[Tips] Rough guide to formats;

[J913R]

Great post. It would be useful for a similar guide to the T20 format as I can never win consistently.

[Sureshot]

Great write up! I learnt heaps from reading this. One thing I wonder about though is whether the suggestion that wickets in hand in the last 10 overs can lead to scoring rates of 10+ per over. My experience in ICC has been that upping the aggression, even with wickets in hand just results in a collapse. Have others had different experiences?

I think when you go all out attack there are a couple of key areas that affect just how effective all out aggression can be:

How settled the batsmen are?
When someone does get out, how attacking are the incoming batsmen? An innings won't last long if you're going 8 bars from the start, but if the batsmen has aggressive or very aggressive rating, then 10-15 balls will be more useful than a defensive or normal batsman. Might sound obvious, but it can be worth a lot of runs.

Of course, there's also luck...

I do find playing ball-by-ball has improved my success in short formats, I hit two early boundaries and I'll turn the aggression down to preserve wickets for the last 3 balls of the over, etc.

Great posts, guys. I might sticky this and post it on the Steam forum as well, if the thread starter is okay with that?

[Dick Van Dykes Disco Dog]

What a great couple of posts.
Equally helpful for both experienced and newbies alike

[Raver]

Great write up! I learnt heaps from reading this. One thing I wonder about though is whether the suggestion that wickets in hand in the last 10 overs can lead to scoring rates of 10+ per over. My experience in ICC has been that upping the aggression, even with wickets in hand just results in a collapse. Have others had different experiences?

[Robinson]

A superb write up mate.

In particular, the most important aspect you have covered, and something I often emphasise (in real life cricket) is your section on bowling (or not, as the case may be) to opposition weaknesses:

Bowling at the opposition weakness:

Simply don't do this unless you know what you're doing. If a batsman favours the front foot, offside and you bowl short and legside at 4-5 aggression you're giving him free runs even if he's 'weak' in that area. The field settings do not take into account the length of the ball.

Just because a batsman favours an 'area' doesn't mean that he's weak in the opposite area. I might favour the back foot, but it doesn't mean I'm uncomfortable with front foot shots. 9/10 you should be 'line and lengthing' the ball

Basically: Target an opposition weakness sporadically when the situation calls for it. Doing it immediately without paying attention to circumstances within the match can often cause the runs to get away from you.

Doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell a bowler that I'm only giving him hints at an opponent's weaknesses to give him an extra string to his bow -- they will always have a habit of bowling to it waaay too much.

These days, I tend not to even pass on that information directly. I'll just let them do their thing, and after a while, have a quick word at an appropriate time, and say "hey lad, why don't you try slipping in the occasional shorter ball at this guy's leg stump and see if you can catch him out there?".

Give them too much info, and they focus on it too much, to the detriment of the overall stability and consistency of their spell.

I have a general preference for playing off the front foot, cover driving, with the odd stylish square and late cut thrown in for good measure -- but if you keep bowling short ones on my legside, I'm gonna hook and pull you to the Deep Fine / Square Leg Boundaries all day long son, lol.

Nice to see someone highlighting this often erroneous misconception regarding weaknesses.

Good work mate.

[RVallant]

Always persist with the youth bats until 30-40 games before you cut them off the team list.

For bowlers - The main thing to keep an eye on is average and economy rate, strike-rate is useful as well. Young bowlers tend to be inexperienced and lack control, they can often go for 5-6+ an over in FC games, be prepared to analyse *why* they're going for that amount of runs, is it because of good shots or poor balls? Switch their training as needed to fix it, bowlers need a lot more attention than batsmen do in my opinion.

On the One Day Format:

The Telegraph did a very good article on the one day format, I'll link it at the end of this post.

PAR Scores: Usually the 'par' score depends on the weather and pitch. You usually want to bat first and there are some general principles to follow. But what is a 'par'? Well, a par score is the score you should be reaching to 'win' a game or keep it competetive. Statistical analysis from the Telegraph suggests that a score of 264 runs will give you 50% chance of winning the game, a score of 300 will win you the game 88% of the time and if you did badly enough to drop to 200 runs? 2.5 (that's two POINT five) % chance of a win.

The Opening batting powerplay:

Myth: We should be scoring 100 in the first ten. Fact: The average opening powerplay score is around 42. The ideal thing for your openers to do is score 42-0, if you do that, you should usually be pushing on to 290+ runs and a whooping 70% chance of a victory. The more wickets you lose in the first ten, the lower your total is likely to be, with one telling stat, if you lose THREE wickets in the first ten you're more likely to score 200- and rarely will you push 250+, essentially, you've lost the game, barring some miraculous effort from one of your batsmen.

The second powerplay (if applicable)

In some formats, there's a second powerplay, the above comments remain true here, you should be looking at 35-0 or 45+ for 2 wickets in a powerplay. If you score 25 or less, the bowlers won that power play.

The Final 10

Wickets in hand is the major factor of how many runs you will be likely to score, if you're lucky enough to get to the final 10 overs with 9 wickets in hand you'll be looking to hit 130+ runs minimum. 8-7 wickets in hand will get you around 90 runs, but if you're 5 down? You could have lost 20 runs here as the average is roughly 75 runs.

Putting that all together:

Don't be so keen to score at 5-6 an over, it is within your interest to build a platform for the first ten overs and bat with settled batsmen up until you need to score lots of runs. How does this translate to Cricket Captain's aggression settings? I would say 3-4 aggression for the first ten overs will get the players roughly 40 runs (4 is preferred), and for the rest of the time, just bat at 5 aggression. Then when the next powerplay comes along you can up it to 6 aggression and when the final '10' is there, that's when you can go maximum as you'll have wickets in hand (in an ideal world). However, you'll have to judge whether they are batting too slow for your liking, there's no excuse for plodding along at 2 an over, but don't expect them to be smashing it for 6-8 an over either!

[RVallant]

Thought I'd put this together, using some research;

First Class / Test Matches:

The toss: In 9/10 situations, you should bat first. The only times you want to bowl first is if the entire first day is very cloudy and day 2 is sunny. If both days are cloudy you'll have to make a judgement call - It is possible to bat the entire two days but you will lose 7-8 wickets on average, which will mean the opposition swan in on day 3 when it's sunny. So usually it is within your advantage to bowl first, skittle the opposition and then batten down the hatches yourself and hope to make day 3 in order to post a lead.

Batting: A good mix of defensive and aggressive batsmen is vital to surviving in FC/Test matches, you *must* be aware of the conditions of the game. When it is cloudy or very cloudy, often a defensive batsman is better to throw in than an aggressive one as he won't play any shots unless he needs to (in theory). It isn't uncommon in the new engine for a defensive bat (think Cook) to score 20 runs off 100 balls at 3 bars of aggression. Although the modern FC/Test game is all about speed, batting at 4 an over, it is still viable to play traditionally with a batsman who 'anchors' the entire innings. Having one or two of these type of players can ruin the opposition's day.

Generally, you want six specialist batsmen, with two of those as specialist openers.

Opening Batsmen: Generally speaking, these guys should have a strong or slight preference to pace bowling and *usually* be happy to hit on the offside. Note: The AI doesn't generally bowl leg-stump as it's free runs, unless they have a 500+ run lead, in which case you've probably already lost the game anyway. Most teams will bowl the 'corridor of uncertainty', which is just around the off-stump.

Batsmen 3-6: Traditionally, number 3 is often an aggressive batsman, there to hit the softening older ball (if the openers have done their job), but they may also need to come in as a third opener (when the other guys are out for first ball ducks!) Numbers 4 and 5 are usually the 'best' batsmen and should be making an absolute ton of runs. They will usually face the old ball, thus they can rack up a good score. They also usually have to face the second new ball if things are going well. This means you usually need these guys to be very well balanced at facing both spin and pace options.

Batsman 6: The number 6 batsman (or number 7 really), is usually the wicket-keeper. Gone are the days of specialist wicket-keepers, if they can't bat, they're of dubious value to you. Thus you want a wicket keeper who has a healthy average.

All Rounders:

The traditional model of a line up has the number 6 (or 7) as the All-Rounder. Normally, the all rounder is the 4th seamer (think Ben Stokes for England), but sometimes they are a spinner and at County level they are usually medium pacers. Medium pacers appear to be very seldom picked for the International scene, but they are very lethal in the English county circuit with the cloudy weather. Sunny nations tend to limit their effectiveness.

The decision you have to make is; Do you want an all round wicket-taker or batsman? Most people will pick a batsman who will bowl, not the other way round, as you should normally have four bowling options to take wickets with anyway.

Bowling:

A good mix of bowlers is always a handy thing to have. The most common type of bowlers are: FM, MF and Off-spin (or finger spin). The rarer types are F and Leg Spin. Fast bowlers tend to be expensive, usually going for around 5 an over, more if they have a bad over. FM/MF bowlers tend to be anywhere from 3-4 an over and spinners vary enormously, the best spinners will be extremely economical with an average economy of 3, but very often you can see it drop on a per match basis to 1-2 for long periods of time. Part time spinners and poor spinners can be extremely expensive 4-6+ an over. Generally speaking in FC matches wicket taking ability is more important than economy rate, however, you need to keep an eye on the economy rate as it usually indicates that the bowler is losing the ideal line and length and allowing the batsman to hit easy shots. - ALWAYS check your field settings before passing judgement, sometimes a bowler will go for 14 in an over, if you have all 9 outfielders in the slips it probably isn't his fault!

Bowling is part individual flair and ability and part team-work; Bowl as a 'unit', bowl in partnerships, don't stick to the boring 'five on, five off' routine. Bowl a guy for three overs, watch how he is, if he's doing ok but the opposition have a huge partnership, swap him around, change ends, vary the bowling attack, keep the batsmen on their toes. Normally, you can get by with standard bowling schemes; That is, two bowlers bowling the 'channel' at 3 aggression.

Here's the usual 'standard' for English County Cricket:

3 Seam bowlers,
1 Spin bowler (or a fourth seamer if your spinner is the all-rounder).

Your two opening bowlers should usually open at 4-5 aggression at the off stump (middle setting). Use your judgement as to when to drop to 3 aggression, the AI usually drops to 3 around 20-30 balls faced or around 20 runs scored. As a rule of thumb, I drop a bowlers aggression level to 3 when the batsman scores 25 runs, this is mostly because the field setting is linked to aggression and the standard field templates for FC/Test matches are suitable for achieving victories. (Note; I mentioned the AI dropped aggression very early, this is why some users see the AI score in FC at a higher run rate in the early phases, the AI seems naturally defensive - That doesn't mean it won't attack, but it usually picks its moments; Usually it will attack at 4-max aggression at the start of the day, before a break and just after a break - it will bowl at max if it has a 200+ lead in the second innings in most cases, or if it forces you to follow on.)

Bowling at the opposition weakness:

Simply don't do this unless you know what you're doing. If a batsman favours the front foot, offside and you bowl short and legside at 4-5 aggression you're giving him free runs even if he's 'weak' in that area. The field settings do not take into account the length of the ball. Aggressive bowling has the fielders in, short balls at the body will usually provoke a hook/pull, which isn't going to caught at short leg unless you get a peach of a ball that forces an evasive block, something I don't think I've ever seen in this series (hook/edges to short legs do happen though, even if they shouldn't!)

Bowling full during cloudy weather can entice edges to the slips/gully area, however here's another thing to take note of; Just because a batsman favours an 'area' doesn't mean that he's weak in the opposite area. I might favour the back foot, but it doesn't mean I'm uncomfortable with front foot shots. 9/10 you should be 'line and lengthing' the ball, the 'Ricky Ponting's weak area' as he freely admitted. The correct time to focus on an individual weakness is when they are getting settled; You target individual 'weaknesses' for about 5 overs when the batsman is settled at around 30-40+ runs. Don't persist forever with it though as it becomes predictable.

Basically: Target an opposition weakness sporadically when the situation calls for it. Doing it immediately without paying attention to circumstances within the match can often cause the runs to get away from you.

Other notes:

Often batsman number 6 and 7 are aggressive or super-aggressive, this is because they need to score quickly before the bowlers get out. Now-a-days, bowlers need to be able to bat 10-20 runs on average, so tactically you can be a bit more varied. I wouldn't put a defensive batsman here as he may very well lack the mentality to score well before running out of partnets.

Batting: 2 aggression is fine, 3 when 30-50% settled. Very Cloudy weather -1 aggression, favour defensive batsmen.

Bowling: 4-max aggression to start, at the end of a session and at the start of a session. 3 throughout usually.

Team building: 3 opening batsmen, 3-4 specialist batsmen, 2 all rounders, 2 wicketkeppers, 4-5 seamers, 2 spinners - Adjust as needed for injuries and such.

How to develop youth: The younger, the better in my opinion as you get more time to train them up and usually have longer to tie them down. Always give youth players 15 games minimum to become 'experienced' and then give them 15 more games to 'average' out their statistics. This means that a youth prospect should be given a run of 30 fixtures (in EACH FORMAT, so 60 games = 30 FC and 30 OD). This will give you a rough analysis of his statistics with some experience. Usually a youth player will score high at first and then bottom out or vice versa. Unusually, you'll get an individual that is relatively consistent, these are the easiest to judge.

What you're looking for: Batting - Youth batsmen need to be scoring an average of 30+ minimum over the 15-30 games, however you're also looking at strike-rate and conversion rate (how many 50's and 100's). Anyone scoring 1/2 their innings as 50's or 100's are likely to be world class players. The reason you're giving them 30 in FC and OD is to analyse their strongest format, some players are natural OD players, some are natural FC players, some can flourish in both formats. Note: There are some exceptions; A defensive batsman can usually be safely rested for the OD format (more on that later).