Cricket Management 26: does the Football Manager of cricket finally deliver?

Cricket Management 26 could not care less about the raised eyebrows the word "cricket" triggers in some living rooms. It aims for the empty chair left by years without a great cricket management game, and it sits down with the confidence of someone who did their homework. The skeleton of a very good game is unmistakably here. That skeleton is just still learning to walk.

The context

Cricket Management 26 is developed and published by Wilks Studios, a small team launching its game in Early Access on PC via Steam, at a deliberately low price that will rise as features are added. No batting controls here, no arcade match: this is a pure management game, a haunted spreadsheet where you recruit, plan and sweat over a scorecard. The genre has been held for years by Childish Things' austere but solid Cricket Captain series. Wilks Studios shows up wanting to build a more modern, deeper version, and that is exactly the ground we judged it on.

The gameplay

The first pleasant surprise is the genuine breadth of what you can do. The feature list is not inflated marketing: it matches what you actually find in game. Full squad management, youth prospect development, a transfer market, domestic and international competitions with a dynamic calendar, financial management, injuries, fatigue, staff recruitment, long-term career saves. You feel a real management-game backbone, not a prototype in disguise.

The core is managing the three formats of modern cricket, and that is where the game gets interesting. Red-ball, the long format, rewards patience, technique and endurance; the one-day seeks balance; the frantic T20 wants explosiveness and cool heads. Fielding a T20 specialist in a long-form match is like starting a sprinter in a marathon: the game makes you pay for it, and that demand for specialisation gives every signing meaning. Building a balanced squad, juggling fatigue across a packed calendar, rotating your bench to avoid one injury too many, all of it works and delivers the satisfaction the genre is built on, the joy of watching a three-season plan finally pay off.

Youth development is the other big win. Spotting a prospect, giving them minutes in minor competitions, watching them climb attribute by attribute, that is the addictive loop that has you starting "one more season" well past midnight. The transfer market offers real trade-offs: filling a specific need in a given format rather than caving to a big name, selling a veteran before he loses all value. When the machinery hums, you have a real management game, gripping and demanding.

Where it falls short is the finesse of the simulation engine, the genre's ultimate judge. A sports management game lives or dies on the credibility of what the machine calculates when you hit "simulate". At this Early Access stage, the simulation still lacks nuance. Rival club AI negotiates without much cunning on the market, some player progressions feel too linear, and match results occasionally surprise you with their apparent lack of logic. Nothing fatal, but enough to remind you that you are playing a work in progress, not a finished product.

The tech

Technically, Cricket Management 26 owns its status as a management game without showing off. The interface is legible and functional, the detailed scorecard delights the stats crowd, and menu navigation stays clear for a genre that piles on tables. It is not spectacular, but a management sim does not have to be: it needs to be clear, and it broadly is.

A few rough edges still betray the project's youth. Some menus lack shortcuts to move faster, a few useful pieces of information are buried deeper than they should be, and the whole thing will gain comfort as the studio polishes the ergonomics. Nothing that breaks the experience, but you feel the running-in period. That is the Early Access deal, and Wilks Studios deserves credit for stating it plainly rather than selling an unfinished game as finished.

The verdict

Cricket Management 26 lays the right foundations. The ambition is that of a real management game, the depth of systems is there, and managing the three formats plus youth development already delivers the addictive loop the genre demands. For a cricket fan or a Football Manager veteran hunting for a new stats abyss, there is plenty to get pulled into, with a gentle entry price and the promise of a game that will grow.

But you do not score a promise, you score what runs today. And today, the simulation engine still lacks the finesse that separates a good management sim from a great one. The AI, the progressions and some results need work, and the ergonomics need polish. This is a promising, honest Early Access, one to watch closely, not yet the benchmark it aspires to be. The skeleton is excellent: it is still missing the muscle.

A solid management base and real ambition, held back by a simulation engine that still needs to mature.

Score: 7/10

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Reviewed on the PC Early Access version.