The first thing I did was discard any England contracted players from planning. They're typically my best players and it's great to use them for the first few games of the year but after that they spend more time away than they do being available, and even when they do return from international duty they more often than not have 0-1 star form. Previously I'd factored them in as options but realistically I needed to balance my squad ignoring them and treating them as a bonus.
After that I listed all the players I expected to be available for the Challenge Trophy. As I keep a spreadsheet to track performance year-on-year and have a record of who was called up it was simple enough to do (it's generally the same players every year going to The 100).
It was clear that I had too many players regularly away and lacked quality in some key areas when my stars were on international duty. There were some I had solely for white ball matches but they'd missed the 20-Over Trophy while on England duty and the Challenge Trophy while away for The 100. The only thing they were available for was the County Championship where I didn't use them anyway! So I let quite a few players leave when their contracts expired, which was a shame as I'd trained many from being youth signings, but it had to be done.
After discounting all England contracted players I knew I needed a couple of real quality bowlers who'd be available throughout the Championship and preferably for 20-Overs too. I knew it was unlikely to expect them to be available for the Challenge Trophy as anyone who's decent gets called away for that. Luckily there were a couple available domestically with good stats and I picked up a new gen Overseas bowler on 100% availability, so that covered that gap.
After that it was mostly down to filling out numbers for the Challenge Trophy - I had 7 batsmen I expected to have available but only 3 bowlers, so had a look through the players available and signed a few average bowlers. No one I plan to use in the Championship matches but decent One Day stats to bowl in the Challenge Trophy if the primary bowlers go to The 100 as expected.
That leaves me with a smaller squad of 27 but it should leave me with around 14 available for the Challenge Trophy (8 batsmen, 6 bowlers). The other 13 should be away during that time.
3 Opening Batsmen
- 2 starters, 1 new youth to try.
- Should be available for all 3 formats.
- One of the starters and the new youth are the 2 keepers in my squad.
10 Batsmen, of which:
- 3 are contracted to England and expected to be away a lot.
- 6 should be my main middle order batsmen for the Championship, all capable. I'll likely use 4-5 depending on who is in form.
- 1 is a reasonable backup.
- 5 of them should be around for the Challenge Trophy.
14 Bowlers
- 2 contracted to England and should be away a lot (a RF and RFM).
- 2 F bowlers (1 a great overseas player to use all year, 1 likely to miss most on ENG duty).
- 3 MF bowlers (2 with good stats, 1 purely backup for white ball matches.
- 6 FM bowlers (1 mostly away with ENG, 3 others still good, 1 an all-rounder for white ball and 1 purely a backup/white ball player).
- 3 Spinners (all good quality).
- 8 bowlers total should be away at The 100, leaving 1 F, 2 MF, 2 FM and 1 SLA for the Challenge Trophy).
Hopefully the restructuring works
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