick is a free online cricket management game in which you compete against teams managed by other users from all over the world. You have complete control over your club, from ground preparation to team selection, from finances to coaching, and from buying and selling players to hiring and firing backroom staff.
With trials and tribulations lying ahead in First Class, One Day, BT20 and cup competitions, can you make your club the best there is?
Please take the time to read the following guide; it will help you get a firm grounding in the ways of Battrick.
Special thanks go to Brylarke for his assistance with the refinement of this guide.
The application process is fairly quick and simple. Simply follow the link on the home page and fill in the details as required.
We do ask for your honesty in the application though: - You must use your real name and give a valid email account, as this is where your team details will be sent and how we may need to contact you from time to time, for instance if you are unable to login to your account for any reason. For security and privacy reasons, users should only sign up with a private and secure email address, shared email addresses are not allowed.
- You are only allowed one team, so any duplicate applications will be deleted.
- Any application that is clearly not serious will also be deleted.
- Applications must not contain user names or team names that can be deemed offensive.
- If you do not log into your team for 7 weeks your account will be deleted and you will not be able to access your team
If you will be accessing your team from a computer used by a fellow Battrick user then please contact us, naming your application and all individuals involved. If you are already playing Battrick and someone will be signing up from your computer then please use the in-game Contact Us form to let us know their name and e-mail address, so that we can look out for their application. While you are most welcome to play Battrick in those situations, any transfers between these teams and your own will be in breach of the rules and severely punished.
Teams are almost always available for you to take over immediately, although there may be rare occasions when the leagues are completely full. In this case you will be added to a waiting list and allocated a team when the league is most probably expanded at the end of the season.
When you take over a side, the only thing that you will inherit will be its league position. All the old players are cleared out and you are given a new squad, existing debts and credits are cleared and a starting balance is put into your account, and the team will be renamed as you requested.
Only teams in the lowest 2 divisions of both the FC and OD league pyramids are allocated to new users, so there will be some work for you to do to climb through the ranks!
We also ask you to read the Personal Behaviour section of the Rules before you begin playing the game.
Battrick is pretty self explanatory as to finding your way about. There are a series of drop down menus at the top of the site that will get you to most of the pages that you need to get to, and the links from these pages will take you everywhere else. Some of these pages are discussed in more detail below, but the best way to learn the basics is to simply explore and familiarise yourself with all the pages.
You can also get answers to many of your questions on the Newbie Sledging Board.
Battrick Time
All time-related events on the site occur according to Battrick Time. The current time can always be found on the right-hand end of the menu bar at the top of the screen. (Tip: If you hover over the clock, the current date will also be displayed).
A schedule of update times for your country can be found under Global 
Country Details Updates Schedule, and a table showing update times for all countries can be found below:
| Country | Daily Updates
(Daily) | Training Update
(Saturday) | Financial Update
(Saturday) | FC League Matches
(Tue-Thu) | OD League Matches
(Friday) | OD Cup Matches
(Sunday) | BT20 League Matches
(Tue-Thu) |
| New Zealand | 18:00 | 00:05 | 07:40 | 00:00 | 00:00 | 00:00 | 00:30 |
| Australia | 20:00 | 00:10 | 08:30 | 00:30 | 00:30 | 00:30 | 00:30 |
| Papua New Guinea | 19:00 | 00:40 | 08:40 | - | 01:00 | 01:00 | 00:30 |
| Bangladesh | 00:30 | 04:10 | 12:30 | - | 04:00 | 04:00 | 13:15 |
| India | 00:00 | 04:30 | 12:00 | 04:30 | 04:30 | 04:30 | 11:45 |
| Pakistan | 01:30 | 05:30 | 13:30 | 05:00 | 05:00 | 05:00 | 11:45 |
| Sri Lanka | 01:00 | 05:00 | 13:00 | 05:30 | 05:30 | 05:30 | 11:45 |
| Afghanistan | 02:00 | 06:00 | 14:00 | - | 06:00 | 06:00 | 13:15 |
| Kenya | 03:00 | 07:00 | 14:30 | - | 07:00 | 07:00 | 13:15 |
| South Africa | 04:00 | 08:00 | 16:00 | 07:30 | 07:30 | 07:30 | 11:45 |
| Zimbabwe | 03:30 | 07:30 | 15:50 | - | 08:00 | 08:00 | 13:15 |
| Netherlands | 05:50 | 09:00 | 16:50 | - | 09:30 | 09:30 | 13:15 |
| Scotland | 06:10 | 09:30 | 17:10 | - | 10:00 | 10:00 | 13:15 |
| England | 06:30 | 10:00 | 17:30 | 10:30 | 10:30 | 10:30 | 12:30 |
| Ireland | 06:50 | 10:30 | 17:50 | - | 11:00 | 11:00 | 13:15 |
| West Indies | 11:00 | 15:00 | 21:50 | 15:30 | 15:30 | 15:30 | 00:30 |
| Canada | 11:30 | 15:30 | 22:20 | - | 16:00 | 16:00 | 00:30 |
| USA | 12:30 | 16:30 | 22:40 | - | 16:30 | 16:30 | 00:30 |
This is the first page that you will see every time you log in to Battrick. Here you can see general news about game developments, announcements and anything else that the Battrick team want to let you know about. You should check the news fairly frequently to make sure you don't miss anything important, particularly when you believe you have just discovered an issue!
Also here is a link to your own news section, where you will be notified of such things as being outbid on players, fans leaving or joining your club and sometimes messages from the admin staff.
This is where you can change your user information. It is highly recommended that you visit this page immediately after first logging in to change your password to something you are more likely to remember! You can also edit your user name (in Week 1 only after the first Financial update) and e-mail address here, and specify a homepage (a link to which will appear on your Pavilion page).
Additionally you can also control how some of the site will appear to you by editing these options:- Use Floating Menu - This allows you to turn off and on the feature where the menu will stick to the top of your browser screen when you scroll down a long page.
- Show Enhanced Menu Items - This feature, when enabled, shows a tertiary menu on certain menu items that adds quicker linking to certain areas, eg Squad leads to all your players being linked from the menu.
Users who have signed up to our Membership program also have some of their options here:- Logo - This is where you enter the web address (URL) of the image you would like displayed on your Pavilion page. The graphic will need to be hosted on the internet for you to do this; there are many websites offering free image hosting, Photobucket being an example. If your host is being reported as a malware site, we will ask you to find a different host for the same image. Large logos will automatically be scaled down on your team page.
Please note that offensive logos are not allowed and users can be banned from the game for displaying such an image.- Gravatar E-mail Address - An avatar is an icon used to identify an individual. Gravatar is a system which allows you to easily use one single image on many sites without the hassle of setting it up each time, and BT is one of them!
Simply register on the Gravatar site, follow the approval process and then enter your registered e-mail in the box on the preferences page. Your Gravatar will now appear alongside your user name in posts made in other people's guestbooks.- Player Faces - Each player in Battrick is an individual. Members can view the faces of any player in Battrick, and have their player's faces displayed on the squad page. If you have very ugly players, or for any other reason, you can turn off player faces using this option.
- Status Box - On the news page, a box on the left gives you info on the number of people on line, and the latest Twitter and Admin blog posts. Unchecking this option ensures that box is not shown.
- National/U19s box - On the news page, a box on the left gives you the latest news and press releases from your national and U19 sides. There are also links to the last completed match, and if the link is bold, the link is to a match currently in progress! If your national side is not of interest to you, and you don't want the box, you can toggle it on/off from here. When enabled, you can choose which country's news you want to view.
- Latest Events - Your way of knowing which of the daily or weekly updates has been processed recently. Unchecking the option hides this box.
- Sledging Link Icons - Enabling this adds small icons to most ofthe link types on the forums, allowing them to be easily distinguished.
- Coloured Fixtures. - Colour-codes the fixture results.
- Online Status Indicators - If you have this enabled, then small green dots appear next to usernames in some places, to indicate that the user has been active within the last ten minutes.
- Show your online status to others - The online list shows you every player currently logged into Battrick, so you can see who is about. It's sortable by country, and you can see which country has the most players logged in, The link to this is available from the front page. The online list is a excellent place to find people to challenge for friendly matches. As some users prefer to not be seen to be online, members have the option of hiding from this list. When disabled, the online status indicator will also not appear to others for you.
- Own Squad Sorting Order - Although many members order their squad via the use of shirt numbers, others want to order by something a bit more, like fitness or form. With the Primary and Secondary dropdowns, members can choose what is the default order when viewing their own squads.
Clearly your club's most important asset, you must have a minimum of fourteen (14) players in your squad at all times. Each player has seven main skills that determine their ability. They are:
Stamina - A player's stamina is arguably their most important attribute. As a game goes on, players will tire. No matter how high their stamina skill, they will experience some reduction in their performance, but the extent to which their tiring is going to affect their performance will depend totally on their stamina. The higher the player's stamina, the lower the tiring effect.
Not only does stamina have an effect on a player's performance during a game, but also their recovery off the pitch. Players with higher levels of stamina will be able to carry more workload before their Personal Fitness Level (PFL - discussed further on) drops, and their PFL will also recover quicker.
There is a limit to how high a player's stamina can be though. Once they reach the maximum level of stamina (superb*), no matter how hard they train at their fitness, it will never go higher. There are limits to human performance!
Batting - Important for all players that are going to bat. This is the primary skill for determining a batter's overall skill.
Bowling - Important for all players that are going to bowl. This is the primary skill for determining a bowler's overall skill.
Wicket Keeping - This skill is important for wicket keepers only. It will help to have a good wicket keeper as they will tend to hold on to a lot of chances for catches and make more stumpings. They will also be responsible for keeping byes and leg-byes down to a minimum. It is not the only skill that decides how well a player performs behind the stumps however.
Concentration - This is an important skill for batters. The importance of this will be larger for First Class games than for one day games, although it is valuable in both forms of the game. A batter may be very well endowed in batting skill, but if they can't concentrate then they are likely to make a silly mistake and get out earlier than they would have otherwise. It also has an effect on an individual's fielding and wicket keeping ability; you need to stay alert in the field or risk missing that chance for a catch!
Consistency - This is an important skill for bowlers. The importance of this is larger for First Class games than for one day games, although it is valuable in both forms of the game. A bowler may have a great amount of bowling skill, but if they can't consistently put the ball in the same areas then they are likely to find the ball disappearing to all areas of the park more often than they otherwise would. It also has an effect on a player's ability to field and keep wicket; the more consistent the individual, the more likely they are to hold their catches and save runs.
Fielding - Important for all your players. They do say that catches win matches, and if your team's fielding is not up to scratch, then you will not catch those catches. It also has a small effect on a players WK ability. As has been mentioned above however, this is not the lone skill in determining a players fielding ability.
All of these abilities can be improved by giving your player individual training. As in real life, generally you will see your younger players improving their skills faster than older ones, although there are two exceptions (concentration and consistency). Read the Nets section to find out more about this.
There are also other aspects to your players that you need to pay attention to:
Preferences and Traits - In addition to the main skills that all players have, some players have special abilities that set them apart from the rest. A full list of these preferences and traits can be found here.
Age - As a player gets older they finds it more and more difficult to improve in the physical skills, although their increased maturity does aid them in improving their psychological skills (concentration and consistency).
Players all age on the same day, at the very start of the new season before the first training session.
Ultimately a veteran player will struggle to maintain their physical performance and you will see their stamina and skills fall away. However, while youth can be a blessing, age does bring...
Experience - An inexperienced player will not know what to do in certain situations (eg hog the strike with a better batter left at the other end) and may well make stupid mistakes that a more seasoned player would not. An experienced captain is a particularly valuable commodity.
Aggression - This gives an indication of what is the player's natural approach to playing. The more aggressive a player, the more likely they are to score runs quickly as a batter, but they will be more likely to get out. For a bowler, they are more likely to get wickets, but also more likely to be expensive. This can be tempered by individual orders though.
Leadership - An important skill for your captain only. They will have various decisions to make throughout a game, and may have to lift a depressed side when things are not going well. This combined with their experience will determine how effective they are as a captain. The highest level of leadership a player can possess is superb.
Form - A sad fact of life is that players go in and out of form. The same is true in Battrick. However you can help a player's chance of improving or maintaining their form in two ways.
Firstly an individual playing regularly will have a better chance of staying in touch than a player who merely carries the drinks and loses the feel of being out in the middle. Equally a player who is receiving coaching in a net session has a better chance of increasing their form. A player's form has a significant impact on their performance. You may be better off picking a worse batter who is in better form than your star player who is in worse form.
Form is split into Batting and Bowling to show how a player's form can fluctuate in each discipline. A player's wicket keeping ability is affected by their bowling form.
Personal Fitness Level (PFL) - While there are no injuries in BT per se, you cannot continually play an individual non-stop without them feeling some effects on their body. An individual's PFL has a major effect on their performance and is lost during their exertions both on and off the field.
Factors involved in a player's loss of PFL are:
- The amount of matches a player plays, and their type. FC Games, due to their length, will have the largest effect, while friendlies have no effect.
- The player's level of involvement in a game; a player who bowls a large number of overs and/or plays a long innings will use more of their fitness reserves than their team-mate who loses their wicket cheaply and fields without bowling.
- The number of net sessions a player is receiving.
The players recovery of PFL is governed by their level of stamina. Age is not currently a factor in a players PFL recovery and there are no immediate plans to make it one. PFL is updated daily at the, aptly named, daily updates.
At the lowest levels of PFL a player will be barely able to perform.
In your club info, you can find details of all your backroom staff. You are able to hire or fire these staff at your discretion from here. Before you do though, it may be useful to understand what each one will do for you.
An example of hired backroom staff from the Club Info page.
The following are involved in improving the physical attributes and technical skills of your players (Stamina, Batting, Bowling, Keeping and Fielding). You can read more on how training is organised in the Nets section.
Bowling Coaches are specialist coaches for bowlers. Each bowling coach will provide you with one bowling training spot for the week.
Batting Coaches are specialist coaches for batters. Each batting coach will provide you with one batting training spot for the week.
Fielding Coaches are specialist coaches for fielding. Each fielding coach will provide you with one fielding training spot for the week.
Keeping Coaches are specialist coaches for wicket keepers. Each keeping coach will provide you with one keeping training spot for the week.
Stamina Coaches are specialist coaches for all player's stamina. Each stamina coach will provide you with one stamina training spot for the week.
There is no limit as to how many of each of these coaches you can hire, but there is a limit as to their effectiveness.
From the Club Info page, you can hire and fire all of the different types of backroom staff.
As there are only 10 training spots available each week it would be pointless to hire more than a total of 10 of the five types of coaches listed above. If you do you are only able to use the first 10 hired, the remainder merely sitting around to collect their wages!
Generally coaches will be as effective as each other, but there is a situation where this isn't the case. Again you can read about this in the Nets section.
The other types of staff you can recruit are as follows:
Sports Psychologists - multipurpose specialists. They will help with your teams morale, keeping it up even when you are losing. They are also used in conjunction with the bowling, batting, wicket keeping and fielding coaches to help improve the concentration and consistency of your players being trained. Sports psychologists help all players in your squad to maintain their levels of concentration and consistency, including those players not being trained, at least until the inevitable effects of age start to take hold.
Every sports psychologist you hire attends every net where a player can receive training in concentration and/or consistency. For more details see the Nets section
PR Officers - these chaps (and chapesses) are the voice of your club. They will woo the sponsors and help keep your club high profile, all with the intention of improving the mood of your sponsors, simply so that they give you more money.
Financial Advisers - they can help you with the management of your club finances. If you are in debt, they can help arrange a lower interest rate. Similarly, if you have money in the bank, Financial Advisers will invest it wisely (and safely!) and you will receive interest.
For these staff members, the more you hire, the less effective the additional staff will be. (ie the second coach hired will not add as much benefit as the first, nor the third as much as the second, and so on.)
In terms of cost, coaches will collect a salary of £2,500 each per week, whilst the others will only ask for £1,500 each per week.
Finally, if you decide you have too many of any of these fellows around, then you are free to terminate their contract, although you will have to give them a redundancy payment to the value of a weeks wages.
However when in debt, the bank will allow you to fire coaches as they see this as down-sizing your company thus saving money in the long-term. But they will not allow you to hire any coaches even if you will be in credit after the next financial update. They do not take current sales into consideration. If you do try to hire coaches during these times then there will be a diary entry, but they will not arrive nor will you be charged the £1,500 or £2,500.
Your club, being the responsible community centre that it is, runs a youth academy where it will give schooling to promising local young cricketers.
The condition of this building will need some looking after, and will deteriorate over time. You can make repairs to bring the standard back up again. The maximum condition that the building can be is superb. Everyone's academy will deteriorate at the same rate and at a constant amount of a sub-level each week. There is nothing that you can do to help stop that, apart from keeping an eye on it and making sure that repairs are carried out when required.
To order the repairs, go to Club -> Club Info and on the lower right hand side of the page is a "Order Repairs" button. One upgrade will cost £30,000 and will upgrade the Academy building by one full level. (ie: Legend is: Proficient = 8, Strong = 9, Superb = 10; Current Academy at 8, one repair 9, second repair 10)
On top of this each week, you can invest in Intensive Training Sessions (ITS). For every £2,000 that you invest into the academy in this way (up to a limit of £20,000 per week, earning you 10 sessions), you will receive an additional intensive training session. This investment will have no impact on the quality of your youth academy building. You can change the level of ITS investment on your Club Info page.
Your weeks investment to ITS will show up in your club page after each economic update. You will then, at a point of your choosing, be able to allocate these sessions to your new youth academy player. The player already possesses a degree of natural talent, but the level and distribution of this is completely random and will remain a mystery to you until the ITS and promotion process is completed. You can store up to a maximum of 100 ITS. Any subsequent payments will not be taken from your finances until you are under the 100 limit.
The total sessions that you can use on one player is limited by the condition of the Youth Academy building and the age of the player. You can allocate these sessions in any way that you want, but you cannot assign any more than 12 sessions to one skill. After you are happy with the session allocation you can promote the player to the senior squad. As they join your squad, you will see the benefits of the intensive training sessions as well as their initial natural talent, making up their overall skills. This does sound complicated, but the Youth Academy page will make it very straightforward for you.
On the last day of each season, all players in Battrick have a birthday. As part of their preparation for the new season, all youth academies will close briefly from when the Players' Birthday update occurs until the first Financial Update of the new season. If you did not promote a youth from your academy in Week 16, then you will need to wait until your academy re-opens after the Financial Update.
Specialists
We recognise that you as the team owner are more au fait with the tactical and business side of the game, so we have given you the opportunity to hire specialist coaches to help you to improve your player's skills. There are five different types of specialist coaches that you can hire: bowling, batting, fielding, wicket keeping and stamina coaches. All of these coaches can be hired from within the Club Info page. (You can read more about them individually in the Backroom Staff section)
Once you have hired at least one specialist coach, you can start to allocate a player to each of these coaches for the week within the nets area. Each coach will add one more available coaching session, the benefits of which are seen after Saturday's weekly training update. (See Global > Country Details > Updates Schedule for the exact time in your country). The nets and training are only applied to a player during the Training Update on Saturdays. This means you can change around the nets during the week as much as you like, but the training will only be applied to the players assigned to Nets as the Training Update goes through on the Saturday.
There are some limitations though. Due to the limited time and space available, you can only have 10 coaching sessions each week. If you have more specialist coaches than that, then you are simply paying them to sit around each week. Even if you could allocate a player to them, they would never get the chance to train as the net space would never be available.
An example of using ten training sessions from the "Nets" page.
Multiple Nets
Secondly, although each player can be allocated to more than one specialist coach, the effectiveness of the sessions will reduce with every duplication.
For example, if you allocate Botham to two batting sessions, they will get the full benefit from the first session, but due to the amount of work they have already done in that session, the amount they can possibly gain from the second session is much less. If they were allocated to a third batting session, they would receive again even less training. A fourth training session would only provide negligible benefit.
However, if Botham was told to also go to a bowling session as well as the batting ones, they would still get the full benefit from the first bowling session. Again, any subsequent sessions would also see a reduction in training received.
Squad Training
As well as hiring coaches to work one-on-one with players, you can request squad training sessions to train stamina and/or fielding. If you have a stamina or fielding coach employed, look for a "Squad Training" option at the top of the drop-down player list next to your stamina or fielding net on the nets page.
An example of selecting squad training for stamina and fielding
All players in your squad will receive a benefit from a squad training session. But keep in mind that your training grounds are only so big, and there simply isn't enough space to train more than 30 players at a time. So if you try and train your entire team when you have a squad bigger than 30 you will see the effectiveness of the training reduced.
Fitness
As the days pass, the fitness of your players will rise during each daily update at a rate depending on their stamina. If you train too hard it will tire the player rather than improve their fitness.
Playing in a match will also have a detrimental effect on their fitness, although club friendlies will have no impact. If they bowl lots of overs, their fitness would drop more than if they had not batted and only appeared in the field. Also if a player gets to 100 runs their fitness after the game will have dropped by more than a player who got a duck. A player's fitness level will have a significant effect on their performance, so you will have to judge when to rest players and when to play them. Giving a player too many net sessions will cause them to be tired for a couple of days after nets and may not recover in time for matches.
Secondary Skills
There is also another kind of specialist that you can get some benefit from; sports psychologists. While employing these specialists will help your team with any morale issues you may be experiencing, they can also help your players with the more mental skills: concentration and consistency. Your psychologists will attend all but the stamina coaching sessions, and will be passing on helpful hints to the players while they are being coached. The more psychologists you have, the more advice can be dished out, although the law of diminishing returns does apply here too with each additional psychologist providing fewer words of wisdom than the one before.
Sports psychologists will only attend the first net of a type per player per day. So your bowling trainee with 3 bowling nets only sees the sports psychologists in the first net and the sports psychologists are not available to them in the subsequent bowling nets. If they had a fielding net as well, they would also attend that session. All psychologists will attend each net for which any would qualify, so have 10 different players being trained one session of batting each and all psychologists will attend all 10 sessions.
Form
Finally, form. All players that are trained by specialists are more likely to see a rise in their form that week, as are the players who play in a match, regardless of whether they actually bowl or bat, so be careful about leaving too many players just sitting on the side lines!
Training Rate
Finally, note that younger players, being hungrier and keen to learn, will train their technical skills quicker - whilst older players (being more mature) will be able to improve their concentration and consistency quicker.
Stamina increases at the same rate, whatever the age.
The finance page lets you keep track of how you are spending and making money each week.
Each week, there is a financial update where the monies owed to you, and the monies that you are due to pay, are credited to and debited from your account. The balance shown at the top is how much money you had in the bank immediately after the last financial update, while the figure in brackets is the amount of money you will have in your account after the next financial update if you make no more transactions before then.
All transactions that take place during the week are added to the profit/loss account shown and the balance figure in brackets is updated accordingly.
This is what each of the areas of the profit/loss sheet contain:
Gate Receipts - Any income due from matches played during the week. See the Ground section for details of how this is calculated.
Sponsors - This amount will depend on how good your relations with your sponsors are, your position within the league, and how high your league is.
Interest - If you have money in the bank at the last financial update, and you have hired a financial advisor, you can earn interest. You can increase the rate of interest by hiring more financial advisors. There is a maximum of 80 000 per week that you can receive in interest.
Miscellaneous - Simply contains everything else that you can gain money from such as sales of players (less 5% sales tax) and prize money.
Ground Maintenance - Although your groundskeeper will only take a small salary, they will have costs for the week and not only in the preparation of the wicket, but to maintain the spectator areas. Details of spectator area costs are given in the ground section.
Salaries - All your players need to be paid, and this is where that cost will show.
Interest - Like with good interest, if you had an overdraft at the last financial update, then you will have to pay interest on that money. Any financial advisors may be able to help get a better rate though.
Miscellaneous - Any other costs incurred during the week show up here, including firing backroom staff, promoting from the academy and buying players.
Staff Costs - Any costs for your backroom staff (trainers, psychologists, etc) goes here.
Costs for Youth Academy - Showing the level of investment into your youth academy.
OVERDRAFT AND BANKRUPTCY
We have made a small change to the way that the game deals with bankruptcy that has been implemented with immediate effect.
Rather than warnings and reprievals being issued only at financial updates, you will now receive an immediate bankruptcy warning if any transaction drops your balance below the warning limit of -£350,000 and you will then have 14 days from that point to get your balance back above -£350,000.
As soon as any transaction brings you back above that level, you will receive notice that bankruptcy has been avoided.
However, if by the end of the 14th day, you have not managed to get your balance back above -£350,000 then the bank will take control of the team and you will be locked out. At that point, if you wish to apply for a new account, you will need to serve a waiting period of two weeks.
If your franchise team is declared bankrupt, then it will turn bot instantly. Your main team and your login privileges are not affected. If you wish to start a new franchise team, you will need to wait eight weeks before applying for a new team.
Members please note: Battrick Membership does not protect you from bankruptcy. Should a Member go bankrupt and fail to bring their team out of debt before the time limit then their account will lock and will eventually become a bot, as with any other user. Should this happen then you will lose your account, like anyone else.
The consequences of bankruptcy are very serious, so please be very, very careful about debt. Bankruptcy warnings are very visible and should be taken seriously. Please do not leave it until the last minute to take action.
In particular, please note the following:
- If you need to sell players, then they need to be listed no later than the Wednesday, at least 72 hours before your financial update. (You should allow extra time in case a last minute bidding war extends the transfer past the financial update).
- When selling players to avoid bankruptcy, the bank will only count the funds once the transfer has completed. They will NOT take bids placed into account for the purpose of avoiding bankruptcy.
- If you only have 14 players in your squad, then you will not be able to sell any players. You can, however, promote one player each week through your Youth Academy, which would allow you to sell a more valuable player in order to clear your debt.
Bankruptcy Extensions
It is not possible to extend the bankruptcy deadline - the locking of your account is an automated process that cannot be altered by the GMs. However, if you send a message to the GMs through the Contact Us link, then we may be able to review your situation after the account has been locked. (For example, if you sold players after the deadline and as a result you are now no longer in debt).
Please note that we cannot grant extensions for franchise teams - these teams will turn bot instantly if they become bankrupt. We cannot restore a franchise team once it turns bot.
Overdraft and Buying Players
Although there is the large overdraft facility available, you can only use the first £150,000 to buy players with. Once below that level, you will not be allowed to buy players. When determining your balance for the purpose of buying players, the bank will not only look at the state of your current balance, they will also take into account any players that you currently have bids on and/or players that you are selling and have received offers for.
Your pride and joy, this is where all the action takes place. There are 2 aspects to the ground that you need to pay particular attention to: The playing surface and spectator facilities.
You have a groundskeeper that will prepare the playing surface for you. They cost you £250 per week. All you have to do is tell them what sort of pitch you would like to have prepared for the next match.
The Pitch Options feature from the Ground page.
There are 7 different types of pitch surface that they can prepare for you with each pitch condition favouring a different sort of player:
| Pitch Type | Favoured |
| Uneven | Seam Bowlers |
| Cracked | Seam Bowlers |
| Hard and Fast | Batters |
| Green | Seam Bowlers |
| Flat | Batters |
| Dusty | Spin Bowlers |
| Slow | All Bowlers |
Please note that, while some pitches may appear to behave similarly, some do have more effect or greater leanings than others!
Pitch Squares
Any game you are hosting in the next seven days will be shown as being worked on within your pitch square on your Grounds page. All pitches will start as Green and move towards your default pitch type each day. Please note that if your match is not scheduled at least 7 days in advance, not all pitch types will be possible. After a pitch for the match appears on your square, you may change it to move towards a different pitch from your default. But you better do it quickly or you choice may not be possible! Once a pitch starts moving towards one direction away from Green, it is not possible to change back to the other side of green. For example, if you choose to make your pitch Uneven and then the next day try to change it to Dusty, it will not be possible.
Ground
On the spectator side, you start off with a ground that can hold 6,500 spectators. There are four types of viewing areas that you can have at the ground. Each will cost a different amount to maintain, a different amount to build, and also command a different ticket price for the public to use. As such, each type of seat will attract a different type of punter, and in differing quantities. The details of all this are shown in the table below. All amounts shown are in £ and are per seat or space.
| Type | Building Cost | Maintenance Cost | Income |
|---|
| Standing Room | 15.00 | 1.00 | 5.00 |
| Uncovered Seats | 25.00 | 1.60 | 7.50 |
| Covered Seats | 30.00 | 2.20 | 10.00 |
| Members Seats | 100.00 | 5.00 | 25.00 |
When building new places, there is also a fixed cost of £20,000 that will be charged irrespective of how much work is being done. You can get a quote for any development without committing to anything unless you accept an offer. Entering negative values enables you to get a quote for demolishing seats.
Entering additional seating values in the Expand Ground feature on the Ground page feature does not commit you to the order at this point.
Gate Receipts
When a match has finished, you will be able to see how many people came to watch. The proceeds from the gates will be paid out depending on what type of match was being played. In a league match (both FC and OD), the home team will receive the full amount. In cup, BT20 and friendly games the receipts are split 50/50. There are no gate receipts for either team in OD play-off matches.
First Class matches have Match Ticket sales and daily sales. A large number of your fans love the game so much that they are happy to pay for three days regardless of how long the game goes and won't care about a refund if the game finishes early. You'll receive the Match Ticket sales on day one of the FC match, much lower daily sales on subsequent days of play.
All these options can be found at your Ground page.
These are two important aspects of the game that will have a large bearing on how successful your club is financially, as the majority of your income will come from either your sponsors or gate receipts. You can follow their weekly income on the finance page and their mood on the club info page.
Fans are particularly fickle. If you are winning games they are happy, but if you are losing, then their mood can quickly change for the worse. When success is in the air more people will be willing to part with their cash to bask in your hard earned success, while on the flipside pretty much only the diehard fans will turn out for games if you are on a poor run. During the off-season, it is not unusual for some fans to lose interest and leave, but they will usually return once the new season starts and you start winning matches again.
These fans are your club members, who have paid up as a show of loyalty to your club and will turn out to support you through thick and thin. The amount of club members you have is a good indicator as to how many supporters you are likely to see turning up to your matches. But even these members will come and go depending on your successes in the middle.
The Sponsors' and Members' confidence on the Club Info page can often change.
Sponsors are more concerned with the image of the club. This has more to do with how good a job your PR officers are doing and how high up the league structure your club is. Keep the sponsors happy, and the money will keep coming in.
Promotion Bonus
If you promote in any format then you can expect a sudden influx of new members, keen to jump on your bandwagon. The increase in members will depend on the division you are promoting from, as indicated in the following table:
| From | To | FC | OD | BT20 |
| Div II | Div I | 3% | 3% | 3% |
| Div III | Div II | 3% | 3% | 3% |
| Div IV | Div III | 4% | 4% | 4% |
| Div V | Div IV | 5% | 5% | 5% |
| Div VI | Div V | 6% | 6% | 6% |
| Div VII | Div VI | 7% | - | 7% |
| Div VIII | Div VII | 8% | - | - |
| Div IX | Div VIII | 9% | - | - |
| Div X | Div IX | 10% | - | - |
Morale will have an effect on your teams performance. You can change this by winning and losing matches; win and it goes up, lose and it goes down.
You can also hire Sports Psychologists who will also have an impact on morale. They will try and keep morale up when losing and keep morale in check when your team is surpassing your greatest expectations.
Can I move my team to another country?
Yes.
At the end of the season, any team can apply to move to another country. Your team will move into the bottom FC (if applicable) and OD divisions in the new country. (A bot team will swap places with you, moving into the leagues you occupy in your current country). As BT20 is a global format, your BT20 league will not change - you will simply remain in the same BT20 league.
The option to move is made through the emigration application page. Applications to move to another country open on Monday of Week 16 and close on Monday of Week 1 in the new season. At the close of the application period, the finances of all teams applying to move will be checked, and if the team can afford the cost of the move, then it will be moved on Wednesday of Week 1, when the new leagues are formed.
The following are the costs of moving:
- All players go with you but you will lose 30% of your Club Members
- You will get a new ground at default newbie size
- You will be charged either four weeks salary or 10% of your current bank balance, whichever is the greater. This cost will be calculated using the values from your Week 1 Financial Statement and will be deducted from your account at the time of the move.
(Note: If you intend to buy or sell players to reduce your wage bill or bank balance, then the players need to be sold before the Financial Update, otherwise your emigration costs will include the pre-transfer wages or bank balance).
Can I move my franchise team to another country?
Yes.
You can move your franchise team to another country. The conditions and costs of moving are the same as outlined above, but there are some other factors to consider:
- Your main team and your franchise team cannot be in the same country at the same time
- You will be able to move both your main team and your franchise team in the same season, but a team cannot move to a country that is being vacated by the other team (as it is not possible for the two teams to be in the same country at the same time, even if it is only for a few seconds). If you want to do a direct swap of your two teams, then you may need to make multiple moves over two or more seasons.
- If one team can afford the cost of emigration but the other team cannot, then the move of the first team will go ahead but the other team will remain in their current country. They will be able to re-apply the following season.
Is there a subsidy for playing in a country that does not have First Class (FC) matches?
Yes.
For any team that moves to a country that does not have FC leagues, there will be a subsidy paid in lieu of playing FC matches. The subsidy is based on your OD division and is payable at the following rates:
- Division 1: £138,500 per week
- Division 2: £110,500 per week
- Division 3: £83,000 per week
- Division 4: £55,000 per week
The subsidy is paid in all 16 weeks of the season, and not just the weeks where FC matches would have been played.
Battrick has three competitions which everyone takes part in:
A 50 over One Day League
A 50 over Cup
The BT20 20 over international league competition.
In selected nations (Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies) there is a First Class League competition.
You have the option to arrange friendly matches for days where you have no competitive matches.
There are also International and U19 50 over matches, and in the future, Test matches.
THE FIRST CLASS LEAGUE
First Class matches last for up to three days, and each day lasts up to 110 overs. Both teams have a maximum of two innings each. The follow on is enforceable with a 150 runs or better first innings lead.
All leagues consist of six teams so you will play ten games in total, split home and away. You will be competing with five other teams for promotion, relegation or ultimately, your national title.
The League Structure
First Class matches operate on a pyramidal league system. In each country there is one top level division, two 2nd level divisions, four 3rd divisions and so on in powers of two.
Your division will be called something like VI.9. The roman numeral (VI = 6) is the level of your division while the 9 is the league number.
At the end of a season, the team ranked first in the league is declared the league winner and is promoted automatically.
The teams ranked second, third and fourth will remain as they are in exactly the same league for the next season.
The teams ranked fifth and sixth will be relegated if there is a lower division to relegate to.
In the event of teams having an equal number of points, the tiebreakers are (in order of importance) - most wins, fewest losses, most wickets, most runs.
The Points System
For a win 14 points are awarded to the winning side.
For a tie 7 points are awarded to each side.
For a draw 4 points are awarded to each side.
For a loss the losing side gets no points.
There are also bonus points awarded for the performances of each side in each first innings. These are awarded as follows:
200 - 239 runs = 1 batting point
240 - 279 runs = 2 batting points
280 - 319 runs = 3 batting points
320 - 359 runs = 4 batting points
360 runs or over = 5 batting points
3 - 5 wickets taken = 1 bowling point
6 - 8 wickets taken = 2 bowling points
9 - 10 wickets taken = 3 bowling points
Prize money
Teams finishing 1st down to 6th are awarded prize money at the end of the season as follows (£000s):| Level | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th |
| I | 2,000 | 1,600 | 1,400 | 1,200 | 1,000 | 900 |
| II | 1,100 | 1,000 | 900 | 820 | 720 | 680 |
| III | 760 | 720 | 680 | 640 | 560 | 520 |
| IV | 600 | 560 | 520 | 480 | 400 | 380 |
| V | 440 | 400 | 380 | 360 | 320 | 300 |
| VI | 340 | 320 | 300 | 280 | 220 | 200 |
| VII | 240 | 220 | 200 | 180 | 140 | 120 |
| VIII | 160 | 140 | 120 | 100 | 80 | 70 |
| IX | 90 | 80 | 70 | 60 | 40 | 30 |
| X | 50 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 5 |
Gate receipts reflect the fact that visiting fans come to games as well. As such, the details of both teams will be used in calculating game attendance although the weighting will be towards the home team.
Additionally FC matches have Match tickets, a large number of your fans love the game so much; they are happy to pay for three days regardless of how long the game goes and won't care about a refund if the game finishes early. So you will receive the majority of your income from FC games on day one of the match.
THE ONE DAY LEAGUE
The One Day League is a national club championship. Matches consist of one innings of 50 overs per team.
One day matches are played every Friday throughout the season. Your league will consist of a total of eight teams, and you will play each side home and away, making a total of 14 matches.
The One Day championship is organised in pyramidal structure, with up to 6 levels to the pyramid. The more teams in a country, the more levels to the pyramid. Each layer contains one or more leagues, and each league contains 8 teams. The pyramid therefore looks like this:
One Day I (all nations, 1 league, 8 teams)
One Day II (all nations, 4 leagues, 32 teams)
One Day III (all nations, 16 leagues, 128 teams)
One Day IV (all nations, 64 leagues, 512 teams)
One Day V (Aus, Eng, Ind, NZ and SA only, 256 leagues, 2048 teams)
One Day VI (Aus and Eng only, 256 leagues, 2048 teams and 512 leagues and 4096 teams respectively)
Points are awarded as follows:
Win - 4 points
Loss - 0 points
Tie - 2 points each.
Please note that number of wickets lost is not considered in this league format. League positions are decided by the number of points scored. if this is equal, net run rate is used as a decider.
All teams who finish top of their league table will have a chance of promoting, but some will be promoted automatically and some will face a playoff. To determine which, all the first place teams are ranked by points scored and net run rate. This information can be found in 'Promotion Info' on your league page.
The top half of this list will go up automatically, and the bottom half will play off against a team from the next level up.
The teams finishing 7th and 8th will relegate automatically, unless they are in the bottom level of their nation. The teams that finish 5th and 6th will face a play off to stay up against a team from the lower level (unless in the bottom level). The winners of playoff matches take their place in the higher division.
Promotion and relegation works differently for level VI in England and Australia.
Level VI in England is twice the size of Level V. The team placed 1st promotes and 2nd gets a play-off against a team who finished 5th or 6th in level V.
Level VI in Australia is the same size as level V. The teams placed 1st and 2nd both promote automatically to level V.
Play offs are played in Week 16 and the team from the higher league gets home advantage. There are no gate receipts for Play-off matches for either team.
Reaching a Result
In either the Cup competition or in a play off match, where an outright result must be reached, in the event of a tie the first decider called upon is wickets remaining, the team with the greater number remaining being the winner. If this is unable to decide matters, then the scores after 15 overs are compared for runs, and then wickets as well.
Prize money
Teams finishing 1st down to 8th are awarded prize money at the end of the season as follows (£000s):| Level | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th |
| I | 1,000 | 800 | 700 | 600 | 550 | 520 | 400 | 380 |
| II | 500 | 400 | 380 | 360 | 340 | 320 | 250 | 240 |
| III | 300 | 250 | 240 | 230 | 220 | 210 | 190 | 180 |
| IV | 200 | 190 | 180 | 170 | 160 | 150 | 120 | 110 |
| V | 140 | 120 | 110 | 100 | 90 | 80 | 60 | 50 |
| VI | 70 | 60 | 50 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 5 |
THE OD CUP
All teams take part in a national 50 over Cup competition, with fixtures played on Sundays. The fixtures for each round are drawn randomly and are not seeded, gate receipts are split 50:50 between teams. All managed teams are included in the Cup, with some bot teams added to make up the numbers.
OD Cup and Emigration
Round 1 of the Cup is drawn on the first Sunday of the new season. On the first Wednesday of the new season, emigration requests are processed and some teams will move countries. Emigrating teams will always swap places with a bot team in the lowest divisions in their new country. If you draw a bot team on the first Sunday, it is a good idea to check your opponent after Wednesday, just in case your bot opponent was replaced by an emigrating team.
All teams knocked out of the Cup will be able to arrange Sunday friendlies for subsequent weeks.
Reaching a Result
In either the Cup competition or in a play off match, where an outright result must be reached, in the event of a tie the first decider called upon is wickets remaining, the team with the greater number remaining being the winner. If this is unable to decide matters, then the scores after 15 overs are compared for runs, and then wickets as well.
Prize money for the winner and runner up in the Cup is £1,000,000 and £400,000 respectively. This money is awarded at the end of the season, not at the end of the Cup.
THE BT20 LEAGUE
The BT20 League is an international club championship. Matches consist of 20 overs per side each, and are fast-paced with high scoring rates. For more information on this style of game, see the beginners guide.
BT20 matches are played throughout the season, alternating with FC matches. Two weeks of FC matches are followed by a week of BT20 matches. The first week of BT20 is Week 4 of the season. During a BT20 week, matches are played once a day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Games begin at:
00:30 (BT time) for Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, Papua New Guinea, Canada, United States.
11:45 (BT time) for India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka.
12:30 (BT time) for England.
13:15 (BT time) for Netherlands, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ireland, Kenya, Scotland, Zimbabwe.
The start time is based on the nationality of the home side. Gate receipts are split 50:50 between the teams.
There are 6 overs of fielding restrictions at the start of the match, and bowlers can bowl 4 overs each. You will not be able to select a bowling strategy at this point. All teams will use the same strategy which is set out as below:
| Over | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Bowler No | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
Points are awarded as follows
Win - 4 points
Loss - 0 points
Tie - 2 points each.
Please note that number of wickets lost is not considered in this league format.
The BT20 championship is organised in pyramidal structure, with 7 levels to the pyramid. Each layer contains one or more leagues, and each league contains 12 teams. The pyramid looks like this
BT20 Premier (1 league, 12 teams)
BT20 Division II (4 leagues, 48 teams)
BT20 Division III (16, leagues, 192 teams)
BT20 Division IV (64 leagues, 768 teams)
BT20 Division V (256 leagues, 3072 teams)
BT20 Division VI (1024 leagues, 12288 teams)
BT20 Division VII (1024 leagues, 12288 teams)
The team finishing top in each league is promoted automatically to the next division above and the bottom four teams in each league are relegated to the next division below, except for Division VI, where only the two bottom teams relegate and Division VII, where the top two teams are promoted. In all cases, net run rate is used to decide when points scored is equal.
Prize money
Teams finishing 1st down to 6th are awarded prize money at the end of the season as follows (£000s):| Level | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th |
| I | 500 | 400 | 350 | 300 | 275 | 260 |
| II | 250 | 200 | 190 | 180 | 170 | 160 |
| III | 150 | 125 | 120 | 115 | 110 | 105 |
| IV | 100 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 80 | 75 |
| V | 70 | 65 | 60 | 55 | 50 | 45 |
| VI | 40 | 35 | 30 | 25 | 20 | 15 |
VII | 10 | | | | | |
FRIENDLIES
The friendly system allows all teams to book a friendly match in any format (FC, OD, BT20) with any other team in the world on the days possible for both teams.
The system automatically takes into account what games are already scheduled for both teams and what time zone they are in before providing the option to book in friendly games on all opportunities between the two teams. When you choose to challenge a team to a friendly from their pavilion page, you will see a schedule of all possible game times between the two teams over the next eight weeks. In each of the three game types, you will have an option of Home or Away to book the game, as long as time permits. This will allow teams in the non-FC countries to experiment with FC during the non-BT20 weeks as well as allow all teams to participate in FC friendlies over weekends.
Please note that due to game times, some combinations will not be possible in certain formats. For example, a PNG team and an English team cannot book a FC game at the PNG team's home ground leading into a BT20 week.
Friendlies generate income, but the crowds and therefore gate takings are smaller than for competitive matches. Spectators can buy match tickets in advance for FC matches, which means that most of your FC income will be collected on Day 1. Players do not lose any fitness from friendly matches but their fitness level going into the match will affect their performance during the match. Friendly matches do not affect Club Morale or Members Confidence.
Please note that there will be restrictions on U19 and Nat players for these games over the weekends where there are fixtures.
* OD games are assumed to take 7 hours 5 mins
* BT20 games are assumed to take 3 hours 20 mins
* FC games are assumed to take 2 days 7 hours 30 mins
* You cannot schedule a game to start within two hours of the end of a match
* You cannot schedule a game that would end within two hours of the start of a match
Obviously a friendly match doesn't attract such a large crowd as a competitive match, nor provide the same level of experience to players due to the lower stakes, but it will help keep them in good touch.
TEAM RANKING
You will find your team ranking on your Pavilion page. Your national ranking is based on a combination of your position in the FC, OD and BT20 leagues, with appropriate weighting attached to each competition.
When we calculate the international rankings, we use another weighting that will take account of the size of the country that you are playing in to level the playing field for OD and FC rankings - your BT20 ranking is obviously global already!
The ranking will be recalculated each Saturday morning BT time.
Finally onto the nitty gritty of competition now. Before you play a match, it is up to you to pick your side and give the players your orders.
On your Fixtures page, it will show you the games you have played, any matches that you have currently ongoing, and also the next few games to play. For each of the games to play, you can use the orders link to submit your match orders for that game.
Whilst it is always advisable to set Orders in advance, the final cut-off point for setting Orders is 20 minutes before the scheduled start of play. ie: Orders must be set by 10.10am if the match is scheduled to start at 10.30am.
ONE DAY MATCHES
Select a line up - The first thing that you need to do is decide which eleven players you want to play in the match and then enter them in the order in which you want them to bat. Generally people will bat the better batters at the top of the order, and the bowlers with less batting skill at the bottom, but it is entirely up to you.
Select captain and wicket keeper - Use the buttons to select the teams wicket keeper and captain.
Select bowlers - You must select 5 bowlers for a one day match. Each bowler will bowl 10 overs. The player you select as bowler 1 (b1) will bowl first, b2 will bowl second, b3 will come on first change and so on.
Individual orders - The next step is to give the players individual orders if you so wish. You can give instructions to each batter as to how to approach their innings: attacking, normal or defensive. Similarly, you can give the same choice of orders to each of your 5 bowlers that you have nominated. Although the batters and bowlers will generally follow this order, they may deviate if the situation requires it. They are more likely to do this if their experience is high.
Select bowling tactics - There are some preset tactics that determine which order the bowlers bowl in, and for how long. Each one has plus points and negative points, you must select the one that you think is most appropriate for the match.
* A table displaying all of the available bowling options can be found here. (Google spreadsheet)
The Toss - An important part of the game. If you are the away side, you will be asked what you want to call for the toss. Everyone must then declare what they intend to do first if they win the toss, bat or bowl. This will not be shown to the opposition prior to the match.
Finally, you can give your team an overall order of how to approach the match. These orders will affect the fitness level (PFL) of the players that play in the game - it will not affect any players not involved in the game. They can either:
Take it Easy - The players will conserve energy and so not perform on the day to their potential, but their personal fitness level will go down less than normal.
Play as Normal - The players will play to their natural ability, with a standard change to their personal fitness level.
Go For It - The players will run themselves into the ground trying to win the game, and will feel the effects afterward resulting in their personal fitness level falling more than normal.
It is up to you to decide which the game merits.
These orders must be set prior to the start of a game. If for whatever reason you forget to change the orders, the team will resort to the default match orders. You can change the current orders to the default by selecting the check box at the bottom of the orders screen prior to submitting your orders.
FIRST CLASS MATCHES
Select a line up - The first thing that you need to do is decide which eleven players you want to play in the match and then enter them in the order in which you want them to bat. Generally people will bat the better batters at the top of the order, and the bowlers with less batting skill at the bottom, but it is entirely up to you.
Select wicket keeper - Use the button to select the team's wicket keeper.
Select captain - Use the button to select the team's captain. Your captain in First Class matches is a very important member of the team as they will be responsible for decision making on the field with regard to how the bowlers are rotated. Try to pick a captain with good leadership skills and some experience.
Select bowlers - You can select as many bowlers as you want in first class matches, all players except for the wicket keeper may be selected to bowl although you should think twice before selecting your opening batter with worthless bowling to turn their arm over!
Select bowling tactics - Unlike the one day games there are no preset patterns that determine which order the bowlers bowl in. You set the priority and other settings and your captain makes decisions on the field of play based on how your bowlers are performing. Priority 1 and 2 open the bowling. Under the bowling options you have four decisions to make.
1. Priority - Select the priority that you wish your captain to give to each bowler.
2. Max overs/spell - This is the maximum amount of overs that you want this bowler to bowl in an individual spell. Your captain may override this setting dependant on the performance of your bowlers.
3. Min overs/spell - This is the minimum amount of overs that you want this bowler to bowl in an individual spell. Your captain may override this setting dependant on the performance of your bowlers.
4. Max RR/spell - This is guidance for your captain as to the maximum run rate that your bowler should go for before he is taken off. Your captain may override this setting dependant on the performance of your bowlers.
Individual orders - The next step is to give the players individual orders if you so wish. You can give instructions to each batter as to how to approach their innings: attacking, normal or defensive. Similarly, you can give the same choice of orders to each of the bowlers that you have nominated. Although the batters and bowlers will generally follow this order, they may deviate if the situation requires it. They are more likely to do this if their experience is high.
The Toss - An important part of the game. If you are the away side, you will be asked what you want to call for the toss. Everyone must then declare what they intend to do first if they win the toss, bat or bowl. This will not be shown to the opposition prior to the match.
Declarations - You can declare in both your first and second innings in the match.
First Innings Declaration target - The minimum declaration total of runs scored in the first innings is 200.
Second Innings Declaration target - In the second innings you must score a minimum of 100 runs before you can declare. However if this leaves your opponent with a target of less than 100, then the captain will override the instruction and bat on until you lead by at least 100 runs. The figure that you enter for your second innings declaration target is the figure that you want to score in your second innings before your captain declares.
Following on - You have the option to enforce the follow on, select the Yes option if you want to make your opponent bat again. If you have batted first and your opponent is 150 runs or more behind after both teams have completed their first innings, you have the option to tell the opponent to "follow on". This means you can tell the other team to bat again even though they've just finished their first innings. This potentially means that you might not need to bat again if they get bowled out a second time and not be in the lead.
Changing orders overnight - At the end of the day's play you have the option to change the following for the next day's play:
Add or amend declaration targets.
Amend follow on instructions.
Amend your bowler selections, you can add or remove bowlers, change their priority and individual settings.
You cannot change the batting order.
Selling a player during a game - If you sell a player at any point during the match (including the twenty minutes before the start on day one when orders are locked) they will not be replaced in your team and will play the whole game.
TIE/PAN/GFI - the Take It Easy, Play As Normal and Go For It options are not available for First Class matches.
Overs in a day - There are 110 overs in a day, 35 overs in the morning session, 35 in the afternoon and 40 in the evening session.
Regions and Weather
When you register you are asked to select a region to play in. The only effect that this has on the game is the weather. On the region page you will get a weather forecast for today and the next 5 days. Unfortunately Battrick forecasters are as bad as the rest of them, so it can change from day to day. The chances of getting any sort of weather is exactly the same in every region. One of the main advantages of playing cricket in Battrick is that it will never rain, so no umbrellas or running back to the pavilion here!!
The weather can have a large impact on your matches. Certain types of player will flourish in certain weather conditions although may suffer in others.
Also the weather will affect the match attendance to a degree.
International matches are played between teams representing Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, England, India, Ireland, Kenya, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States of America, West Indies and Zimbabwe. Each of these countries is represented by a National squad (from Season 18 for new countries) and an Under 19 squad.
World Cups are alternated each season between the National teams and the U19 teams and at the end of each World Cup the manager of that season's campaign can either step down or run for re-election. The winning manager of the election shall reign as manager for the whole length of their campaign which is 2 seasons (32 weeks). New nominees should be very aware of this contract as it is binding and release from National Manager duties will not be approved.
Every season, the usership of the country get to decide who will take charge of their National teams for the coming 32 weeks by way of an election, (see below for election rules). The games are currently limited to One Day Internationals (ODI) and are played on Sundays and Mondays, as indicated on the calendar.
While only players that are 19 or younger are able to represent the U19 side, any player is eligible to play for their national side. The national manager will be able to see all of a players skills once they have been added to the squad, but only while they are in the squad. There is a limit of 22 players to the squad size so the manager will have to choose carefully to ensure that he has the right players in the right form at the right time. When players are dropped from the side, the National/U19 team morale will suffer as players become anxious about their places.
When a player is called up to the national side, they will spend about half of their Sundays and Mondays with the national squad. This means that they are not available for Cup or Friendly matches on any Sunday or Monday while they are on national team duties. The national squads are locked from Saturday 23:30 BT time to Tuesday 00:00 BT time every week, which means that national managers cannot call up or drop players during this time. NT/U19 managers must contact club managers to ask permission before calling up a player to a NT/U19 squad. If the club manager makes it clear that they do not want their player called up, then the NT/U19 manager cannot call up the player. Note: If a club manager purchases a player who is a current member of a NT/U19 squad, then NT/U19 manager does not need to ask permission to keep the player in the squad. The club manager cannot demand that the player be released.
Any of your players playing in a national squad will still receive training as normal and will receive a subsidy towards their wages for any week in which they play in a representative game. This subsidy will be paid out during the New Zealand Daily Updates on a Thursday (18:00 BT time). This will be paid to all nations at the same time each week, and is equal to 2/3 of the player's weekly wage. (Note: The subsidy is paid to the manager who owns the player at the time the subsidy is paid).
Although all ODIs played outside of a world cup are classed as friendlies, they count as full international matches and will count towards a teams ranking points. At the start of Battrick, all teams had the same ranking points. As more games have been played, these points have changed to show the leading International side.
International players who belong to a managed side can be released once their initial six week contract is complete or at any time after this. When an international player is released by their club manager, they will be placed in a holding team. Whilst in the holding team, they will not be selected for any club matches but will drop to fresh PFL and worthless form at the next daily update. Players will be part of this holding team for two weeks only. During this time, their international manager has 10 days where they can request them to be listed. If they do not sell, then at the end of the two weeks, they will retire from the game. The player cannot be listed a second time.
Please also note that a club manager who releases an International player to the holding team cannot bid on them. This includes bidding with their other team, as this is considered to be a breach of the rules relating to transfers between main and franchise teams.
International players who belong to teams that go bot will be eligible for release after they have played three games for their current international side (ie three games for the U19s does not make a player eligible for release if he is in the full side) and only at the request of their current international manager, who must contact the game staff using the Contact Us option under the Help menu. This only applies to players that are current members of National/U19 teams, players who are members of a bot team are not eligible to be called up for international duty. Please note that a player will not be listed at a requested time but rather when an Admin member can action the request. Players will be listed at an initial price of one week's wages. Players will only be listed once. If they fail to sell, they will stay with their bot team until it is reset at which time they will retire from the game.
We have been investigating the birth certificates of all player's parents and grandparents, and it turns out that some players have a second nation that they are eligible to play for apart from their nation of birth. This will show up in their page under second nationality. Additionally, we have decreed that if a player spends five seasons in the same club in another country, he will become eligible to play for that country in International matches. This will automatically show up on a player's page as an adopted nation. However, when a player has played an International match for either the U19 or full national sides of any of their eligible countries, they will only be eligible to play for that country.
Election rules
All election candidates must abide by the following rules:
1) No Spamming
Soliciting votes via BT-mail is absolutely forbidden. Doing so may lead to disqualification for candidates.
2) No Thread Bumping
If your thread is falling from prominence, tough. Try to make a good impression while it lasts.
3) No Cross-Thread Campaigning
Campaigning in another candidate's election thread, or barracking for a rival candidate you support, is forbidden. Messages will be deleted and the perpetrators may be banned from Sledging.
Candidates would be advised to avoid posting in rivals' threads at all. Should you do so, be careful that your post is polite, and a relevant enquiry rather than self-promotion in whatever guise. The judgement of the Admin Team is final.
If a candidate is disqualified from an election for breaking election rules then that disqualification covers all countries in that current election. They may campaign for a position in the following season's elections.
4) Registering candidacy
Registration opens at 06:00 on Friday in Week 1 and closes at 06:00 on Friday in Week 2. You can only be registered for one election at a time. You can only hold one international job at a time. For more details, please see the Elections page in each Country Details.
Regarding non-candidates:
1. No commentary on threads. Either ask a question of the candidate, or don't post.
2. No bumping your "preferred" candidates thread with meaningless posts saying you like them or such.
3. Keep the comments relevant to the person whose thread you are posting in. Do not comment on other candidates in their thread.
How to vote
Votes can be placed by going to Global>Country Details>Elections>Current Elections and select whomever you wish to vote for. We ask you to vote sensibly as the winner will be responsible for your National or U19 team for the next two seasons.
Tied election
Should two or more candidates tie for first place in an election, then the user who has been playing Battrick for the longest will be declared the winner. In the unlikely event that two managers joined on the same day, then the user with the lowest userID will win.
Assistant Manager
Either during the election campaign or immediately after the election, all elected managers must nominate a person to be an official Assistant Manager. The GMs will send a message to nominated Assistant Managers, asking them to confirm that they are willing to act in this position.
An elected manager cannot resign from a NT or U19 manager position. If at any time the elected manager does not login for two weeks, then the Assistant Manager can act in his/her place until the elected manager returns or until the elected manager leaves Battrick. The Assistant Manager would have no direct control over the team, but instead would submit orders through Contact Us to the GMs.
If the elected manager leaves Battrick (eg turns bot), then the Assistant Manager is installed as the official manager as soon as possible.
As is now common in world one day cricket, Battrick uses something called Net Run Rate (NRR) to separate sides level on points in our OD league competition:
The following is how it is described within the rules of the actual game:
A team's net run rate is calculated by deducting from the average runs per over scored by that team, the average runs per over scored against that team.
In the event of a team being all out in less than its full quota of overs, the calculation of its net run rate shall be based on the full quota of overs to which it would have been entitled and not on the number of overs in which the team was dismissed.
Back with us? Good! Now let's try and explain that with a slightly more step by step approach.
A teams run rate is their total number of runs divided by overs faced. Now as an over is six balls if an over isn't completed then you need to do a little calculation to find what to divide by.
For example: 40.1 is actually 40 overs and one sixth of an over. Thus, for the purpose of the run rate calculation, the team has faced 40 + 1/6 = 40.167 (3 d.p.) overs.
If another ball is bowled, they have now faced 40 + 2/6 = 40.333 (3 d.p.) overs. After the next ball (40.3 in normal terms) it's the more user friendly 40.5 as we're halfway through the over.
So if a team scores 250 runs off 50 overs then their run rate is 250/50 = 5. If they got that same score off 47.3 overs, there RR would be 250 / 47.5
Net Run Rate simply involves taking your opponents final run rate away from your own total run rate. The only slight exception is that now, if a team is bowled out, it is not the balls faced which their score is divided by; instead the full fifty over quota is used.
Here are a few scenarios:
1. Side that bats first wins
- Team A bats first and sets a target of 287-6 off their full quota of fifty overs. Team B fails in their run chase, early losses causing them to struggle to 243-9
- Team A's run rate is 287 / 50 = 5.74
- Team B's run rate is 243 / 50 = 4.86
- Team A's NRR for this game is 5.74 - 4.86 = 0.88 . If this was the first game of the season, their NRR for the league table would be +0.88
- Team B's NRR for this game is 4.86 - 5.74 = -0.88 . If this was the first game of the season, their NRR for the league table would be -0.88
2. Side that bats second wins
- Team A bats first and sets a target of 265-8 off their full quota of fifty overs. Team B successfully chases, getting their winning runs with a four with sixteen balls remaining, leaving them on 267-5
- Team A's run rate is 265 / 50 = 5.12
- Team B faced 47.2 overs and so their run rate is 267 / 47.333... = 5.64084... = 5.64 (2 d.p.)
- Therefore Team A's net run rate for this game is 5.12 - 5.64084... = -0.52084... . If their net run rate for this season was previous +1.52 it is now +0.99916... = +1.00
- Therefore Team B's net run rate for this game is 5.64084... - 5.12 = +0.52084... . If their net run rate for this season was coincidentally also previously +1.52 it is now = +2.04
3. Side that bats first is bowled out. Side batting second wins.
- Team A bat first and are skittled out for 127 off 25.4 overs. Team B reaches the target for the loss of four wickets off 25.5 overs.
- Despite Team A's run rate for the balls they faced being 127 / 24.667 = 5.19 (2dp) because they were bowled out their run rate is worked out over the 50 over quote; 127 / 50 = 2.54
- Team B actually scored at a slower pace, however they managed to protect their wickets. Therefore they use their balls faced run rate; 128 / 25.833 = 4.95 (2 dp)
- Team A's NRR for this match is 2.54 - 4.95 = -2.41 and would be added (adding a minus to a positive having the effect of subtracting) to their seasons NRR.
- Team B's NRR for the match is 4.95 - 2.54 = +2.41 and would be added to their seasons NRR.
4. Side that bats second is bowled out. Side batting first wins.
- Team A bat first and set a formidable 295-7 off their compliment of 50 overs. Team B never gets close, being bowled out for 184 off 35.4 overs.
- Team A's run rate is 295 / 50 = 5.9
- Team B's run rate is taken over 50 overs as they were bowled out; 184 / 50 = 3.68
- Team A's NRR for this match is 5.9 - 3.68 = +2.22 and would be added to their seasons NRR.
- Team B's NRR for the match is 3.68 - 5.9 = -2.22 and would be added to their seasons NRR.
5. Both sides are bowled out, the team batting first therefore taking the points.
- Team A bat first manage 117 off 24 overs on a testing track. Team B fall agonizingly short, reaching 112 off 23.3 overs.
- As they were bowled out Team A's run rate is 117 / 50 = 2.34 (2dp)
- As Team B were also bowled out their run rate is 112 / 50 = 2.24 (2dp)
- Team A's NRR for this match is 2.34 - 2.24 = +0.10 and would be added to their seasons NRR.
- Team B's NRR for the match is 2.24 - 2.34 = -0.10 and would be added to their seasons NRR.
Obviously in a tied game the teams run rates are equal and so the teams NRR for that season would be unaffected.
Please Note: the Battrick engine stores run rate and net run rate figures to many more decimal places than used here in these examples.
The Transfer Market is where you can buy and sell players. Maybe you have trained a young star and want to reap the cash rewards for your efforts. Or maybe you need an all-important batter to secure your cup or league ambitions and bolster your team in weaker areas.
Buying Players
To buy a player you must have sufficient funds in your bank account. Whilst the bank lends up to £350,000 in an overdraft facility, they will only allow up to £150,000 of the overdraft to finance a new player for your team. For the purpose of buying players, the bank will also allow you to access funds placed in bids on players that you are currently selling.
The transfer market on Battrick is a global run society with hundreds of players available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can narrow your search down by using the separate skill search boxes to help find that all-important new player. They may not always be on the market but keep trying every few days and maybe a player will match your criteria.
The search feature allows you to narrow your focus on the Transfer Market page.
Using the searches is also a valuable way to compare prices for your own players and to find out how much a certain player is likely to cost if you were to sell them. Look for players on the market with similar skills and follow their transfer closely. This is a very efficient way for Player Valuations.
Some transfer market search results.
Once you have bought a player, their contract tells them and you that they must be a part of your team for 42 days before they can be transfer listed again.
If you decide that you no longer want to sell a player that you have listed, then you can bid to buy them back. The downside is that the deal will be treated as a proper transfer in all respects, i.e. You will have to pay the 5% selling fee, they will have a 42 day contract and you will lose any nets you might have had on them (they will be treated as a new player).
Please note: When buying players on a Saturday morning to quickly put them into nets, check which country they are travelling from. Players who are arriving from a country who have already had their training updates will not benefit from any nets given to them with their new team.
ie: Player A currently plays in Australia and is listed for a Saturday 09:00 deadline. User B from England buys him. Player A has already received their training updates from their Australian team and won't be available for nets with their new England team until the following week. You may be able to select them for nets straight after their transfer, but they won't benefit from them.
Selling Players
When you finally decide that you no longer need a player then you can list them on the transfer market. There are two charges that may be payable when you sell a player.
- A listing fee of 5% of the reserve price of the player up to a maximum amount of £80,000. If your player sells 80% of the fee will be refunded meaning that you effectively pay 1%.
- If the player sells then a 5% agent's fee on the total sale price is payable. There are no agents fees payable if the player does not sell.
When you list your player, there is a confirmation box. Once you confirm this and accept to place your player on the market that is it, this cannot be undone. Your player will be on the Transfer Market for 3 days (72 hours from listing) for them to generate interest and have bids placed on him.
The bidding system on Battrick works like this: The highest bidder when the bidding time has elapsed wins the player. Any bids within the last 3 minutes of the players transfer time increases the bidding time by three minutes so it is not always worthwhile jumping in at the last moment to try and win with a late bid. If a team raises your bid, there will be a new note on the Main -> News. It is very important to keep an eye on this when trying to buy a player.
Your Behaviour
From time to time the Admin team may have cause to cancel, reverse or adjust transfers or act in individual ways which are appropriate to individual cases.
The Admin team keep a watchful eye on the Transfer Market to make sure that all users benefit from the market equally. If we believe that some users are taking advantage of other users then the Admin team will intervene, Battrick does not allow over-priced transfers and these can be amended or reversed. Nor is it permitted to BT-mail any other user advertising players, this is regarded as Spam which can lead to punishments.
If any users think they have spotted anything they think needs alerting then please notify the Admin team through the correct channels.
Please also note that you are not allowed to use the BT-Mail system to send unsolicited mails to any user regarding players you may be selling or that you may wish to sell. We regard this as spam and you are very likely to receive a fine when caught.
Remember, the transfer market is an open auction where anyone is permitted to place bids. BT-mails to other managers asking them to stop bidding are against the spirit of the game and will be acted upon if reported.
Please also note that you are the manager of your team. No-one else is allowed to access it, not even close friends or family. We also do not allow managers to buy players from family or friends' teams or from teams who share the same computers or IP addresses. If you are accessing your team from a computer used by a fellow Battrick user then please contact us, naming all individuals involved. While you are most welcome to play Battrick in that situation, any transfers between these teams and your own will be in breach of the rules and severely punished.
Over-inflated sales will be thoroughly checked by the Admin team and may be adjusted after they complete.
If for whatever reason you do wish to leave the game, it is not permitted to hand your team over to anyone else as this would be unfair to users who are on the waiting list waiting for a team. Simply stop logging into the game and after seven weeks of inactivity your team will be deleted.
Battrick reserves the right to refuse applications or to remove users from the game. Reasons for removal include:
- Running multiple teams
- Sharing login details with other users or logging into another's account
- Arranging for friends or family to buy your players at inflated prices
- Match fixing
- Abusive actions or language to other users or game staff such as making racist or personal attacks; attacks on a specific nation or religion, homophobic comments or any form of offensive discrimination
- Attempting to disrupt the normal running of Battrick
- Encourage cheating within the game or expose any methods of exploiting any game bugs
- Any attempts to circumvent the Battrick systems (including editing of URLs)
- Breaking the Sledging rules, (as outlined within Sledging)
- Any illegal activities, such as promoting criminal activities or the use of illegal goods or substances, (drugs) or passing on illegal software (piracy) or CD-keys to such games/software
- Masquerading as a member of the Admin Team (using BT, GM, COM or MOD in your username)
- Anything detrimental to the gaming experience of other users
- All other forms of cheating
In addition, you may not navigate Battrick via any means other than using a web browser or WAP/cellphone to click the links within the site. Changing URLs in the address field of your browser is forbidden, as is using other programs to scan Battrick, change information or navigate through data.
However we do not limit our reasons for removing users to these criteria and reserve the right to adapt them as circumstances dictate. Decisions to remove users from the game are not taken lightly and are discussed among several members of the GM team who are regulated to ensure that they act responsibly.
The Admin team may also penalise teams or users for minor offences such as BT-Mail spam, misuse of Press Releases, Guestbook entries and offensive ground/team names etc., advertising items or services you wish to buy/sell/trade in real life, accusing other users of cheating, (contact the GMs instead) or discussing decisions taken by GMs and/or moderators and these penalties include, (but are not restricted to) official warnings, Sledging bans and monetary fines.
You are asked to:
- Read the game rules and FAQ before asking for help in the Newbie Questions board in Sledging, (do not use the GM Contact page!)
- Remember this is a game for all ages and minors might read what you write
- Be respectful of other people; let's all try and get along
- If you suspect someone of cheating please Contact the GMs
- If you find a bug please post details of it on the Bug Reports board in Sledging, (do not use the GM Contact page unless the bug could be used to exploit a loophole or cheat)
Battrick wish to assure users that it is the duty of the Admin Team to ensure that this remains a fun and fair game for users of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds and punishments are only handed out in circumstances where individuals are not respecting that.
A franchise is another team that is directly linked to your account but it runs independently from your main team. The franchise team will have its own set of players, income, members, nets etc and effectively run as a separate team. You will not be allowed to trade between the two teams, they must run totally independently.
The option to create a franchise team is available to all members. To apply for a franchise team, select the Office option under the Main menu. Non-members do not get this option. If the franchise team goes bankrupt, it will close and you will not be allowed to start a new franchise team for eight weeks. If the main team goes bankrupt, the franchise team will also be lost.
In order to manage the two teams, you will need to swap between them to take control of one team at a time. To select the team you are currently managing, you can make your selection from the Office page under the Main menu, or more conveniently, by simply clicking on your team name in the banner, just under the Battrick logo.
There are a few additional rules for franchises:
- The franchise team must be in a different country to the main team
- The franchise team will not have any voting privileges in NT/U19 manager elections
- The main team will not be allowed to emigrate to the same country as the franchise team
- The franchise team will not be allowed to emigrate to the same country as the main team
- The main team must maintain membership to keep the franchise team. If membership runs out and is not resumed within two weeks, the franchise team will be lost
How can I contact the game administrators?
Inside the game
If you are logged in to the game, there is a Contact Us form under the Help menu.
Outside the game
If you cannot log in, please contact: suppabc@defort@batt@abc.comrick.org
Here is a complete list of the denominations for all the skill levels that are used in Battrick. Remember that each level represents a range of ability, not an absolute.
useless
worthless
abysmal
woeful
feeble
mediocre
competent
respectable
proficient
strong
superb
quality
remarkable
wonderful
exceptional
sensational
exquisite
masterful
miraculous
phenomenal
elite
desolate
despairing
pessimistic
hopeful
happy
animated
joyous
ecstatic
over the moon
exhausted
drained
fatigued
low
fair
moderate
fresh
lively
invigorated
energetic
sublime
defensive
cautious
steady
attacking
destructive
useless
worthless
abysmal
woeful
feeble
mediocre
competent
respectable
proficient
strong
superb
