England League and Cup Discussion

[wolfberries]

Big ratings difference dictated the result. Kudos to wolfie's mob for digging in during their innings, especially Brendan Schrader, whose unbeaten 77 got him MotM. My lot were there or thereabouts and brought it home with few scares. Pleased with Ruk'Soth's 67no - he's an opener, but primarily a bowler who doesn't bowl much . I'm waiting for his tech to hit reasonable - he's been seriously unbalanced since being pulled with poor tech, but there was no way I was dumping an opener/OBB LFM. He'll be a good'un in years to come...

I'm glad we pushed you this close, we only had one twenty year old in the team so the loss was to be expected.

[wolfberries]

Ruff Royals wolfberries
Batting - Top Order 8,547 6,267
Batting - Middle Order 5,746 4,788
Batting - Tail 3,858 3,227
Bowling - Seam 6,593 (14) 7,226 (12)
Bowling - Spin 8,706 (6) 6,645 (8)
Fielding/Keeping 9,318 7,438
Overall 132,842 111,189

Result: Ruff Royals won by 7 wickets

We were simply outclassed today by Sparks boys, I'm happy we pushed him so close though.

[casperj]

Crestfallen Sidekicks Sledgingshire
Batting - Top Order 13,840 12,424
Batting - Middle Order 10,416 9,519
Batting - Tail 5,186 5,145
Bowling - Seam 12,950 (16) 12,173 (16)
Bowling - Spin 14,848 (4) 13,215 (4)
Fielding/Keeping 16,077 15,006
Overall 227,460 210,141

Crestfallen Sidekicks won by 68 runs

Big victory, probably benefitting from having a large squad to rotate in the cup. Got leaders Topmen next, so could potentially be top this time next week!

[casperj]

Crestfallen Sidekicks C.C.DeVille CCC
Batting - Top Order 13,479 12,593
Batting - Middle Order 11,230 10,423
Batting - Tail 6,397 6,873
Bowling - Seam 13,804 (20) 12,059 (30)
Bowling - Spin 14,058 (30) 11,869 (20)
Fielding/Keeping 16,430 14,365
Overall 237,097 215,695

Crestfallen Sidekicks won by 129 runs

3rd win on the bounce keeps us in the title picture. All rounder Kapur got a career best 81 which took the match away from our opponents.

[wolfberries]

YorkshireTykes wolfberries
Batting - Top Order 12,717 14,136
Batting - Middle Order 10,989 11,783
Batting - Tail 5,643 5,556
Bowling - Seam 13,323 (40) 12,238 (50)
Bowling - Spin 13,960 (10) 0 (0)
Fielding/Keeping 15,584 16,661
Overall 225,759 231,522

Result: YorkshireTykes won by 29 runs

Our batting failed today, but such is life.

[spark]

Ruff Royals Relegation reprobates
Batting - Top Order 7,037 7,123
Batting - Middle Order 4,875 5,239
Batting - Tail 3,953 4,579
Bowling - Seam 6,609 (16) 7,011 (16)
Bowling - Spin 5,829 (4) 9,465 (4)
Fielding/Keeping 9,016 7,920
Overall 118,822 124,459

Relegation reprobates won by 7 wickets

We really missed the 3 players away on international duty. It's not many weeks before those 3 and a player who played today will be moving up to the seniors.

[Atko]

Back after a bit of a busy Festive period -

Francis House vs The Raging Speed Horns
League Youth 2.1

Weather Windy
Pitch Even

Pivotal match from our perspective, in a tight league. My two best bowlers RWS/LWS are away on national duty (and it's windy ), and our best bat just promoted to seniors, so a slightly underpowered side this week.

We limited (is that the word?) the opposition to 221-9 with a particularly impressive spell from opening bat and part-time bowler Dryad (LFS) taking 3-37. At drinks, he's 73no, so may well have bagged MotM already. More joy with 17yo Steinvogel 36no in his first innings.

At drinks -

End of over 20 (6 runs) - The Raging Speed Horns(132-2). 90 runs required from 20 overs. RR 6.60 RRR 4.50

[Atko]

Result: The Raging Speed Horns won by 5 wickets

Match Ratings
Francis House The Raging Speed Horns
Batting - Top Order 5,884 5,909
Batting - Middle Order 4,691 6,632
Batting - Tail 2,568 4,742
Bowling - Seam 5,482 (32) 5,996 (24)
Bowling - Spin 6,689 (8) 5,916 (16)
Fielding/Keeping 7,019 8,929
Overall 99,688 120,997

No scares and the ratings weren't too bad after all. Dryad did indeed nick MotM and that win keeps us in the pack. It's useful that general pulls mean we pretty much bat down to number 11 - should be a good season. Not sure if we'll promote; we've slipped up a couple of times, and I just feel our attack is too spin-centric (when all personnel are present).

[Atko]

The Raging Speed Horns vs Ffoh
League One Day 1.1

Weather Windy
Pitch Sticky

Time for our weekly thumping. The only unknown is usually if our ratings will break 200k and net us maximum sponsorship - a glance at the finances indicates they have .

Ffoh have popped us in to bat, and we're doing our best to not be too embarrassing -

I. Loader (rf) 6-0-32-0, B. Cromberg 69 (102b), S. Spang 5 (14b)
End of over 36 (7 runs) - The Raging Speed Horns(145-5) RR 4.03

If we can reach 180-ish it might be interesting, but our bowling has a serious lack of firepower, so we'll need a bucketful of outrageous fortune.

[Atko]

Yep -

Result: Ffoh won by 4 wickets

We actually collapsed from 170-5 to 170 all out in the space of 10 balls!

Ffoh were never really under pressure and brought it home comfortably.

Shout out for our keeper, Cromberg, whose 86 bagged him MotM. Saxon (RF) also performed well with 3-43 from his ten.

Charlton played his last match for us today with an anticlimactic 28 off 36 balls. He'll be off to pastures new this weekend - if anyone's interested in bagging a world class national bat with gifted batting and accumulator talents, details are here -

player 2379371

I'm still trying to sculpt the team into something viable for both the future and hopefully to tread water in tier 2, so unfortunately one or two big guns will be departing in the coming weeks.

Anyhow, the numbers -

Match Ratings
The Raging Speed Horns Ffoh
Batting - Top Order 12,424 13,589
Batting - Middle Order 8,861 12,363
Batting - Tail 5,525 4,781
Bowling - Seam 11,476 (40) 13,536 (40)
Bowling - Spin 10,707 (10) 14,196 (10)
Fielding/Keeping 15,172 16,781
Overall 203,845 236,840

Gah, after Charlton's departure, that's also probably the last time we'll crack 200k

[Ffoh]

Ffoh were never really under pressure and brought it home comfortably.

Actually we were down to our last two competent bats. Waaay too close for comfort.

Charlton played his last match for us today with an anticlimactic 28 off 36 balls. He'll be off to pastures new this weekend

Thanks for the tip - let’s see if we can keep him in the league…

[casperj]

gRhyllidae Crestfallen Sidekicks
Batting - Top Order 13,452 13,600
Batting - Middle Order 9,921 11,304
Batting - Tail 5,960 5,529
Bowling - Seam 10,815 (12) 12,709 (8)
Bowling - Spin 11,783 (8) 14,306 (12)
Fielding/Keeping 15,364 16,718
Overall 213,477 234,697

Crestfallen Sidekicks won by 5 runs

Scraped home. Lost too many wickets for a Sunny/even pitch and so didn't make as many as we should have done. Grasshoppers just left themselves a little too much to do in terms of run rate despite having a few wickets in hand. Recent signing Jeremy was again the pick of our bowlers.

Topmen have all but secured promotion already from this league, but this win at least keeps us in good shape for taking second place.

[Atko]

The Raging Speed Horns vs swinton sharks
League Youth 2.1

Weather Cloudy
Pitch Crumbling

Result : The Raging Speed Horns won by 2 wickets

Match Ratings
The Raging Speed Horns swinton sharks
Batting - Top Order 5,922 5,010
Batting - Middle Order 7,118 6,225
Batting - Tail 4,287 4,881
Bowling - Seam 6,370 (16) 8,390 (24)
Bowling - Spin 7,891 (24) 8,095 (16)
Fielding/Keeping 9,787 8,297
Overall 130,795 125,839

Nice home win against swinton sharks today. This result will see us leapfrog over the sharks and Camberwell Carrots to secure second spot behind Goondiwindi. We play the big G next week, but they have a very strong NRR, so even a win might not be enough to topple them (although I'm getting ahead of myself here )

Pleased with todays performance; we lost a couple of wickets in the penultimate over to add a little frisson, but with 5 runs needed and two competent bats at the crease, it was a false dawn for the oppo. Shout out for our keeper, Clark Kentish, who anchored the innings with 83 off 107.

Oh, and happy new year to anyone who reads these ramblings

[spark]

Fiery's XI Ruff Royals
Batting - Top Order 6,462 8,715
Batting - Middle Order 5,641 6,503
Batting - Tail 3,899 3,966
Bowling - Seam 6,831 (24) 6,830 (30)
Bowling - Spin 7,547 (16) 9,705 (10)
Fielding/Keeping 6,728 9,692
Overall 115,879 139,591

Ruff Royals won by 43 runs

At most, I've got a couple of weeks left to enjoy these ratings as I'll soon have 4 star players moving up to the seniors. 72 not out for Howe meant we set a competitive total on a slow pitch.

My opponents never looked like chasing the 210 needed for them to win. Buck picked up 3-44 and Milton picked up 3-31.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Atko]

Goondiwindi vs The Raging Speed Horns
League One Day 1.1

Weather Hot
Pitch Crumbling

Result : Goondiwindi won by 5 wickets

Match Ratings
Goondiwindi The Raging Speed Horns
Batting - Top Order 12,752 10,874
Batting - Middle Order 10,922 8,855
Batting - Tail 4,672 5,611
Bowling - Seam 10,664 (40) 11,723 (40)
Bowling - Spin 14,089 (10) 10,834 (10)
Fielding/Keeping 16,302 15,067
Overall 214,367 198,676

Ouch! 1,324 ratings points short of 200,000 cost us $60,000 sponsorship!

All or nothing (well, all or 50% to be accurate!)? Jeez, those sponsors are brutal, and on a related note, since the finance update is done at the same time the match is generated, I already knew the result - ie you still get your max sponsorship if you can manage to win with a weaker side - which we obviously hadn't 'cos of the deflated numbers in the finance summary sheet . Maybe the summary should be updated post-official match finish? Gah - I'm sure someone else must have whinged about that in the other forum sections?

This financial straitjacket puts a crimp in my development plans. I'll need to keep on a couple of the bigger rated players I was planning to sell, in order to maintain that 200k cut off, since the lower wage bill won't counter the sponsorship loss. I had to rest my keeper this week because of fatigue hits, but he will be back in action for next weeks SOD, so we should just skim above the 200k. Damn, I'm gonna have to re-jig all my player allocation spreadsheets now (yeah, I'm that sad).

Anyhow, congrats to Goondiwindi - our fellow demoters this season did the business on us in the one fixture that we've got a reasonable shot at winning. I don't think we did too badly in reaching 225-10, but the bowling - as always - was found wanting, and we just couldn't knock over the wickets. The only stand out for us this week was youngest player Lamont Loveless (21), who bagged a half century on his SOD debut, other than that we were pretty average.

Oh well, onward!