Cricket 97 is a cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 game for PCs that was released in 1997. The sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

 to Cricket 96

Cricket 96

Cricket 96 is a cricket game for the MS-DOS PCs that was released in 1995. The sequel to Super International Cricket on the SNES, it was developed by Melbourne House and published by EA Sports...

, it was developed by Melbourne House (as Beam Software) and published by EA Sports

EA Sports

EA Sports is a brand of Electronic Arts that creates and develops sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to mimic real-life sports networks by calling themselves "EA Sports Network" with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as John...

. It was the final cricket game in the series to be developed by Melbourne House, EA Sports followed Cricket 97 with Cricket World Cup 99, developed by Creative Assembly

Creative Assembly

The Creative Assembly is a British video game developer established in 1987 by Tim Ansell and based in the West Sussex town of Horsham. An Australian branch is also operated from Fortitude Valley, Queensland...

Compared to the previous game, the improvement in graphics continued with three-dimensional stadiums (though players remained rendered as sprites). Cricketing legends Ritchie Benaud and Ian Botham

Ian Botham

Sir Ian Terence Botham OBE is a former England Test cricketer and Test team captain, and current cricket commentator. He was a genuine all-rounder with 14 centuries and 383 wickets in Test cricket, and remains well-known by his nickname "Beefy"...

 for the first time provided commentary and also featured in full motion video

Full motion video

Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...

 interludes. The game did not feature real player names as with previous games in the series (with real Australian and English sides appearing for the first time in the game's successor, Ashes Tour Edition).

Ashes Tour Edition

A re-release of the game entitled the Ashes Tour Edition featured the English and Australian tour squads for the 1997

Australian cricket team in England in 1997

The Australian cricket team toured England in the 1997 season to play a six-match Ashes Test series against England. Australia, under Mark Taylor, won the series 3-2 with strong batting performances from Matthew Elliott supporting the strong attack of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Jason...

 Ashes series

The Ashes

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...

.

New Zealand Team Disc

Following the Ashes Tour Edition an update disc was released to include the New Zealand Cricket Team. This disc included official players, portraits and statistics from the New Zealand side at the time. This was intended to make Cricket 97 the most realistic cricket game on the market at the time.

Cricket Ashes Tour

Another re-release of Cricket 97 followed later with the release of Cricket Ashes Tour, with updated stats and players from the 1998/99 Ashes tour.