Lara Strokes Madagascar to the Boundary

Codemasters’ Brian Lara International Cricket has made a triumphant return to the UK games chart, going straight to number one in its second week on the shelves. Knocking previous number one slot holder Madagascar right into the member’s area for six, much of the cricket game’s success can be attributed to the popularity of its predecessor. Released for the first PlayStation way back in 1998, the original found a place in the hearts of many an armchair cricket fan.

But another factor in this victory must be Codemasters’ shrewd decision to release the game at the beginning of this year’s Ashes series, with many UK fans still optimistic about the chances of our brave team of would-be giant-topplers.

The achievement will also be one in the eye for Electronic Arts. Despite Codemasters’ early retirement of their successful franchise seven years ago, EA have had much less success courting the public with their series of Cricket games. The CEO of the developer (HB Studios) behind the EA cricket franchise, Jeremy Wellard, was in fact at Audiogenic when they developed the first Lara game for Codemasters. The version of Lara currently at the top of the all-formats chart was developed in house by Codemasters.

If you’re still hungry for cricket games, there isn’t long too wait until ICC Ashes 2005, the captaincy sim to end all captaincy sims, hits the shelves this Friday.