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Well, this makes a change from reviewing footy simulators, but to be honest it's not a refreshing one. Graham Gooch World Class Cricket is a two-part cricket game, with both arcade and simulation modes. In reality they're the same game, but with your direct control over the action removed in sim mode.

Would-be Bothams start by choosing their team from the close-knit community of international teams: New Zealand, Pakistan, England, West Indies and Australia - be whoever you life.

Before kicking off [Eh? - Ed] select your team members, either individually or by clicking on the 'first eleven' option to make things faster. You can then choose the number of overs, enabling you to play the equivalent of a limited one-day game, or a full-blown test match.

The game starts with a coin toss and from that point on, if you've selected sim mode, you don't get to control anything that happens at the crease. You merely sit back and watch a game of cricket like you would on the telly, except you get to decide the batting and bowling order of your team. The bowler has a number of different deliveries in his overarm repertoire, and the batter has a choice of strokes with which to (hopefully) fend them off.

You view the game from behind the bowler until the ball is struck. At this point the screen switches to an overhead view, enabling you to watch as the fielders strut their stuff. In the top left corner of this screen is a miniature wicket 'radar' showing the batsmen's movements, while any runs made are toted up next to it.

Real cricket fans will find a lot here, although a game of the order of 50 overs could take hours to play and most of the time in sim mode there's nothing to do but watch. While that seems typical of cricket to me, I still don't think there's enough to do in sim mode - the pauses between bits of action are just too long.

But the biggest problem with Graham Gooch World Class Cricket is that the part of it which could have made the game appealing to everyone - the arcade option - falls far short of achieving its goal. If you're in to bat, all you have to do is push the joystick in the direction of the stroke you want to perform and keep it there. Once the bowler has bowled, your may automatically carries out the selected move. Bowling works just the same: select the type of ball you want to deliver and leave it to your C64 to go through the motions.

The only real-time interaction comes in fielding. When a batsman actually manages to hit the ball and the screen goes into overhead view, you're given direct joystick control of the fielders. If the one you're controlling is too far from the ball, hit Fire and control passes to another, more appropriate fielder. When you catch up with the hurtling leathery beast, press Fire to pick it up, then press Fire again to throw it back to the crease. And this is far the most involving sequence!

Attention to detail is quite thorough but the graphics lack the finesse you would expect from a so-called simulation. The bowler moves smoothly but is poorly detailed and the batter fares even worse, with primitive animation and bad collision detection. The ball's flight often fails to coincide with the batter's swing spoiling any impression of realism.

As you can tell, I'm not impressed. The lack of hands-on joystick action just leaves you feeling left out. Cricket may be a spectator sport, but a computer game is for playing and not watching.

1. The two play modes aren't different enough. Slim mode won't provide any more fun when you're bored of arcade mode.
2. Controlling batsmen and bowlers is tedious. There's no feeling of involvement in the action.
3. Confusing delay between batsman's swing and flight of the ball.
4. Ball's flight path is dodgy: it's hard to tell exactly where it's going!
5. In the absence of skill, luck plays a major part of winning.

1. All those wonderful cricket rules have been crammed in.
2. The bowling animation is pretty good.
3. Structurally the game is sound, with competent use of menus and option screens.