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How Real Careers Become In-Game Ratings Guide

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CricArcade does not invent its players. Every one is built from real career numbers, an average, a strike rate, an economy, a bowling strike rate, and a single rating on a familiar scale. Here is how those numbers turn into a player who behaves like themselves at the crease.4 min read

From a career to a profile

Under every player sits a small profile: how many runs they average, how fast they score, how few runs they concede with the ball, and how often they take a wicket. Those come from the real record, adjusted for era so a batter from the 1950s and one from the 2010s can be compared fairly. On top of the profile sits the rating you see, a batting-and-bowling blend on a 0-99 scale, and the rating is what nudges the profile up or down when the match is simulated.

Why an average alone misleads

In real cricket, a batting average is runs divided by dismissals, and it hides at least three things. The first is not-outs: a lower-order batter who often finishes unbeaten on a small score can carry an average well above what their innings were worth. The second is speed. Two batters averaging 40 can be very different players if one scores at a run a ball and the other at half that, and in limited-overs cricket the difference decides matches. The third is the era.

The Test archive shows how much the era matters. In the 1950s a wicket cost 28.6 runs on average across all Tests; in the 2000s it cost 34.2. A batter averaging 45 in the first decade was further above the typical batter of the time than one averaging 45 in the second. Comparing players across generations means asking how far each stood above the cricket around them, not just reading the raw number, and that is the adjustment described above.

The best careers in the archive

Rank the batters in the Test archive with at least 50 innings and 40 dismissals, and the top of the list is a reminder of how rare true greatness is. Don Bradman averaged 99.94. The next best, Herbert Sutcliffe, averaged 60.73, followed by Ken Barrington on 58.67, Everton Weekes on 58.62, Wally Hammond on 58.46 and Garry Sobers on 57.78. Bradman's lead over second place is almost 40 runs an innings; the next five are separated by three.

That spread is what a rating scale has to hold. The very best players need to stand clearly apart, and the ordinary Test player needs to sit comfortably in the middle, so that picking a great side is worth the effort and a weaker side can still win on its day.

Why rating changes how you play, not just how good you are

A rating is not a single dial that makes a batter uniformly better. It is tuned to move survival and scoring by different degrees, so that a higher-rated batter genuinely lasts longer at the crease, not merely scores a little quicker. That distinction matters: a rating that only sped up scoring would leave your best batter no harder to dismiss than an average one. Bowlers get the mirror image, becoming both tighter and more penetrative as their rating rises. The point is that class shows up the way it does in real cricket, as time in the middle, not just as boundaries.

A bowler is not a batsman

A rating is an overall number, which creates a trap: a specialist bowler like a great fast-bowling number nine can be rated in the high nineties on the strength of their bowling. If that full rating were allowed to inflate their batting, the engine would hand the tail centuries. So the batting lift is scaled down hard for players whose rating comes from their bowling, and left at full strength for genuine batsmen. A top-order all-rounder is treated as a real batsman; a bowling all-rounder is not. The result is that a number eleven bats like a number eleven, however high their overall rating.

Judging a bowler on bowling alone

The same problem appears when the engine picks who bowls: an all-rounder's overall rating is inflated by their batting, so ranking bowling options by rating alone would wrongly favour them over a lower-rated specialist. To avoid that, bowlers are also judged on a pure bowling-quality measure that ignores their batting entirely. A career part-timer with a tiny, noisy bowling record is treated with due caution, so a batter who bowled a bit cannot outrank a real bowler on a lucky handful of wickets.

Three ways to measure a bowler

In real cricket, bowlers are judged three ways, and each tells a different story. Bowling average is runs conceded per wicket. Strike rate is balls bowled per wicket, a measure of how often the bowler breaks through. Economy is runs conceded per over, a measure of control. A Test fast bowler who takes a wicket every eight overs can win matches while going at four an over; a T20 bowler who concedes six an over in the powerplay is doing a fine job even without a wicket. Which number matters most depends on the format and the phase, which is why a player profile carries more than one of them.

See it in play

Those numbers meet on every ball, described in how a delivery is decided. And there is a reason even a 99-rated batter still gets out, covered in why your star still gets out. Browse the real career records behind the ratings in the player database.

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