MA phpCricket Stats - Short History

Screenshots | Pricing

This site, it's programming and database is the brain-child of Michael Doig and Andy Collington. In 2004 Michael was looking for software to run the Colorado Cricket League via the web; a place to track schedules, scorecards, players, tables and statistics. Finding little to nothing of substance, he teamed up with Andy to build his own and create what was to become Version 1.0. The "software" has no name to this day.

Over the years Michael heavily customized the initial release to resemble CricInfo, easily the accepted standard for Cricket statistics and reporting. Living in the USA he frequented the typical major sports players such as MLB, NFL, NBA and ESPN. He saw featurette's in these sites that CricInfo did not have and gained inspiration from them to create his own.

Re-locating to Australia with his family in 2007 he once more got the cricket bug; joined a league and started building additional features as needed in the larger and better funded competition. Hence Version 3.0 was born.

Prior to the 2009/10 season Michael further added features and functionality to release Version 3.1. The biggest update is the inclusion of a Scorecard Edit module which allows a site administrator the ability to filter a scorecard list and view/edit/delete that scorecard. This is especially critical/helpful as Michael wanted the ability to enter in-progress scorecards and finish them the following week at the conclusion of the game. Previously he was having to manually delete those in-progress scorecards and re-enter them in whole.

During the 2009/10 season Michael completely re-designed the website to better match ESPN standards, and thus released 4.0. There are far too many large changes to summarize, review the list below.

2.0 additions shall be logged at a later date.

Version 4.0

• Complete re-design of the site, styling similar to ESPN sports.
• Added Live Scores module, driven from mobile devices.
• Added local weather module.
• Added news columnist features.
• Added Quick Numbers module to the homepage.
• Added improved filtering system navigation bars to the right of all pages that have more information.
• Added improved pagination across site.
• Added RSS feeds to the next two cricketing levels above; Illawarra and NEW Districts.
• Added Quotes module to the homepage.
• Added Features module to the homepage.
• Added Butcher TV module to the homepage.
• Improved Photo Gallery.
• Improved site search that also shows count of results in other areas of the site.
• Improved scorecard list to show basic scores an result.
• Added the ability to relate news articles and photos to scorecards.
• Added additional filters to Awards and Premierships.
• More streamlined news articles that include scores if applicable.
• More stats in Player Profiles: Man of the Match count and best finish in Player of the Year.
• Added URL Re-Writing to News Articles for SEO.

Version 3.1

• Added a scorecard edit system, allowing an administrator to edit existing scorecards on the fly.
• Improved the Statistics system; including new search types and implementing Juniors v Seniors classification [example].
• Improved Player Profiles to include Junior Teams if applicable [example].
• Added a Man of the Match tracker (count) to Player Profiles [example].
• Improved the Sponsors functionality; adding group classification and colour schemes [example].
• Improved the Club Details page [example].
• Improved the Officer page to include Committee Members [example].
• Added mp3 as an approved file type to History articles [example].

Version 3.0

• Modified the grey navigation across the top to better resemble CricInfo.
• Implemented Ajax Pagination script to offer AJAX Standings widget.
• Implemented Image Thumbnail Viewer script to offer AJAX like image popups of thumbnails.
• Implemented PHP image resizing to create thumbnails dynamically and reduce file size.
• Implemented Social Networking interfaces to share articles [example].
• Improved Documents feature; more accepted file types, tracking file size and expected download times.
• Implemented multiple Grades functionality across the site (eg. 1st Grade, 2nd Grade).
• Implemented multiple Competitions functionality across the site (eg. 1-Day, 2-Day, T20).
• Implemented Game Type functionality (eg. Regular, Semi Final, Final) for use in Results table [example].
• Implemented four-innings scorecard system [example].
• Implemented setting multiple dates for games in Scorecard and Schedules for 2 Day Games [example].
• Improved Active Clubs page to use icons instead of a list [example]
• Improved Officer page to use thumbnails instead of a list [example]
• Improved the Team Pages and renamed the functionality to "My Team".
  • Added a My team specific sub-menu for navigating through all the specific team pages.
  • Improved My Team specific Active Players.
  • Added My Team specific Next Game.
  • Improved My Team specific News Reports.
  • Improved My Team specific Schedules & Results.
  • Added My Team specific players past & present list.
• Improved Player Profile pages to:
  • Include multi-grade/comp reporting of statistics [example].
  • Allow three action shots instead of one.
  • Added Career Bowling Stats - each wicket details [example].
  • Added Career Bowling Stats - Innings Performances [example].
  • Added dynamic Bar charts [example].
  • Added dynamic Pie charts [example].
  • Allow tracking of Life Members
  • Allow tracking of Celebrity or Guest players.
• Improved the Champions (Premierships) functionality.
• Improved the Player Awards functionality.
• Implemented dynamic Weather Zone widget to Grounds pages.
• Implemented scorecard tracking with news articles.
• Improved the Master/Sub news functionality for linking two articles.
• Improved Administration Panel to handle all new customizations.
• Added Weekly Top Performances module [example].