It seems like something of a bad omen that on the day that Codemasters latest attempt at recreating an authentic leather-on-willow experience is released, England's batsmen surrendered the entire first innings of their Ashes match for just 102 runs.

The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willey...

You might not have noticed but there's a game of cricket going on at the moment. That'll explain the surreptitious earpiece worn by the guy who sits the other side of the office, and it also explains the infrequent yelps he makes as he listens to Test Match Special.

Delivering a googly or a straight ball?

Great for cricket fans but not of much interest to anyone else. The game is easy to pick up and play and has an in depth tutorial system, so with a bit of practice anyone can become a master.

It would have been nice to see some more modes, licenses and improvements, but Ashes Cricket 2009 continues the Codemaster cricket dominance by providing a fun and functional game.

The world of video game cricket has been around for well over a decade, delivering us an array of truly diverse titles, from Brian Lara Cricket '96 , to the more recent Flash phenomenon, Stick Cricket .

Unless you've lived in a black hole your entire life, every Englishman knows that every two years our great cricketing nation competes with the Australians for an urn containing the remains of the bails from the very first ashes test.

AU Review--Australia and England's long-standing biennial sporting clash continues, this time in video game form, in Ashes Cricket 2009. While this title marks a reasonable attempt at capturing the look and feel of this gentleman's game, its inconsistent difficulty and bugs make it less of a...

Accessible but nuanced gameplay; Strong competitive multiplayer modes

Tough to find players for online matches; Inconsistent difficulty scaling against the CPU; Fielding bugs and glitches ruin chances of wickets

Ashes cricket 09 is the newest cricket game to hit the shelves, it does offer a decent game of cricket but is flawed by a number of issues. There are 4 main modes, test, 20 overs, 1 day international and 5 day.

Accessible Gameplay When Bowling; Good Multiplayer

Fielding Bugs; Inconsistent Difficulty; It's still Cricket; No - One Is Online; Graphics Not To Good