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I am going to use an England team starting with all my players being under the age of 25 and they can't have played for England at international level. It will be a big test but i reckon that eventually we will become a very competitive side.
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A difficult first test against Sri Lanka the squad includes exciting players such as Stokes and Roy, also has proven county performers including Surrey captain Rory Hamilton Brown.
In the first test we decided to leave out Jason Roy and looked for a fairly balanced side. It was a crucial toss as the first day and a half was bright sunshine then the next 2 days was cloudy. Unfortunately we lost the toss and Sri Lanka made hay in the sunshine, despite nearly causing a collapse getting them to 170-4 we dropped Samraweera on 12 who went on to get 83. The cloud's came out, all the batsmen got starts getting to 15 or 20 before getting out, no one really contributed heavily with the exception of Young who made 51 not out but couldn't stop us avoiding the follow on we got skittled out for 171 in the second innings and lost heavily.
Despite the heavy defeat there were a few positives, Toby Roland Jones bowled incredibly to get 6 wickets, Briggs bowled nicely and managed to cause problems for the batsmen and picked up 3 wickets. But on the other hand no one was there to back them up and we were punished accordingly.
Hopefully in the next game in better conditions our batsmen will be able to apply themselves better.Last edited by Steely123; 07-31-2011, 08:54 PM. -
Injury has resulted in 2 forced changes to the 12 man squad, Roy suffered a fracture and is out for 2 weeks and Toby Roland Jones has suffered a stomach bug and will be out for the second test but after he lead the attack in the first is a cert to return in the third.
We have brought in Alex Hales and Maurice Chambers in response to the injuries.
A very cloudy forecast for the 5 days would mean another crucial toss and again we lost it and were put into bat, but we responded heroically with Bairstow Stokes and Taylor all getting 80's and we managed to amass a total of 368 all out in a rain affected innings which ended on session 3 of day 2 and the most likely result is probably a draw.
After starting slowly and dropping a few catches we managed to claw it back and get a lead after we bowled Sri Lanka out for 328, Maurice Chambers came in and bowled well, got 4 wickets and put a claim in to play the next test, Briggs continued his superb form with 3 wickets. With 5 and a half sessions left in the game was their time to force a victory?
After a good start we collapsed from 65-1 to 104 all out. Sri Lanka need 148 to win with plenty of time to get it.
We attacked and tried to force a similar collapse but Sri Lanka batted responsibly and got the job done. It was a loss but there were a lot more positives from this defeat.
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Will take 2-3 seasons to start winning i'd imagine!Comment
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On a wicket that looked like it was going to turn we made 2 changes to the side that lost in the second test, Toby Roland Jones returned and Simon King was making his debut with his off spin variations.
With cloud looking like it was going to stay around for the duration of the test match we won the toss and elected to bat with hope of using the extra turn which would be available in the 4th innings. We slumped to 159-5 but a partnership between Taylor and Young helped us towards a decent score along with Young batting aggressively with the tail and got us to a competitive 292.
We bowled well at the top reducing Sri Lanka to 108-5 they managed to stumble to 239 all out giving us a lead of 53. King the debutant got 2 wickets but Roland Jones and Chambers got the bulk of the wickets.
An astonishing opening partnership of 241 between Lyth and Hamilton Brown put us into an excellent position with 4 sessions left, unfortunately rain meant that only 5 overs were playable in the last session and we struggle to score quick runs. With 2 and a half sessions to go sri lanka need 348 to win. This could be an outstanding test match.
After taking early wickets the win looked a real possibility. But there middle order held firm to deny us.
We lost 2 - 0 in the series, but there were positives to come from this.Comment
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I reckon winning in one dayers might be easier to win at first.Originally posted by Dutz View PostComment
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So when players are no longer under 25 you will not play them anymore?
Nice idea but it's going to be pretty difficult.Comment
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It wasn't the best start, but we must look for positives. It seems we have found an accomplished opening partnership in the batting and bowling. We have decent spin options. The middle order has its up and downs but it seems a third seamer is a necessity to find.
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No i'm going to play them after they are over 25 i just wanted more of a challenge and to bring through youth.Originally posted by Dom View PostComment
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Great story! It'll be interesting to see how quickly your players mature.Comment
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Next up for the lads is a one off 2020 followed by 5 one day internationals.
A similar squad to the test match team with a few in form county players thrown in there.
A few changes from the test team but we tried to keep the bulk of the squad together. The in form Daniel Redfern came in after a superb start to his 2020 county campaign.
We won the toss and with cloud around all day we elected to bat first. Unfortunately we collapsed badly. Malinga ripped through the top and middle order and we managed to crawl to an appalling 92. They showed us up and won by 9 wickets and they won it in 14 overs. Hopefully the one dayers will go a bit better.
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Injury and change in form led to us to a few changes in the squad. Setting ourselves a realistic target we were hoping to be competitive in all the games maybe snatching one win in the series, but that one is hopeful.Comment
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First ODI we lost the toss and Sri Lanka made 289 fairly comfortably but we fought back to keep them down towards the end with Harris and Roland-Jones taking late wickets. We started badly and really seemed to struggle from the outset, Bairstow and Harris the only batsmen to get stuck in.
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In the second ODI we kept the same team, but we needed things to change. We needed to have a better batting performance and field a bit better.
After Hamilton-Brown was dropped first ball he went on to score a quick 43, Lyth and Bairstow continued the good work we had started, looking in a strong position of 234-2 we took the batting powerplay looking for a massive score. But Fernando had other ideas churning out a great spell which saw him get 7 wickets, late hitting from James Harris pushed us past 300. We were very pleased with our batting performance but new that the game was not nearly won, and it definitely wasn't. An incredible 156 from Jayawardene ensured that Sri Lanka cruised to the total with a couple of overs to spare and 7 wickets in the hutch.
This was a bit disappointing because i really thought we had a chance to win but on a batting track bowling was always going to be difficult.Comment
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For our third ODI we stuck with the same team that we had played in both ODI's hoping for some kind of change in fortune.
We lost hamilton brown early but Lyth stuck at it falling one short of a 50. From the 50 overs we managed a modest 230, we felt it was about 25 - 30 runs short of a good score as there weren't really any demons in the pitch.
We got off too an incredible start with Roland-Jones taking 4 wickets and Chambers taking 1 wicket we reduced them to 24-5. They stomached a fightback with Tharanga and Kapugedera. at 104-5 James Taylor dropped Tharanga on 41, a dropped catch and we thought we had lost our chance of victory but Briggs had other ideas getting the wicket of Kapugedera which got us into the tail. Tharanga kept fighting but was running out of partners and he eventually got out looking for boundaries. Against all the odds we won convincingly by 42 runs. Our first win! So many positives to come out of this result.
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