INTERNATIONAL WHO FRONTED VERSIONS? THE
Brian Lara may have been one of the most famous cricketers in the world, but in other countries the game occasionally was named after someone else to cash in on their popularity in that region. For example, in Australia 1999’s game was named after spin-bowler Shane Warne, and in 2005 batsman Ricky Ponting was the cover star. The Indian market for games wasn’t explored until Lara 2007 when it was renamed Yuvraj Singh International Cricket 2007 in Asia. As well as featuring different names in other regions, Brian Lara is well-known among fans for how the games changed cricketers’ names to subvert licensing laws. This meant that you could control ‘A Flantiff’ instead of Andrew Flintoff. Alan Perrie at Codemasters found this a very charming feature. “In the olden days of legal clearance, you could get away with a Bert Leap (Brett Lee) more than you’d probably be able to do now, even though PES has made its name from doing that quite a lot with spoof footballers since.” The cult following of these imposters even led to a Twitter frenzy when Donald Trump mangled Sachin Tendulkar’s name on a visit to India calling him ‘Tandelki’, with many older gamers reminiscing about this quirk in Brian Lara. It’s not clear if he was a fan of the series, but it’s far likely that the surname stumped him and spiralled into a textbook Trump gaffe. Whatever the case, Brian Lara sailed close to the legal wind with its tweaks. “You could get away with a lot more back then,” says Jeremy. “You could get close and just change one letter or something and it would be okay. There’s no way to do that now.”