My England story.

[Ash2134]

Both teams name the same 11 for the second ODI.

First Innings: We lose the toss and australia decide to bat on a pitch offering something for the seamers but with very sunny conditions. Australia start well again and are 55-1 after the first 10 and then we start to get regular wickets and manage to restrict their scoring quite well. They get 235-9 with clarke scoring 77 from 81 and then some 10s and 20s from their other batsmen.

Second Innings: We also start off quite well and end up 46-0 after the first 10 but then we lose kieswetter and root in succession and dont really recover from it and lose most our batsmen. Bopara then starts leading us closer and closer to their score and we end up 220-8 with 5 overs remaining and needing just 15 to win but then we lose anderson and bopara in successive balls, with anderson getting run out and then bopara top edging it to long mid on and we end up on 229 all out.


Batting Award: Root, played a good 55 just a shame he couldn't carry on his innings.

Bowling Award: Finn, Had a really good economy rate.

Series State: 1-1 with 3 games remaining.

[Ash2134]

Here are the teams for the next game:

We bring in woakes for broad who is not performing and put cook back at the top and put root at 5. Australia bring in maxwell for white.

First Innings: We put together a solid innings and get 286-8 with trott being the star again and getting 98* at the end of the year. He was well supported by some good hitting from root and bell and by a very quickfire 38 from woakes.

Second Innings: We get a dream start to their innings and have them 36-4 after 10 overs with finn taking all 4 wickets and look set to win this match. We then skittle them out for just 111 with swann and woakes coming into the attack and taking 3 wickets each. This was a really convincing victory and woakes impressed after being brought in to replace broad.


Batting Award: Trott, another brilliant innings and was unlucky not to get his century.

Bowling Award: Finn, bowled a brilliant spell at the start and set us up for the win.

Series State: 2-1 up with 3 games remaining.

[Ash2134]

For the 4th ODI both teams select the same 11.

First Innings: Australia win the toss and select to bat. We make a good start and continue to take wickets but we don't contain their scoring rate at the same time and a few good innings from henriques, maxwell and Hussey push them onto a score of 259-8 off their 50 overs. A reasonable total but one we should be able to chase down.

Second Innings: We lose kieswetter and cook early on and end up on just 36-2 after 10 overs but pietersen and trott score quite well and get us back on track untill pietersen gets out for 42. Root then comes in and plays a great innings and is supported by trott and bell, Root ends up on 112 not out off just 89 balls and leads us to victory!!


Batting Award: Root, Best innings of the series, he was completely dominant.

Bowling Award: Anderson, took a couple of wickets and had a very strong economy rate.

Series State: We are 3-1 up with just 1 game remaining in which we can play some different players.

[Ash2134]

To anyone who is reading this is my first attempt at doing one of these stories and if there is any way you feel I could improve this, feel free to let me know. I'd appreciate any feedback given!

[Tom Guntrip]

loving the story and the awards! i'd love if we could get a year breakdown of the stats for pietersen and swann especially if not all the players!

[Ash2134]

loving the story and the awards! i'd love if we could get a year breakdown of the stats for pietersen and swann especially if not all the players!

Thanks, I'm glad your enjoying it! I am planning on giving a year breakdown of the stats for all the players in each format once the season has finished! But If you like I can put up pietersen and Swann's current stats for the year so far.

[Ash2134]

we select the same team and they bring in hastings for henriques. I wont go into much detail for this game as it doesnt really matter.

First Innings: We win the toss and bat but we have a shocking innings with kieswetter playing amazing but nobody else supporting him and we end up on a poor total of 206-9. Kieswetter showed here that he can bat a proper innings when needed to and doesn't always have to be used as a pinch hitter.

Second Innings: It was always going to be hard to defend this total and it was, we put up a good fight but they managed to get through a couple of decent innings from maxwell and voges. Finn bowled pretty well again and so did anderson.


Batting Award: Kieswetter, a really good innings, our score would have been dreadful without his innings.

Bowling Award: Finn, He bowled well and always looked likely to take wickets.

Series State: We win the series 3-2 and thats 2 in a row against the aussies!

[Ash2134]

Series Summary

Batting:
Trott 292 @ 97.33
Root 227 @ 56.70
Kieswetter 219 @ 43.70

Bowling:
Finn 12 @ 16.25
Swann 11 @ 19.82
Bopara 9 @ 23.33

Batting Award: Trott, His batting really held together of innings in two of the three games we won and he got a 50 in the other game we won.

Bowling Award: Finn, Was reintroduced into the ODI team for this series after being dropped in the last and he really proved his worth with some brutal bowling!

[Ash2134]

Next up we have a 3 match t20 series against australia and will be hoping to improve on our poor performances in the last t20 series. Here's our squad for the series:

[Ash2134]

Here are the teams for the first t20 game:

They have named a team that bats almost all the way down and give agar a debut, for us buttler plays his first t20 game under me.

First Innings: We lose the toss and are put into bat under poor conditions. We play a very poor innings and end up with a total of 124-9 with the highest score from any of our batsmen being 22. Can't see us defending this total with the depth of their battings.

Second Innings: They knock off the runs pretty easily with just swann keeping it tight for us.


Batting Award: Trott, Although none of my batsmen deserved it...

Bowling Award: Swann, the only bowler with a low economy rate.

Series State: 1-0 down with 2 games remaining.

[Ash2134]

We stick with the same team and they make one change by bringing marsh in for maxwell.

First Innings: We win the toss and decide to bat and do better this time around and end up with a total of 161-8 mainly due to innings from root and trott!

Second Innings: We start off superbly by taking wicket after wicket but then when we have them 9 down somehow they number 11 pattinson and hussey destroy us with pattinson getting 57* from just 25 balls... How did this happen.


Batting Award: Root, a solid innings.

Bowling Award: Finn, bowled really well.

Series State: 2-0 down with 1 game remaining. I can't believe we lost this one.

[Ash2134]

The teams remain the same for the last game as we see if our players can improve from their last performances.

First Innings: We win the toss and select to bat and do awful with the exception of hales who scored a good 49. We end up with another awful score of just 115-8.

Second Innings: They chase down the total pretty easily despite some good bowling from woakes and Swann.


Batting Award: Hales, a good innings.

Bowling Award: Woakes, he bowled very well.

Series State: 3-0 loss. We really need to improve our performances in t20 games especially with a world cup coming up soon.

[Ash2134]

Series Summary

Batting:
Root 70 @ 35.00
Trott 66 @ 22.00
Hales 60 @ 20.00

Bowling
Finn 3 @ 21.67
Swann 4 @ 23.00
Anderson 3 @ 25.33

Batting Award: Root, played quite decently at least compared to the other batsmen.

Bowling Award: Finn, he had a decent economy rate.

[Ash2134]

Next up we have 3 match test series in the west indies. This should be a fairly easy win after beating the aussies twice in a row! Here is the squad selected for the tour:


Onions returns to the squad in the place of hales.

[Ash2134]

Heres the team for the first game against the windies:

We play quite a standard team for the first match. They have searles making his debut.

Day 1: We lose the toss and they decide to bat on a wicket which is going to be very good for seamers especially in the later days. We bowl well and get them all out for 264 with only chanderpaul and deonarine putting up a fight. We have 1 over to face at the end and get through it and end the day on 2-0.

Day 2: We have a mixed start to the day and end up 121-3 after the first session with cook going well on 61 though and he looks set for a century. But then after lunch we lose cook and ballance a few overs into the session. Prior and bell then steady ship with prior getting to 63 and bell getting to 40 before they both got out. We end the day on 324-9 with broad on 53* which he scored in brisk fashion.

Day 3: We get a out a few overs into the day with broad getting to 70 with some good shots and we ended up 339 all out. We then are taking regular wickets throughout there innings with swann getting chanderpaul out on 49. They end the day on 227-6 with ramdin and sammy not out on 31 and 33 each and looking quite threatening. We could do with getting them out quickly tomorrow.

Day 4: we managed to get them both out within the first 4 overs of the day, with anderson and broad getting 1 each. Then Anderson got the last two wickets in the next over and we had them all out for 236! This set us a target of 162 to win. We end up getting to 162-5, we get there with a few 30s and 40s. If they had set us a bigger target we could have struggled.


Batting Award: Broad, He made a brilliant 70 in the first innings when we really needed some extra runs.

Bowling Award: Anderson, He bowled well across both innings.

Series State: 1-0 up with 2 games remaining.