Ultra Cricket

Ultra Cricket is a former play-by-e-mail cricket simulation. Originally created by Tim Astley as a stand-alone program, the game was adapted to be played by means of predetermined orders, and began its first season as a PBeM in 1992. Ultra Cricket is named after Brockian Ultra Cricket, a fictional game referenced in the Douglas Adams series, .
Players in Ultra Cricket act as a team manager, responsible for a cricket squad of between 20 and 30 players. Each player has a number of different skills, including batting, bowling and fielding, which rise and fall over their careers. Each week the team plays three matches, usually one five-day Test match and two One Day International matches; some leagues have different combinations of matches. The manager must select the "First XI" for their team that week, in batting order for each match. With a sophisticated system of tactical orders, each user has a great deal of control over how to play each match. The team's weekly orders must also include instructions on how each player should be trained. At the end of each season (14 weeks in length) new players are added to the squad and older players retired.
After continuous growth in the late 1990s to a peak of over 800 teams in five parallel leagues, a change in computing habits - coinciding with the dot-com bust of 2000-01 - gradually saw team numbers decrease. The game closed during 2008; despite support from a handful of former players, a resumption has not occurred.

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