The Australian cricket summer will begin on December 14 with a Test series against Pakistan. Cricket Australia confirmed the selection on Sunday, but the men’s team’s official Facebook page added a nostalgic twist to the announcement post.
Fans of previous cricket computer games, particularly EA’s Cricket 2005, Cricket 2007, and Ashes Cricket 2009, will recall how licencing troubles resulted in weird and humorous spellings of several great cricketers’ names.
For example, Indian stars Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, and MS Dhoni were identified as J Krumble, V Lexington, and D Dhenier in the game.
Shara Aphred and Shadid Akhti of Pakistan represented Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Akhtar. Bangladeshi legends Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and Mushfiqur Rahim played as Mashef Mortaz and Mustafa Rahmin, respectively.
The squad announcement was made on an overlay of an old-looking cricket video game on the Facebook page “Australian Men’s Cricket Team,” which is officially managed by Cricket Australia, and retro-style graphics contained the list of rumoured Australian cricketers who will be in the squad for the first Test against Pakistan.
P Goings, the team’s captain, can only be a “unlicensed” version of Australia’s World Cup-winning skipper, Pat Cummins. T Cranium (Travis Head), M Loosebuschange (Marnus Labuschagne), J Sandalwood (Josh Hazelwood), A Scary (Alex Carey), and N Tyger (Nathan Lyon) are among the other amusing names. A McChicken was named after Australian coach Andrew McDonald.
Fans reacted positively to the amusing message, particularly those who realised the connection to some of the most popular cricket video games released in the early and mid-2000s. However, for newer games, licencing difficulties can be readily avoided by using mods and patches that are freely available on the internet.