Cricketing Timewaster

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Time to do the double, Etienne - T20 final in a short while...

[Antepli Ejderha]

Yes, congratulations to Etienne on his win.

I just edged out longeared in a tight match, attacking with Hutchinson paid off even if he was expensive.

I'm not looking forward to the next competition as I'm in the top group, a win would be nice, avoiding huge defeats is the aim.

[Sits]

Well done Etienne. It’s like deja vu etc.

After a reasonable bowling effort (Hanna!) my batters couldn’t hold out Levin’s attack very well at all.

Also happy to ditch T20 for more “long” form.

[Etienne]

Thanks for the heads up VT, I had been focused on the Ducks match. Just managed to set up my team.

[jdsx]

Congrats Etienne . I reckon it will be about seven or eight seasons till we can give you a decent match....but then, watch out!

[Sits]

As above but ten seasons for us!

[ad hoc]

Bought two bowlers who could bat a bit before my latest OTF league game. Made not the slightest bit of difference. I find myself caught between thrashing teams in my official leagues or being thrashed by everybody on here. It's not that enjoyable to be honest. Still, I will keep going and hope that next season when I;ve been promoted in the various official leagues they at least will be interesting and challenging.

[Antepli Ejderha]

My youth team has played really well in a friendly against Sits, happy with them at the moment.

I think the remainder of this season is about giving players some experience and slimming down my squad to give some kind of feed into the senior squad.

I'm not rotating enough of my youth team so I'll try to get rid of five of them.

My experiment of playing an experienced captain also seemed to work, he's there to skipper the side and nothing else.

[Sits]

Finally snared a decent young Keeper-Batsman in 20yo Ervin Graham, only my second WI player. I paid too much but it doesn’t matter now.

So if anyone fancies Berrick Shepherdson my “foundation” KB (23) he will probably be cheap as chips. His actual Talent is Old Ball Bowler (LF).

[Sits]

Correction: he’s not on the market. Because I’ve bought a few 20-year-olds lately my senior squad isn’t allowed to be any smaller.

[pebblethefish]

Bought two bowlers who could bat a bit before my latest OTF league game. Made not the slightest bit of difference. I find myself caught between thrashing teams in my official leagues or being thrashed by everybody on here. It's not that enjoyable to be honest. Still, I will keep going and hope that next season when I;ve been promoted in the various official leagues they at least will be interesting and challenging.

It's one of the major flaws of the game, that it takes a few seasons for your various teams to find the appropriate and challenging level. Even worse is when you're in a mainly bot-populated league but the human manager has clearly splashed the cash unsustainably. You know he'll pay for it in a season or two, but that's not much consolation when he's taking the only promotion slot with his team of 20,000 a week-ers, leaving you with a wasted season.

The good thing is that after a long period of stagnation the dev team are making many changes to the game to try to improve it (Youth T20 is only two seasons old, age calculations are changing, etc), which makes a refreshing change from X11.

[Sits]

So the new OTF T20 has begun, and not to take anything away from Cota’s Danesfieldshire would surely have won anyway. But remembering to set my orders would have helped. A batsman opening the bowling, another batsman DNB at number eleven.

Still no sour grapes, the best team won.

[Etienne]

First defeat for the Dragons in an OTF match too, as the Baptists batsmen sliced and diced us.

[Antepli Ejderha]

I try to set up 3 or 4 matches in advance and then make changes if I need to or remember. Playing a game a day it's not going to be possible to set up every day.

[Antepli Ejderha]

First defeat for the Dragons in an OTF match too, as the Baptists batsmen sliced and diced us.

So it is possible to beat you in something. Well played the Baptists.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Yes - I found out this morning. Now I need to work out what was different this time around.

[pebblethefish]

If you find out, please copy us all in

[ad hoc]

Thought my 155 might be a reasonably competitive total against Longeared.

I thought wrong

[Levin]

Hmm. I thought I was in with a chance there. But ended up being a way off.

[Sits]

Got caught out in a youth game today. I was playing a team which had been a bot when I played them the first time; unbeknownst to me* they had since acquired a human. Because I play the hopeless trainees in youth games against bots, we got beat.

* because I was too lazy to check.

[Sits]

So tension builds at All Day Bay, Kakanui as the Casuals await the arrival of the mighty Dragons.

At least I’ve set tactics.

[Etienne]

I'd not realised that your loss in your youth game has probably meant you are going to miss out on promotion, Sits. That sucks.

[Sits]

It does, but it’s my own stupid fault really. But with the youths, they’re all 16/17 and as long as I can keep training them then another season down here isn’t the end of the world. Any youths 18 or above are playing up with the seniors as a rule.

[Antepli Ejderha]

I've hammered an active manager in my senior one Day league today, the bottom side have now got an active manager so that's going to make things interesting.

[Sits]

Etienne well done, you tonked us by 200 runs. But I take some consolation; there was an enjoyable period (when I happened to be “watching”) between around your 20th and 30th overs where we pegged your run rate down to about 5.5 for a while. Also Abhijeet Thakar got 4-for and is momentarily top of the bowling averages. Oh and some new young signings did OK, especially wickie Elvin Graham.