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International Cricket Captain General Thread of Miscellany

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
Disappointment in Sussex's 2030 season, pipped to the Championship title by a single point. First time we've failed to win since the early 2020s. Halfway through 2031 now, normal service being resumed
Wow thats dedication to play 20+ county seasons! I always start a game with Somerset on each ICC version I buy and end up playing 7-8 seasons by which time my side starts to dominate and I tend to give up and start again with a new side.
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
Haha. I wonder if thats ever happened in a real ODI before? I know its happened in at least one T20 International (India vs South Africa just before the IPL).
Does Sunny Gavaskar's infamous 36* count?. Though this 20-run loss would probably be a lot more aggravating, since it was a chaseable total.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Don't tend to bother with any of that. I have average attacking-ness for the bowling/fielding; bowling straight and to a good length; and I never amend the field manually.
 

weeman27bob

International Regular
I just can't see the logic in having a short-leg in a T20 game. I can never be bothered to change it though.
 

Noble One

International Vice-Captain
The default field settings are outrageous, however I see so many wickets at silly point from well hit cuts.
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
Don't tend to bother with any of that. I have average attacking-ness for the bowling/fielding; bowling straight and to a good length; and I never amend the field manually.
I'm usually like this but I tend to up the field aggression for bowlers taking wickets. Still not sure if it actually helps, could be confirmation bias that makes me do it. One thing I find works is to always have a couple of slips in during ODIs, or you get a ton of singles off edges to third man.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
Do people tend to set their own fields when they play?
I generally look at the weaknesses of a batsman and bowl to that. Only really change the aggression though, 1 less than max for most of an FC game (dropping if they get on top), and full defensive in List A/T20.

Did have some success getting Chris Woakes to bowl with full aggression to an ultra-defensive field one day though.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
Random happening in my Warwickshire game:

Boyd Rankin, in a Pro40 game: 8-40 from his 8 overs. Held out hopes of him getting all 10, but Woakes took two.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
What's the best line-up you can put together with a county team (within the first few years - not exclusively regens)?

I think mine would be hard to top:

  1. Michael Carberry
  2. Phil Mustard
  3. Jonathan Trott
  4. Ian Bell
  5. Nick Compton
  6. Dawid Malan
  7. Tim Ambrose
  8. Shakib al-Hasan
  9. Chris Woakes
  10. Tim Murtagh
  11. Boyd Rankin

Considering Mustard, Malan and Ambrose have turned gun in my game, it's one hell of an XI. James Ord (who averages 50 in FC cricket), Joe Root, Gary Ballance, Jos Buttler, Rikki Clarke and Matt Coles make up some of my bench strength. Touch light on bowling depth, but that batting line-up is far-and-away the best in the CC, IMO.
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
Thats pretty crazy! If anything I'm the opposite, I'm struggling to make big scores once batsmen are set on the new version.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
Absolutely nuts game in the CC on my Warwickshire save.

Somerset win the toss on a road, and made 379 (Kieswetter 104, Regen 107*, 'Mind the Windows' Tino 70. Hauritz 4/103, Regen leggie 4/94). My bowling attack was rather pathetic, to be perfectly honest.

We go in and bat, only for Trescothick, who came across this season, to retire hurt in the first over. Joe Root makes 90 (having signed him away with 0 FC games to his name. Currently averaging 55) and everyone else chips in - having just lost the first part of Day 3 to rain, I declared at 6/324 to try and take advantage of the cloud cover.

Then Chris Woakes and Tim Murtagh take an early wicket each, before my bowlers forget how to bowl a ball in anger, as a different regen makes 121*, and the first innings regan makes a run-a-ball 50. I chuck some declaration bowling their way early on Day 4, and they declare with me needing to make 370 in two and a half sessions, with Tresco out.

Nick Compton makes 61 at good pace, and going in to lunch we need ~320ish. Wickets tumble to Michael Munday and Tino, and at 4/138 I call the chase off - Tim Ambrose and Joe Root sitting on 2 bars apiece.

But they clearly didn't get the memo, Root playing a lengthy innings of 56 while Ambrose finally did something and made 90 from 121. I slowly increased the aggression just before Tea, but when Root fell I thought it was all over. But no way was I calling it off now - Woakes could have a crack.

Chris Woakes, having bowled like an absolute pile of turd all game, made 59 from 60 and Nathan Hauritz (a week back from injury, and only playing because Dan Vettori was out injured) added 25 pretty quickly, keeping us in with a chance of getting those 80 runs in the last 40 minutes.

Two overs to go, and the target's 17. No chance. Especially when Hauritz falls second ball of the penultimate over. In walks Tim Murtagh, facing a fired up Tino Best. Murtagh's one short of full aggression, Woakes is maxed out.

Tim gets off strike with his first ball, leaving 15 to win. Next ball Woakes blasts him out of the park - 9 off 7. Best oversteps, and they take three off the bat. 6 from 7. Murtagh squeezes out another single.

First ball of the last over is bowled by Munday, who has 7 for the match already. Murtagh hits it for four, leaving one required. He almost gives it away next ball, and the third is worked away for a tight single to give us the win, in a game we had every right to lose.


In other random news, Nick Compton continually turns into a genuine all rounder in all of my ICC 2010 saves. He has 19 List A wickets at 12 in my current game.
 

Evilpengwinz

Cricket Spectator
I'm playing the 2012 demo, got to halfway through the 2016 season before I ran out of demo (2 days on each of my 3 PC's, transferring save game using Dropbox), so need to get the money to buy the full game.

Playing as Yorkshire, haven't managed to get out of Division 2 yet in 4 attempts. Every season I've needed 220-230 points to finish second, which has been really tough. 3 poor seasons to begin with due to a poor bowling attack (Patterson and Ashraf are awful to begin with, although I've kept Ashraf and he's improved a lot since) and a strong batting line up, resulting in a lot of big first innings scores but the inability to bowl a team out twice. A couple of surprise retirements (Pyrah was amazing for me but retired at the end of the first season) didn't help either.

2015 season - Slightly more competitive with some decent regen bowlers, but they still need to improve. Awful start to the season but won several games in a row towards the end, wasn't quite enough. Forced to settle for 4th in Division 2.

Last game of the season, was guaranteed to finish 4th no matter what, so I tried to screw Lancashire out of promotion on the final day of the season by preparing a road and picking 11 batsman. Won the toss, scored 750ish all out, batting on 2 bar aggression for 2.5 days, Joe Root carried his bat for a big double hundred. Bowled them out cheaply with them only getting 1 batting bonus point, Adam Lyth picking up a 5fer. Enforced the follow on, Adam Lyth picked up more wickets but they held on for a draw, 6 down for not very many in their second innings. Will post a screenie of Adam Lyth's bowling figures sometime, he's turned into a decent batting allrounder, almost always use him as my 5th bowler in the shorter formats.

Lancashire only got 2 bonus points and 3 for a draw. With the 3rd place team only 7 points behind and playing the bottom side, Glamorgan, who hadn't won a game all season, they should win easily, and get promoted at Lancashire's expense. Of course, the 3rd place side somehow managed an innings defeat to Glamorgan, meaning Lancashire still got promoted.

2016 season - Great start so far, played 7 games and top of the table on about 125 points, hopefully get promotion once I've bought the game. Picked up AB de Villiers as my main overseas player (Bairstow plays all 3 formats for England on my save, but not IPL, so I needed a decent keeper/batsman for when Bairstow isn't available), and the reserve overseas player is a SLA Pakistani Regen who averages 19 with the ball and bats at 8.
 
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Evilpengwinz

Cricket Spectator
Finished the 2016 season, absolutely epic end to the season, couldn't have written it any better tbh.

I underestimated how much of an effect losing my reserve overseas player would have, as it meant I had to bring in Azeem Rafiq (Who averages 42 with the ball). I lost my dominant lead at the top of Division 2, Leicestershire ended up champions with 2 games to spare, and going in to the final day of the season, there were 6 teams fighting for second place:

Worcestershire - Played 16, 212 points, held 2nd place going in to the final round of games but were unlikely to stay there.
Glamorgan - Played 15, 208 points, were in the best position as a win would guarantee promotion, but were facing Leicestershire, who were already this season's Division 2 champions.
Derbyshire - Played 15, 200 points, were playing Somerset who were second from bottom.
Yorkshire (Me) - Played 15, 199 points. I was playing Kent who had already secured the wooden spoon for the second season running.
Hampshire + Essex - Played 15, 188 points. Were playing each other, needed the maximum 24 points and other results to go their way, highly unlikely either of these teams would be promoted but still mathematically possible.

I was away, so I had no control over the conditions - I hoped that I wouldn't arrive to find the SSC waiting for me as even with maximum bonus points, a draw wouldn't be enough. There was cloud cover for the first two sessions of day 1, and I chose to bowl first as a result. I cleaned up the top 6 before lunch, and picked up the 7th wicket shortly after lunch, leaving Kent on 144/7, before the tail wagged, and I had to take the new ball before dismissing Kent for 280. I would've taken that at the start of play, but at 144/7, I was expecting to bowl them out for 100 runs less.

Kent 280, Perham [Regen] 82*, Adil Rashid 4/74, Moin Ashraf 3/60

My reply started off badly, losing Adam Lyth and Gary Ballance cheaply. However, partnerships between AB De Villiers and Andrew Gale, then a 129 run partnership for the 4th wicket between De Villiers and Adil Rashid put the innings back on track. At 305/4, I was looking to build a big first innings lead, look to bowl Kent out cheaply second time around and either win by an innings, or have a small 4th innings chase. Unfortunately, I collapsed to 362 all out, picking up 3 bonus points in the process.

Yorkshire 362, AB de Villiers 127, Adil Rashid 82, Andrew Gale 56

The second innings didn't quite go to plan. I struggled to bowl Kent out for 415, with a big century for Daniel Bell-Drummond, a half century for their overseas player, Fawad Alam, and contributions down the order.

Kent 415, Daniel Bell-Drummond 156, Fawad Alam 59, Ken Marshall [Regen] 3/82, Adil Rashid 3/89
Yorkshire required 334 runs to win

I needed 334 runs to win, with a tricky little session at the end of Day 3, and the whole of Day 4 to score the runs. I opened with Joe Sayers instead of Adam Lyth, the reason being that I would likely face a dozen overs of seam before the close, then even more seam at the start of Day 4. Adam Lyth is much better against spin in my game. I finished Day 3 on 49/0.

I would need a win, and hope that results went my way - I needed Glamorgan to not win, and Derbyshire to score less points than me. I had 6 bonus points secured already. Of course, nothing other than a win would do at this stage.

I navigated the first few overs successfully, but lost Gale. 80/1. No big deal, I've still got plenty of batsmen in the shed, who are more than capable of chasing down that target. Adam Lyth walks out to the crease, and puts on another 75 runs for the second wicket at a decent rate before handing a simple catch to the slip cordon. My number 4 batsman, Gary Ballance, averaging 60 in FC cricket, comes in and shares another big partnership with Joe Sayers.

At tea, I'm 227/2, I need another 107 runs to win, with Joe Sayers on 115* and Gary Ballance looking in good form. I couldn't possibly mess it up from here, could I?

Well, I could. First ball after tea, Sayers is castled. De Villiers and Rashid quickly come and go for single figure scores, leaving me on 248/5. I also have a batsman at 7 in only his second FC game. He got himself in, and just as I thought everything was back on track, Gary Ballance falls. 275/6, and I'm into my rather long tail. Thankfully, Azeem Rafiq can hold a bat, but the rest of the tail are Chris Martinesque. This was the match right here - I needed a partnership, and I got one. It wasn't long before I was in to single figures required. With just 9 runs needed though, Rafiq was bowled.

325/7, but I still have a batsman who is in. I couldn't mess it up from here, surely? Unfortunately, there was just three overs remaining in the day, and the #9 was on strike. He fell LBW for a golden duck, which was the last thing I needed.

325/8. I can't lose. I was 220/2 not long ago. My #10 survived the over, bringing my proper batsman back on strike. Two overs left. Three dots to begin the over. ****. The last thing I needed. Thankfully, a 4 and a 2 leave me with just 3 to get off the last over, and my proper batsman on strike.

331/8, last over of the game. Just 3 runs needed now. First ball is a dot. Five balls left. Second ball of the over crashes into the stumps, and all of a sudden, I still need 3 runs, but I have #10 [regen] and #11 [Moin Ashraf] at the crease. 331/9, and any result is possible.

Moin Ashraf gets off strike the next ball. 332/9, three deliveries remaining. The regen takes a single off the next ball. Two balls left to get a single and win the game. The keeper is back - Is the AI smart enough to run a bye to the keeper for the win if necessary?

The next ball is a dot. Last delivery of the season, and I need a single to have a chance of promotion. The bowler runs in. The ball smashes into Moin Ashraf's front pad, and the umpire gives him out LBW. My season is over. I've thrown it away.

Yorkshire 333, Joe Sayers 115, Andy Johnston [Regen] 6/99
Match Tied

But wait... You get 8 points for a tie, as opposed to the usual 3 points for a draw. I also have 6 bonus points from the first innings. Those 14 points put me ahead of Worcestershire by a single point, so there is a chance I can be promoted, but I need Derbyshire to not win against Somerset, and Glamorgan need 4 points or less against Lancashire. It's incredibly unlikely.

Glamorgan 142 & 306
Leicestershire 254 & 196/7
Leicestershire win by 3 wickets
Points: Glamorgan 3, Leicestershire 21

Derbyshire 223 & 312
Somerset 229 & 307/7
Somerset win by 3 wickets
Points: Derbyshire 4, Somerset 20

Having failed to win, I thought that I would be spending another season in Division 2. However, the tie, combined with these results, was enough for me to earn promotion by a single point :D
 
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