Story [Battrick] Challengers XI

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Ah, haven't been updating for a while. Planning to relaunch the whole team and story.

 

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Challengers Reloaded

Challengers XI is relaunched - "A fresh start"


In spite of recent failures, manager Miles Bryant has taken the oppurtunity to rebuild the side. He has appointed a new assistant manager, called Quentin Watson. Quentin will be assisting Bryant in the management of the team, attending meetings and the like.

So, introducing the team. Here are the guys who work behind the scenes:

Bowling coach:
Scott Long

Batting coaches:
Marvin Condo
Michael Williams
Carly Otto
Charles Borrowdale
Jacob Skinner
Johnny Clark
Roger Meade
Arnold Mose

Fitness coach/physio:
Ray Sam

Psychologists:
Gary Merchant
Sam Yates
Leonard Wallace
Bill Larry

The new-look squad shall be introduced later...

 

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One legend I forgot to mention earlier:

Zia Cable - Groundsman

Anyway, onto the squad...

A-Z

Rod Bishop - 22 yo, BT Rating=5,435
RH Batsman, RM Bowler, strong batting form, superb bowling form, fresh
A steady player with respectable leadership skills and worthless experience.

A competent allrounder, Rod is also a former captain of the side, which he has been a member of since its inaugration. His batting is generally excellent, reaching a highest score of 91. He averages 61 over 5 innings, with 2 nos. However, his secondaries need working on.

Bowling wise, his best figures are 4-45.

Tim Croft - 20 yo, BT Rating=8,237
LH Batsman, RFM Bowler, strong batting form, superb bowling form, sublime
A destructive player with worthless leadership skills and woeful experience.

Tim is another allrounder with good secondaries. He was a bargain, being picked up from the Saints for ?3000 (who picked him up as a good youth pull for ?1000). He started with a BTR of 7995.
Tim has not had much chance to bat yet, but his only innings was 12.
Bowling wise, he still has yet to take 2 wickets.

Lawrence Cronin - 26 yo, BT Rating=2,755
RH Batsman, RH Spin Bowler, superb batting form, superb bowling form, sublime
An attacking player with mediocre leadership skills and woeful experience.

Lawrence is the Challengers spin master. However, he too, hasn't had much of a chance to play at OD level.

Scott Edgerley-harris - 24 yo, BT Rating=2,946
LH Batsman, LF Bowler, woeful batting form, woeful bowling form, sublime
A cautious player with competent leadership skills and worthless experience.

Scott is another developing batsman. He hasn't played in any OD League games, but his friendly appearances don't show much of this characters batting ability.

Joe Edwards - 20 yo, BT Rating=3,274
RH Batsman, RH Spin Bowler, strong batting form, superb bowling form, sublime
A destructive player with superb leadership skills and abysmal experience.

Joe is the current captain of the team, and a competent batsman. He averages 29 over 2 innings, one of those being 55.

Samuel Haywzelden - 22 yo, BT Rating=4,824
RH Batsman, RFM Bowler, superb batting form, respectable bowling form, sublime
A cautious player with abysmal leadership skills and abysmal experience.

Samuel is another batsman. He has not had a very good season so far (averaging 2), but he is a developing player.

Mohammed Islam - 20 yo, BT Rating=6,323
RH Batsman, LFM Bowler, superb batting form, proficient bowling form, energetic
A cautious player with feeble leadership skills and abysmal experience.

Mohammed is another developing allrounder. Like others, he has not had a good season with Challengers XI. However, he is destined for good things, so watch him.

Ken Long - 19 yo, BT Rating=3,351
RH Batsman, RM Bowler, proficient batting form, superb bowling form, sublime
An attacking player with abysmal leadership skills and worthless experience.

Ken is a good allrounder. He has not made mcuh impact batting-wise, but he is continuing to train. His bowling figures are pretty good, averaging 18.10. His best figures are 4-30.

That is half the squad so far.

 

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New season, fresh start

Challengers enter new season in V.31

Challengers XI is entering the new season with a ray of optimism. This season looks to be a fairly good one, with the Challengers expected to end up in the Top 3 once again. To do this, they will need to beat their main league rivals, Camlann, in which they were successful last season (pipping them just on net run rate).

Challengers make fairly dodgy start to the season

The team is hoping to progress in the cup this year, and the first game, against Merthyr Dyfan CC, a VI bot, certainly helped. First the Challengers bowled them for 173/9 (with Marples and Cronin taking 3 wickets each), then Croft and Marples easily chased the total down in a leisurly 28 overs.

All looked well for the Challengers. However, it was not to be with an unlucky 6 run loss over Hastings Priory, a team relegated from IV. After 50 overs, the home side ended with 328/6.
The Challengers did their best to equal this, and fell short by 7 runs, with only 4 wickets being taken.

Cup fortunes continue....For a bit

The next game was a cup game, versus lix4six. The Challengers expected to win, and they did so. 366/5, the highest score Challengers have ever achieved, and there was no way they were gonna chase it down.

League failure again

The second league game was against the league rivals, Camlann. Challengers desperately needed to win this, but were exhausted from the Cup game. They were fairly confident, going into the game with a new batsman:

Lee Wood - 17 yo, BT Rating=5,075
LH Batsman, LM Bowler, mediocre batting form, respectable bowling form, fresh
A destructive player with proficient leadership skills and worthless experience.
Stamina: competent Wicket Keeping: abysmal
Batting: mediocre Concentration: competent
Bowling: competent Consistency: abysmal
Fielding: worthless

This guy got 94 in his first ever OD game before being run out. It was an incredible knock, and the team hope he can pull off that sort of performance regularly.
However, the game did not go so well. All out for 235, Camlann calmly chased it down in 44 overs.

Where to next?

The next cup match is tomorrow (Sunday), but it looks like Challengers XI won't be going any further. We are up against a division III team, whos best player has a BTR of 30,000. However, the rest will be much needed after two (stupid) GFIs.
As for our young new batsman, the manager initially thought about training him up for U19. However, in a few seasons, it will be unlikely if he does get to U19 level.
As for the league, well Challengers need to win some games to avoid relegation (which would be incredibly embarrassing). They are currently fighting for 6th, which is not an ideal position.

 

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Relaunched AGAIN

Owing to the recent popularity of Battrick stories, the manager of Challengers XI is planning to relaunch this story again.

Background info

After a disappointing season last time, Challengers XI finished 4th when they could have promoted. However, determined to promote this season, they have won every game so far, and have the Highland Chieftans, the team that was demoted from IV. They have a pretty fearsome squad, and are cruising through all the games, probably on TIE, so hopefully the Challengers can cause an upset.
At least previous league rivals Camlann don't look too strong this season.

The Format of this story

Rather than just posting a list of players with my comments below, I'm doing a player of the week type of thing. It won't exactly be the player who played best, because obviously some of my backup players hardly ever play.

 

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Match Report

Assassins XI v Challengers XI (761647)

Assassins XI won the toss and wisely elected to field on an uneven track. The Challengers did better than expected, mustering 164. The main highlight was a flawless 75 by Banda Bocks, the clubs recent youth signing.
Fielding, the Challengers were tied down by Assassins competent top order, with Osmond and Stephen Hignett, another new signing, interrupting with a couple of joint wickets. The only other wicket to fall was a runout.
Assassins XI made it hom easily. Thank you and join us next week for the rematch. Don't forget one of the penultimate games of the season on Friday against the mighty Highland Chieftans.

Nets

The trainees this week were Banda Bocks, Anton Lungile, Stephen Hignett and Lee Wood. Anton Lungile showed improvement in his concentration, rating it Respectable, and Lee Wood also improved his batting to Respectable.

 

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Match Report

This was a league match Challengers XI really needed to win to promote, but weren't likely to. It was against the Highland Chieftans, a fearsome team come down from IV.

Challengers XI won the toss and chose to have a bowl. Highland Chieftans did well, getting 306 in 50 overs, only losing 3 wickets, 2 of which went to Ifill, the spinner, and 1 more to Wood, who had a good bowl, going at only 4 an over.

Then came our turn to bat. Kekeletso did not last long, succumbing after only scoring 2 runs. Edward went for a mere 12.
Then Wood and Banda Bocks got together and created what looked like a good partnership of 56 until Bocks was bowled. Wood continued to bat with wickets falling all around him, until he finally succumbed on 59. The Challengers were all out for 147.