Original review published on Steve Litchfield's 3-Lib.

Having just plugged this application in the forthcoming issue 22 of Palmtop magazine, and with the english cricket season fast approaching, I thought a more detailed look might be in order. As befits the current top team in the world, Cricket Statistics is written by a South African, Chris Matthee. I've been putting v1.10 through its paces.

Each game is input via a sequence of fairly clear dialogs. Everything's focussed around the players themselves (i.e. this is not a 'league' application, there's no provision for team rankings etc), with bat and ball details recorded for each match.

Once the details are in, a basic scorecard is available, though with no printing facility in this version. The formatting's very good though, and Chris has obviously taken time to design a layout which is both intuitive and pleasing to the eye. Mind you, I would have liked a zoomable display, especially considering that many of the target audience for the program may be veering into middle age and indifferent eyesight.

Recalculation of individual averages can take quite a long time (over 10 seconds even on my simple set of a couple of matches), which is why Chris has sensibly opted to make the operation something that's started manually. Once recalculation has commenced, it's quite feasible to switch over to other Psion programs and get something else done while you wait.

There's provision for maintenance of more than one team's player pool, which is a nice touch for the really busy statistician. The only drawback with the whole setup is that the player's names are the key to the program and a simple spelling error or change in name format (e.g. an extra space or full stop) is enough to fool Cricket Statistics into thinking there's a new player involved.

Used with care, this could be a fabulous time-saver for those involved in administrating the game. With some more development, teams might even be tempted to buy a Series 5 just to have this running in the pavilion.

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