Matt79
Global Moderator
We launched straight into the sim, I had wanted to say a short bit about how I felt my team turned out. My strategy this time was not to focus so heavily on securing the best players from the weakest teams, but rather to try to get the best bowlers available, and once my attack was sorted, get the best batsmen, regardless of country order.
Getting Shakib was extremely lucky - I've never seen the guy play, so besides the CW love, I don't really know much about him. I was on the verge of taking Saqlain as my second Pakistan selection when I did a quick stats check and found that Shakib's bowling figures are not just comparable, but slightly better. Now admittedly, Shakib is in the very early stages of his career compared to Saqlain, but he can also bat and he solved my minnow problem.
I made two serious blues in building my test team - I didn't consider selecting Waqar instead of Shoiab Akhtar (I had in my head that Waqar had debuted circa 87 and never bothered to check). As it is, Shoiab is no slouch, and he probably provides an excellent contrast to compliment perfectly the accuracy and control of McGrath and Pollock, but Waqar would have been better.
Second, I left my Windies selection too late and hence missed out on Gayle. He's not brilliant, but once he was gone, I was left with the option of taking Bravo, Sarwan or a keeper - none of which appealed. Took Bravo as the lesser of three bad choices on the basis that his batting stats are nearly as good as Sarwan, and he could be a useful fifth bowler if things got desperate.
That left me in the invidious position of having to select an Indian or Kiwi, who wasn't Sehwag, Gambhir or Richardson, from this period as my second opener. I've taken a gamble in what is probably the biggest issue with my team, on paper, and converted Ross Taylor from a middle order batsmen into an opener. I figure, he's performed many of his efforts to date having had to deal with the new ball, having batted at number 3 in the era of the Marshalls, Papp, and Redmund, so it shouldn't be alien to him. And it was either him, Lou Vincent, or Karthick opening and McCullum keeping. :shrug:
Reckon the team is pretty well balanced. Dhoni at 6 is a slight concern in this level of competition, but then Bravo-Pollock-Shakib are a pretty awesome 7-8-9. My bowling attack should be pretty lethal - Shakib is by far the least accomplished performer there, and you'd figure he'd improve on his career efforts to date if he was bowling with McGrath on at the other end.
Anyway, vague, self-congratulatory rambling ends..... here.
Getting Shakib was extremely lucky - I've never seen the guy play, so besides the CW love, I don't really know much about him. I was on the verge of taking Saqlain as my second Pakistan selection when I did a quick stats check and found that Shakib's bowling figures are not just comparable, but slightly better. Now admittedly, Shakib is in the very early stages of his career compared to Saqlain, but he can also bat and he solved my minnow problem.
I made two serious blues in building my test team - I didn't consider selecting Waqar instead of Shoiab Akhtar (I had in my head that Waqar had debuted circa 87 and never bothered to check). As it is, Shoiab is no slouch, and he probably provides an excellent contrast to compliment perfectly the accuracy and control of McGrath and Pollock, but Waqar would have been better.
Second, I left my Windies selection too late and hence missed out on Gayle. He's not brilliant, but once he was gone, I was left with the option of taking Bravo, Sarwan or a keeper - none of which appealed. Took Bravo as the lesser of three bad choices on the basis that his batting stats are nearly as good as Sarwan, and he could be a useful fifth bowler if things got desperate.
That left me in the invidious position of having to select an Indian or Kiwi, who wasn't Sehwag, Gambhir or Richardson, from this period as my second opener. I've taken a gamble in what is probably the biggest issue with my team, on paper, and converted Ross Taylor from a middle order batsmen into an opener. I figure, he's performed many of his efforts to date having had to deal with the new ball, having batted at number 3 in the era of the Marshalls, Papp, and Redmund, so it shouldn't be alien to him. And it was either him, Lou Vincent, or Karthick opening and McCullum keeping. :shrug:
Reckon the team is pretty well balanced. Dhoni at 6 is a slight concern in this level of competition, but then Bravo-Pollock-Shakib are a pretty awesome 7-8-9. My bowling attack should be pretty lethal - Shakib is by far the least accomplished performer there, and you'd figure he'd improve on his career efforts to date if he was bowling with McGrath on at the other end.
Anyway, vague, self-congratulatory rambling ends..... here.
Gives me an "invalid parameter" error message. I've tried it from the command prompt as well as just loading it as normal, on Windows XP...