Gah ... How bad are Worcester???

[enigma]

CRISIS moore horton croft all injured chilton brown sutton cross tendulker all massively out of form flintoff rashid smith procter hogg only ones on any decent batting form. my bowlings good cos of rashid but runs severely lacking got bowled out in 1st innings for 99 but still won cos of rashid by 5 runs no joke BUT DESPERATELY NEED BATTERS

Hey, well, at least you won, people like myself would be content with that I mean not many would win after getting bowled out for 99, that's a feat in itself. I hope this won't happen to you but that's why I don't like taking overseas batsmen in as it is really a hit or miss thing; IF they're in good form then all is hunky-dory but if they're not then it's like wasting our big bucks while good overseas bowlers, especially spinners are more likely to deliver but that's just my point of view & I might be proven wrong by Tendulkar smashing 5 hundreds in next 5 games.

Didn't you pick up any good domestic batsmen that might've been out of contract? Usually there're at least a couple of them on offer who'll come at a reasonable price, finding good domestic bowlers is a completely different kettle of fish though.

[BigCisHere]

Nice to see you all talking about money like that :P I barely ever have enough to sign anyone!

Since the first season of 2010, I managed to sign Mohammed Amir for 1 season so far. All other seasons I have had no budget to sign a single one. I have had to rely on letting the older, more expensive players leave, and signing a couple younger, cheaper players to replace them.

And usually by the time I'm done negotiating with most of the players I want to keep, I have barely enough to get someone in.

That's a total of 8 seasons played, and 6 seasons without any overseas players

[stanley_1994]

I think All teams at start of season should have same amount of budget.So each can start from scratch.

[lancashire r the best]

firstly no rashid was my only signing as no decent batsman were on a free and secondly i knew i needed a quality batsman so i signed tendulker and my 2020 players k pollard and gayle were reasonably cheap and had good SR and with martin he cost 29 000 which was the cheapest but is really good also i got rid of couple of players which freed up a bit of money and spent 50 000 on coaching 10 000 on youth team and 20 000 on physio. pansatr was going but was too dear and if u want a quality overseas spinner sign m karthik in real life he plays for somerset. Also my squad size is very low

[Imager36]

martin he cost 29 000 which was the cheapest

By the way, I just feel I ought to let you know that you can sign any player as your reserve up to the value of the your main player for free. I made that mistake too in my first season.

[enigma]

Nice to see you all talking about money like that :P I barely ever have enough to sign anyone!

Since the first season of 2010, I managed to sign Mohammed Amir for 1 season so far. All other seasons I have had no budget to sign a single one. I have had to rely on letting the older, more expensive players leave, and signing a couple younger, cheaper players to replace them.

And usually by the time I'm done negotiating with most of the players I want to keep, I have barely enough to get someone in.

That's a total of 8 seasons played, and 6 seasons without any overseas players

Holy hell, 6 seasons without a single overseas!!!!! What has your budget range been in these years 100-200 K? I mean the cheapest of overseas players come at about 50 k & a little bit more (some diamonds in the rough come even cheaper), how were you not able conserve that much money? I think T20 specialists are mostly a waste, I'd rather get bright youths & train them instead but I don't think I'd ever go into a season without an overseas (two actually if you count the reserve). I wouldn't mind compromising a domestic batsmen & get a youth in return so that I could have enough to buy an overseas but then I suppose they're not indispensible as such & I don't really know your situation so.......

[bnd3]

I've found that once I've got a strong squad and am producing good youth players that overseas players don't represent that good value. And I've won the County Championship 4 years in a row without one now

[BigCisHere]

Holy hell, 6 seasons without a single overseas!!!!! What has your budget range been in these years 100-200 K? I mean the cheapest of overseas players come at about 50 k & a little bit more (some diamonds in the rough come even cheaper), how were you not able conserve that much money? I think T20 specialists are mostly a waste, I'd rather get bright youths & train them instead but I don't think I'd ever go into a season without an overseas (two actually if you count the reserve). I wouldn't mind compromising a domestic batsmen & get a youth in return so that I could have enough to buy an overseas but then I suppose they're not indispensible as such & I don't really know your situation so.......

My total budget is 735,000. I currently have the bare minimum of 18 players, which takes up 631,500 of that budget.

I'm also spending 50,000 on Coaching, because my players seem to hit bad patches pretty regularly otherwise. 30,000 on Physio, and 20,000 on Youth Team. This takes up the other 100,000 of my budget.

I could consider dropping the Youth Team to 10,000 and the Coaching to perhaps 30,000 and Physio to 20,000. (I wouldn't consider any more than that). Which would give me 40,000 budget to play with. However, this I don't believe would be enough to get a good enough overseas player to outweigh the benefits I get from having the extra Coaching slots to keep my current players in good form.

I have one guy in my team that is earning a LOT more than I realised. I could consider ditching him when his contract comes up for renewal at the end of the season. But he's an all-rounder, and one of the better players in my team, both for batting and bowling. He is averaging 44.07 with the bat and 21.52 with the ball this season.

Bowling is my weak point. But I'm reluctant to let all my bowlers go, in case I can't replace them. The highest paid of those is on 40,000.

I have two other batsmen on over 50,000, but these are my two best bastmen. So again, I don't want to lose these. The one guy averages 48.65 in FC matches in his career so far, and is only 26.

Most of my other players are around 30,000 or less.

Any suggestions as to what I can do are more than welcome

[lancashire r the best]

firstly IMAGER36 i dont understand you are you saying that my reserve overseas player is free or what please could u tell me wat u mean. secondly the 2020 'specialist' (overseas) r rubbish and it would be better to use the youth players as there probably better for example pollard on mine was doin rubbish and a player came half way through season so replaced pollard with him and he got 81(58) in T20. and with the money saved u could buy better domestic players. thirdly ENIGMA im struggling again as batsman are constantly failing im trying everyone to open but all failing but in FC ive got a outside chance of getting promoted same with 40 over league and in T20 im currently in semis, also against warwickshire they got 212 off 20 then i got 209 in 20 i was devestated. BND who u playing with

[bnd3]

Reserve overseas players are free as long as their salary is less than your main overseas player.

[zeduck]

I have done a season with Worcestershire (on normal) and they wern't half bad.. won the 20 over cup, 7th in County Champ group, 5th in 40-over group

Mitchell started the season slow, but then was by far the best batter in the team, ending with a FC average over 50. Solanki was good in the one day matches. And would recommend before the season starts, picking up an extra batter in Dominic Telo from the uncontracted players, who is quite good in the game.

Bowling, Richardson & Mason are both solid. Shantry can be worked on. And Al Hasan took 71 wickets.

At the end of the season, you can cut and terminate the contracts of the crappy players and actually have enough money for some good signings.

[enigma]

My total budget is 735,000. I currently have the bare minimum of 18 players, which takes up 631,500 of that budget.

I'm also spending 50,000 on Coaching, because my players seem to hit bad patches pretty regularly otherwise. 30,000 on Physio, and 20,000 on Youth Team. This takes up the other 100,000 of my budget.

I could consider dropping the Youth Team to 10,000 and the Coaching to perhaps 30,000 and Physio to 20,000. (I wouldn't consider any more than that). Which would give me 40,000 budget to play with. However, this I don't believe would be enough to get a good enough overseas player to outweigh the benefits I get from having the extra Coaching slots to keep my current players in good form.

I have one guy in my team that is earning a LOT more than I realised. I could consider ditching him when his contract comes up for renewal at the end of the season. But he's an all-rounder, and one of the better players in my team, both for batting and bowling. He is averaging 44.07 with the bat and 21.52 with the ball this season.

Bowling is my weak point. But I'm reluctant to let all my bowlers go, in case I can't replace them. The highest paid of those is on 40,000.

I have two other batsmen on over 50,000, but these are my two best bastmen. So again, I don't want to lose these. The one guy averages 48.65 in FC matches in his career so far, and is only 26.

Most of my other players are around 30,000 or less.

Any suggestions as to what I can do are more than welcome

NOTE - Please note that IF your county is doing well & you're happy with your performances then I don't think it's worth dropping your players just to get an overseas.

Ok, I think you're one those who cling onto their performing players too much & are reluctant to let them go, no matter how much money they demand. I think it's important to assess the money spent on a player & the value they bring to the county. I think decent youth batsmen are very easy to get & they'll perform, if one knows how to choose them so I rarely mind letting go some of my current "star batsmen" if they're asking exorbitant amounts of money, I'd rather get cheap youth, train them & they'll probably be just as good.

Pick youths who you won't've to work on as much, technically, & who are aggressive or very aggressive so they can play all 3 formats as opposed to defensive or very defensive who'll pretty much be relegated to playing FC although I will say that one mustn't ignore a really good youth averaging 50-60+ just because they're defensive, of course, they can be trained to be aggressive, especially when there's very little or no work to be done on their other batting preferences.

Always try to push your highly-paid "stars" for every penny they get by say offerring 50K for 3 years, if they're asking for 55k for 2 years; even your youth signings, if they're asking for 27k, offer them 25k & so on because every 500 or 1000 that you save will & does count over time. I once had my star batsmen asking for 55k, I offered him 45K for 3 years & he agreed straight away,even though he'd averaged 50+ in the last season , it's not that common but just saying it can happen.

Apart from pushing star batsmen for money ie offering them slightly less than what they're asking for & letting them go if they don't respond positively or demand exorbitant salaries, you can save a fair bit without compromising your team too much but DO NOT let go of your domestic bowlers, especially when they're asking for less than 40K, because it's very difficult to find good bowlers on the county circuit; you'll've hordes of youth batsmen coming up with great batting averages but hardly any youths good bowling averages.

My budget was about 750-800k (pretty close to yours as I usually spared 25-30k), I used to spend full 150k on coaching, physio & youth team; extra coaching & physios are always useful as I usually have big squads, & spending a little extra on youth team gives you a couple of nice youths for the future & you can play them both for only an extra 20k for half the season & of course, if you train them & they've responded positively (which they usually do if you spend 50k on youth team) then you get a shot at them for the next season in the pre-bidding process.

Another thing I'd tried is to play your "star batsmen" (or even bowlers especially in case of limited overs games since you can always play cheap youth bowlers & it won't make a huge difference to the totals your opponents get) a limited number of games in a season then they'll drop their salaries by a few thousands, may be 10-15k if you're lucky, & then you pounce on them & get them to sign a 3 year contract on a cheaper salary but this one is harder to implement for may be more than a couple of seniors but can be done IF you've groomed your youngsters & a bigger squad with more coaching sessions.

By the way, your allrounder seems too good so I wouldn't let him go unless he was really making a hole in my pocket.

[enigma]

Reserve overseas players are free as long as their salary is less than your main overseas player.

I'll add to that & say that the salary of your Reserve can't be higher than that of your Main, something I didn't realize before I experienced it first hand.

Once, I wanted Kaneria & Tahir as my Main & Reserve respectively but Kaneria was costly (67k) & since a couple of my senior bowlers & batsmen had retired, I didn't know if I could afford him so I picked Tahir as my Main (Main must be picked before Reserve) who was cheaper (40k) & thought I'll get Kaneria if I'd enough money after I'm done with my other purchases, later, I'd enough to buy him but it wouldn't let me offer him more than 40k & said I can't bid higher for my Reserve than what I'm paying for my Main & there were no desirable players left in the pool by that time so I'd to settle for David Warner but Tahir didn't get injured or miss any matches so in the end, it didn't cost me that much but just to let everyone know.

[BigCisHere]

Thanks enigma I will try out your suggestions and see if I can push down some of the salaries of the players.

I will see what the all-rounder wants come the end of the season. If he asks for the same or less, I will try to negotiate him down a little. But if he starts asking for more than he is already on, I think I will ditch him and bring in a couple younger players to fill out my squad.

I will also try to negotiate the others that are for renewal by a few thousand. I want my Youth Team spending to be higher, and I did have it higher for a while, but I needed the money so I reduced it.

Let's see how this goes

[lancashire r the best]

so if for example my main overseas player cost 150k and my reserve cost 149k would i get my reserve player totally free or would he be paid based on the number of games played. Another question, just say i signed ponting (main) clarke (reserve) as my overseas players, in the T20 would i b able to play them both (both being available) even though clarke is only allowed to play when ponting cant or would only one b able to play regarding i haven't signed any T20 players