50 over batting struggles

[cde]

Having to play the entire Challenge Trophy with the same XI meant as soon as form fell I had nowhere to go. From there, whether I started on 5, 4, 3, 2 or even 1 aggression made no difference - my team was ready to lose and once the first wickets fell the rest came tumbling after.

The spiral of death.

Up until this year I spent the extra money from winning a LO tournament on good LO players to increase the chances of doing well next season. With the Damned 100 about that it just a waste of time since they will not be available for the OD matches so in my latest save I have started to try to hoover up any player with even the slightest OD record who is not going to be playing in the Puss Sack 100. I sign them on 1 year contracts so that if I don’t do too well then it doesn’t affect my core squad.

My squad is massively bloated with players I might or might not use but at least I have the option.

[Lynx54321]

The spiral of death.

Up until this year I spent the extra money from winning a LO tournament on good LO players to increase the chances of doing well next season. With the Damned 100 about that it just a waste of time since they will not be available for the OD matches so in my latest save I have started to try to hoover up any player with even the slightest OD record who is not going to be playing in the Puss Sack 100. I sign them on 1 year contracts so that if I don’t do too well then it doesn’t affect my core squad.

My squad is massively bloated with players I might or might not use but at least I have the option.

I really hope the devs are able to add white ball only contracts for domestic players. Would really help with this balancing act.

[cde]

Just as well I bulked out the squad...

[cde]

In case you were feeling that it only ever happened to you I just had 13 players called up to the DogTurd 100, which I had allowed for by signing as many average OD players on 1 year contracts as I could. First match out, however...

[Chris_]

I feel your pain! That's always a frustrating number of players to lose. I take it those mediocre/cheap players showed why they're mediocre and cheap?

I got to the Challenge Cup in the next season and had 11 called up to The 100, with 1 other injured (yay for only having 1 injury this year!). After scraping a first XI together that left my 'spare' players looking like this, which had me feeling a sense of deja vu:


With barely any scope to rotate I feared the worst again but I think it helped that I came into the one day section of the calendar on the back of stronger form in the county championship as my remaining players were mostly 3 - 3.5 star form as the one day matches began. I managed to win the first 3 matches and that pushed a lot of the players up to 4 star form, instead of dropping to 1-2 stars as happened the previous year after early losses. With form increasing rather than falling I didn't need to rotate much and it was mostly limited to switching the numbers of seamers and spinners depending on pitch conditions (I luckily had 2 spinners and 5 seamers still available to mix up the bowling attack). Though I had a few close losses (2 of them came down to needing 1-3 runs off the final ball) I finished 5-3 and have my quarter final match up next, a big contrast to last year despite largely having the same batch of players.

In terms of approach to the games I tended to start batsmen on 4 bars if conditions were good, or 3 if the weather was bad. I'd then increase it gradually as their settled bar progressed, going to 5 mid way and up to 6 aggression when 'in the green'. Towards the end of an innings I'd go to 7 if a batsman was fully settled and looking strong, or even 8 in the closing overs if I wanted to push for extra runs, though I do find that on 8 they swing and miss a lot which feels like they actually score less than on 6 or 7 - numerous times I've gone to 8 aggression for the final overs only to see 1 run being scored and a string of ! ! !.

I had a couple of innings in good batting conditions get close to 300 (297 the highest), several more 250-270 and some lower. One thing I got lucky with a few times was winning the toss and choosing to bowl first in bad weather, letting me bowl the other team out after 34 overs and put my batsmen in only needing 2 per over to win, which let me bat more relaxed without losing many wickets.

So although The 100 still took roughly the same players away this year and my remaining players were more or less the same it felt like there were two major differences contributing to the stark difference in performance; A) Much better form after initial wins giving me a settled team without 1 star players needing replacement and B) More luck in winning the coin toss when conditions were bad.

My top 3 batsmen this year even had averages of 211, 171 and 111 as despite 2 of them being openers they survived multiple innings not out. Quite different to the same players not even surviving a full over most matches last year! I almost couldn't believe they were the same players - it's amazing what difference a bit more form seems to make. My bowlers didn't have to bat in most innings this year, compared to relying on them after the batsmen all got out the previous year.

[Godders9]

I've been struggling with this big time since installing 2020 (IOS). I've P7 L7 in the 50 over competition. The opposition seem to cruise along at 6 runs an over yet I'm struggling at 3-4 and then if I up the aggression the batsman are going out. I also feel the game's screwing me sometimes as the computer still has lower-order batsman hitting 4s and 6s despite just getting in whereas mine (on high aggression as last, say, 4-8 overs) and going out immediately. Very frustrating and seems to have changed since ICC 2016. I'll try some of the advice above.