Bess getting in on the action now It’s painful how I’ve had none of this sweet pre Feb 1 last minute stats boosting, Sarwate aside.
Gazza Team name: Muppets CC Name Rating: A Hoping for a return of El Fenix which is a solid one. Could also name this team the Brazen Thieves though. Edit: Muppets are cool and Gazza is one. So it all works out. Squad: Bancroft Shadman Islam Lokesh Rahul Joe Root Mandeep Singh Buttler Pandya Woakes Jeetan Patel AHKJDGSKJGSHGJDGSJHGSJHGS Robinson Stone ten Doeschate Seifert Jameieson Roussouw Hamza Perera Wheeler Squad Depth F Fuck you Gazza. Best Pick: Cam Bancroft - Round 8 Morgs on Tamim: Pretty decent pick. Not an amazing one but has at least some form of Test pedigree and does reasonably well at Shield level. Cribb's Best Pick: Chris Woakes - Round 2 Morgs on Woakes: Pretty solid pick. Batting form has been slightly off recently but a lot of that is down to playing basically zero county cricket, he should still be able to hold down #7 in a comp like this and should be in your new ball bowling attack. Worst Pick: Shadman Islam - Round 11 Morgs on Shadman: His FC record is really nothing special when comparing it to other Bangladeshis (though it has improved in recent times), and his Test record isn't much to write home about either. Not all that great of a pick I think. I hate you. Give me Jeets back you coward. This team is going to be in the bottom 8. Shadman was early, most picks felt like a round or more early. Seifert was a decent pick too I guess. Hope you spoon.
morgieb Team name: Wombats CC Name Rating: B+ It's a pretty cute rebrand tbf. Squad: 1. Tom Latham (wk - P/T) 2. Shubman Gill 3. Pathum Nissanka 4. Babar Azam 5. Shimron Hetmyer 6. Ravindra Jadeja 7. Tim Paine (c/wk) 8. Darren Stevens 9. Suranga Lakmal 10. Kyle Jarvis 11. Shaheen Shah Afridi 12. Rahmat Shah (reserve #3/batting all-rounder) 13. Farhaan Behardien (reserve middle order bat/batting all-rounder) 14. Nicholas Pooran (wk - P/T) (reserve middle order bat/wicket-keeper) 15. Mehidy Hasan Miraz (reserve spinner/bowling all-rounder) 16. Adil Rashid (reserve spinner/bowling all-rounder) 17. Aizaz Cheema (reserve pacer) 18. Matthew Kelly Squad Depth A- Great first XI, solid depth. A trade or two away from being an A to an A+ Best Pick: Babar Azam - Round 3 Morgs on Babar: This pick has some risk attached, but he's still a better batsman then a couple of others picked before him (in before some smartarse argues that of course he's better than Bumrah or Anderson) right now, and in terms of potential I can genuinely see him getting to ATG levels even in Tests. Already he looks like improving a lot before the database is released. Hopefully he can tap into his h4x ODI record to some degree Cribb's Best Pick: Babar / Shaheen Shah Afridi - Round 4 Morgs on Shaheen: There's risk attached here given he hasn't played a lot of FC cricket thus far, but if he stays fit this could be a dream pick this late. And he's dominated ODI's too which helps his relative lack of track record. Given the paucity of genuine strike options left over this is a good pick. Worst Pick: Aizaz Cheema - Round 14 Morgs on Cheema: A lot depends on how Pakistani cricket scales. But even if it scales poorly it's gonna be hard to nullify someone who averaged 12 out of being useful, especially given his most recent season in higher quality cricket was pretty decent. All gaslighting morgie aside it's absolutely criminal that you were allowed to pick Jadeja as 12th pick in the draft and then following it up with Latham/Babar/Shaheen/Lakmal basically locked you in as the odds on favourite for the entire season. I have exaggerated how bad I think some of your picks are, but as soon as you picked Paine your picks stopped being in the top 8 of every round and started having FAR more variance. There are a few blokes in the wider squad that I genuinely think are absolutely excellent, and there are several who I think were lucky to be picked at all. But I'm not going to go into detail because I want you to morgie this so hard. Top 8 for sure, likely winner.
Stephenza Team name: Young 'uns Name Rating: C A quick check shows that several of these players are in their 30s. Squad: 1 Raynard van Tonder (c) 2 Joshua Richards 3 Tom Abell (5) 4 David Bedingham 5 Shreyas Iyer 6 Anmolpreet Singh 7 Wandile Makwetu + 8 Gerald Coetzee (1) 9 Anrich Nortje (3) 10 Lakshan Sandakan (4) 11 Mustafizur Rahman (2) 12 Rohit Sharma 13 Zubayr Hamza 14 Rudi Second 15 Jason Smith 16 George Linde 17 Mohammed Nabi 18 Kagiso Rabada Squad Depth B- Very solid amount of decent Saffas here but not enough stellar ones IMO. Will struggle to get out of the pack. Best Pick: Raynard van Tonder - Round 9 Morgs on Tonder: Not much of a track record here so far. He is talented though and has been immense so far this season. Still, probably earlier than what I would've wanted. Cribb's Best Pick: Rohit Sharma - Round 2 Morgs on Shaheen: A lot depends on how his ODI form is weighted. If he can tip into his excellent ODI performances it's a great pick this late, if not it's merely a good one. Very nice selection all round though. Worst Pick: Lakshan Sandakan - Round 15 Morgs on Sandakan: Oddly his Test form upon dropping was actually pretty decent statisically (if against weak players of spin at home) so he might still be OK for this. But poor ODI form and his FC record being nothing special for the conditions he plays in makes this a fairly average pick rather than a great one. At least he adds some variety to your attack. Hamza and Nortje ruined this team IMO. I think both would have been safe for a r5 and r6 pick and there were better Saffa h4x options still available in r3 and r4. They're by no means bad players but picking up Faf or Morkel or someone at that point and STILL getting them later would have done so much for this teams hopes of making it to the top half of the comp. Sandakan shouldn't have been picked at all.
lol at calling morgz the favourite. love some jarvis and jadeja is h4x but shaheen is a decent bowler and lakmal belongs in club cricket. he's staring down the barrel on a flat deck.
when push comes to shove athlai has always leaned towards spark and baxter's cold and ruthless draft optimization rather than the cult heroics of heath or me.
A blend of the two philosophies but probably more cold and ruthless draft optimization than whimsy yeah. I did pick Santa and Papps after all.