Sign-ups International Cricket - 1991/2 and onwards

[Slowcoach]

@Nitrogen

To be honest I don't mind most of the West Indies A players failing, gives me something to do as co-manager and selector.
Am basically making sure everyone in the West Indies A squad gets at least one game in each form of cricket, but will be more choosy when it comes to the 3 Unofficial Tests.
Has been a dominant series for the home team, and most of the India A team are sporting pretty good averages at this point.
It is probably a symptom of what will become of the West Indies team by 1996 to 1998, they were really struggling in away Test series in those years and most of these A players were in the Test team by that time.
The curse of batsmen under performing and averaging about 25 to 28 is a problem the current West Indies lineup still suffers from, the Indian team were and still are a class above when it comes to batting.

 

[Slowcoach]

India A chasing 171 off 50 overs for victory.

India A 72/2 (15 overs)
(V.V.S.Laxman 48, N.R.Mongia 20, R.S.Dravid 0*, V.G.Kambli 3*)

...

Slight opening for West Indies A, another wicket or two will make it interesting.

 

[Nitrogen]

99 runs more to go.Come on my Indian soldiers

 

[Slowcoach]

@Nitrogen @CerealKiller

India A v West Indies A - 2nd Unofficial One Day International 1991/2 - Bangalore

Pitch: 6B - Dry and slightly cracked - favours Fast and Fast Medium bowlers

Weather: 5 - Hot and sunny

Toss: India A

Mindful of the seaming conditions, India A strengthened their seam attack, then elected to bowl first upon winning the toss.
West Indies A lost Campbell second ball for a duck to continue an ordinary start for their openers in limited overs games on tour, the early wickets hampering them in nearly every game.
Holder came in and began another rescue job, as so often on this tour.
Samuels, probably not suited to limited overs cricket, took an age to settle and barely scored at 3 per over throughout his innings of 46 condemned play to tedium.
When he was finally out, Arthurton played brightly for a while, but when he was out for 30, and Holder 54, West Indies A folded for a dismal 170 all out of 48 overs.
Medium-fast seamer Venkatesh Prasad finished them off with 3 wickets in 2 overs to finish with 3-25, while Ganguly and Kapoor were hard to get away in the middle overs and reaped the rewards at the end.
India A were given a good start to their reply by Laxman and the promoted Mongia, but when they fell in quick succession, there was work to do at 69/2.
A sparkling unbeaten 74* from 61 balls by the Vinod Kambli in his first game in A colours on tour settled things quickly, despite the loss of Dravid for a rare failure with 17.
Gray and Allen tried hard for West Indies, but their attack once again failed to fire, and so far apart from Ottis Gibson's spectacular hitting in the 3rd Unofficial T20 International, it has been one way traffic.
India A take a 2-0 victory in the 5 match series with a 7 wicket victory, Man of the Match was Vinod Kambli for probably the most attractive 50 over batting of the tour so far.

India A won by 7 wickets

Man of the Match: V.G.Kambli

West Indies A 170 all out (48 overs)
(R.G.Samuels 46, R.I.C.Holder 54, K.L.T.Arthurton 30; Chetan Sharma 2-39, B.K.V.Prasad 3-25, S.C.Ganguly 3-33, A.R.Kapoor 2-26)

India A 173/3 (32.3 overs)
(V.V.S.Laxman 48, N.R.Mongia 20, V.G.Kambli 74*; A.H.Gray 2-44)


Full scorecard and innings report on the blog:

Planet Cricket - International Cricket - 1991/2 and Onwards

 

[Slowcoach]

Wondering if any of the team managers following this would like the option of captaining their current team in this League/Story in a 2nd League/Story based in 1981/2 that will create a history that eventually joins up to tail onto this one.
I would enter scorecards and stats into the same database as this one and it would count as being part of the overall history of our PC International Cricket universe.

I just find I have times when no managers have sent me an XI for a current game, and I would have time to go back to 1981/2 and play a game or two.

I chose 1981/2 for a few reasons:

1...I know the teams and lineups well and can help people with squads easily
2...Sri Lanka just joined Test cricket, bringing teams to 7, and ensuring each current manager would have a team (I am still stuck running South Africa and Zimbabwe in the current story and they weren't Test nations then anyway so that doesn't matter).
3...Due to less available players carded at the time, and less matches played, our history will progress more easily and quickly than this current one, and traverse years and seasons at a much faster rate.
4...I prefer it to be an era where all the players we use are Retired so their official career card has the formula that will produce their final career averages and strike rates.
5...Due to less teams and Tests it could be slower paced, allowing managers to mostly focus on their current 1991/2 teams if they mostly preferred that.
6...Due to less carded players there will be less A tours and tour matches, meaning history will progress at a faster rate.
7..The season begins in 1981/2, and there is a World Cup within a year or so in England in 1983, giving us a big tournament to look forward to within our first few series.
8...Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket split is over, meaning all teams have small and recognisable squads.

Don't know if any of you are interested in this 1981/2 at a later date, if I can find 3 or 4 managers interested in also running their team in 1981/2 I will do it sometime soon.
Don't worry about the workload, I envisage the current 1991/2 and onward history as the one people will focus on, and the 1981/2 history will just progress occasionally as people show interest in sometimes using some older players.

Another idea I am keen to try when Rangana Herath, last of the 90's Test debutants still playing, retires.
I want his final career card before I use him in our history to keep things consistent.
I am thinking of starting a 3rd history in 1997/8 with Bangladesh retrospectively given Test status a little over a year before the 1999 World Cup.
I feel most of you would know most of the players from this era onwards and might enjoy that more.

Not sure if I would ever do one with current players, if we caught up to real history we would just be reshuffling the same 15 players all the time until someone new made a debut.

I prefer to do it with an older era of players so squads will change as seasons pass.

Anyway, let me know if any of you are interested in running your team in 1981/2 as well sometime soon if we get enough interest.

Same thought crossed my mind with early 1970s due to less matches played and ease of traversing history, the 1975/6 Australia v West Indies series is one I still hear about that would be fun to watch replayed.
1970s would be pretty much 1 or 2 series home and away v each team to complete a whole decade and would be quick.

Eventually it could be possible to create several histories throughout time that branch together.

There are less carded players for older eras, so is less point playing multiple series in a decade, one or two v each team is enough for back then, so it could be possible at some point.

Maybe just state your interest, and name a team and year you might like to try managing.
If there is enough positive interest I will organise something based on what managers most prefer.

 

[Slowcoach]

I think I just had a better idea than that, something that would be less time intensive and probably more fun for all current IC managers in this story.

....

Planet Cricket IC Challenge Mode.

...

Current managers in this story can issue up to 2 Challenges to other managers for alternative series with their teams in years other than 1991/2.
A manager will name a year and venue to challenge their opponent in, and then I will provide squad information where needed and the two managers can play out that series.

...

For example, the manager of Pakistan in this story might wish to challenge India in 1975 to see greats like Mushtaq Mohammad and Asif Iqbal in action against great spinners Bedi, Chandrasekhar, and Prasanna at their peak.
Or the current Indian manager might like to challenge Australia in Australia with Kohli and Dhawan and all the current Test side.
Anything is possible, and I will allow current teams and players to be used in Challenge Mode if managers wish.
Managers might like to take it in turns to choose a year, so they each get to pick what they consider one of their alltime great teams or can get revenge for a previous loss (e.g. New Zealand get sick of losing to Australia in the 1990's, so go back to 1986 when they had Richard Hadlee at his peak and challenge Australia to Test series to try and gain the satisfaction of a whitewash or something similar).

...

I think it would be easy to organise, and could progress at whatever pace managers choose.
If you are busy you don't have to challenge anyone, or if you are enjoying it more you could have two challenges v different managers progressing at the same time to give you more to do.

 

[Slowcoach]

Going to start a new thread with the idea now, can sign up over there if interested.

This new Challenge Mode idea will not replace this story, I still like the idea of creating a continuous believable history so this 1991/2 story will most definitely continue.

 

[Slowcoach]

@CerealKiller @ThanksRudolph

Getting back into simming some games after a day off...here is a score update:

Sri Lankan Board XI v West Indies - 50 over List A match - Kandy

Sri Lankan Board XI 59/2 (15 overs)
(D.Ranatunga 35*; C.E.L.Ambrose 2-9)

 

[Slowcoach]

@CerealKiller @ThanksRudolph

Score update:

Sri Lankan Board XI v West Indies - 50 over List A match - Kandy

Sri Lankan Board XI 119/2 (30 overs)
(D.Ranatunga 64*, A.Ranatunga 33*, C.E.L.Ambrose 2-12)

 

[Slowcoach]

@CerealKiller @ThanksRudolph

Score update:

Sri Lankan Board XI v West Indies - 50 overs List A match - Kandy

Sri Lankan Board XI 197 all out (48.4 overs)
(D.Ranatunga 77, A.Ranatunga 60; C.E.L.Ambrose 3-27, W.K.M.Benjamin 3-42, C.L.Hooper 3-23)


Sri Lankan Board XI collapsed when they tried to accelerate, Hooper caused them the most problems in the slog overs before Benjamin cleaned up the tail.
The last 6 batsmen failed to make double figures.
West Indies have a full strength batting lineup and should get back in form with a win from here.

 

[Slowcoach]

@CerealKiller @ThanksRudolph

Score update:

West Indies 57/2 (15 overs)
(Simmons 29)

Vaas bowled Haynes with a yorker for 14, before K.S.C.de Silva had an aggressive Simmons caught in the slips for 29.
Not the worst start for West Indies, but Richardson and Lara have some work to do.

West Indies require 141 to win from 35 overs with 8 wickets in hand, required run rate 4.03.

 

[Slowcoach]

Player Ratings

I can't tell anyone the exact rating or average of a player in this game due to the way player cards work.
It is based on random numbers like all sims, but in this case, 2 or more 6 sided dice.

A bowler card might look like this for example:

Fast Medium 5
Stamina 55

2 - Yorker
3 - Swing (-1)
4 - Movement off Pitch (-1)
5 - Good Length
6 - Good Length
7 - Short
8 - Overpitched
9 - Good Length
10 - Good Length (-1)
11 - Bouncer
12 - Extras +6

A roll of 2 six sided dice determines the type of delivery.
After this the batsman rolls 2 dice to determine the quality of his shot he plays in response.
Batsmen have shots rated Big Hit, then A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and the worst shot which is often a wicket if it is a good ball, X.
Not all batsmen have a Big Hit, and I find it impossible to work out an average and strike rate from looking at a batsman's card, other than an estimation of average to within maybe 5 or 10 by the placement of X and number of good shots.
It captures the battle of bowler v batsmen well, seeing it is the skill of both which determines the outcome of any particular ball.

As you can see from the above bowler card, he is a Fast Medium Bowler who mostly bowls a Good Length and gets occasional Movement and Swing.
The (-1) means it reduces the quality of the shot by 1, most important when the batsman rolls an X for his shot, reducing it to Z, nearly always out.
It is a bell curve due to 2 dice being rolled, with a Short ball most likely for the above bowler in 6/36 cases, whereas his most likely wicket taking ball is Movement (-1) which will happen on average 3/36 times.
Not all seamers have a Yorker, and it is often a wicket taking ball so is often on the lower numbers on a card.
Other than that, the above bowler is fairly accurate due to only 2 bad balls on his card and lots of Good Length, will probably concede 2.8 to 3.0 per over in Tests comparing it to other cards.
Average is harder to determine, probably low 30's.

The maker of the game cards the players so their averages and strike rates match real life, with some adjustments for less experienced players.
For example, Gavin Hamilton of England and Scotland played 1 Test in 1999, and scored 0 and 0 and took 0-64.
He is not rated 0 for batting and 0 for bowling, that would be unrealistic.
In this game his World Cup stats and First Class career have been taken into account, and he is an ok allrounder, more like his ODI alter ego.
You will find other players do better than their Test stats due to player cards matching a player's style and type more than just his Test stats if he only played 1 or 2 matches.
A player like Imran Khan however, or other more experienced players, should be expected to match their career Test stats, due to more matches to give a full rating on.

There is a Player Generator program on disc available for this game, and if you put in a player's strike rates and averages, it will produce a card as close to those stats as possible.
If I was creating players using the generator, I could tell you exactly what their averages and strike and runs per over should be.

In this League's case I am using official cards for consistency, and I have no way of telling exact ratings, particularly for less experienced players.

 

[Slowcoach]

@CerealKiller @ThanksRudolph

Sri Lanka Board XI v West Indies 1991/2 - 50 over List A match - Kandy

Pitch: 7B - Ball keeping low - favours all bowlers

Weather: 2 - Hot and sunny

Toss: West Indies

With the ball keeping low, West Indies elected to give their bowlers first use of the pitch.
A couple of early wickets to Ambrose had them on top, before the Ranatunga brothers, Dhammika, and captain Arjuna wrested control.
Dhammika Ranatunga went on to a solid 77, and older brother Arjuna a quicker 60, but when they fell Hooper ran through the middle order, and Winston Benjamin finished off the tail.
Sri Lankan Board XI had only posted a disappointing 197 from 48.4, failing to bat out their overs in a disappointing to end to their innings, wasting a solid platform.
Hooper was the best of the bowlers, continuing his good limited overs form with the ball.
In reply, Haynes and Simmons made quick starts before Haynes was yorked by Vaas, and Simmons caught in the slips off Sajeewa de Silva.
At 52/2 West Indies had work to do, but a magnificent partnership between Richardson and Lara settled the match, the pair adding 125 off 22.3 overs before Lara fell with victory in sight.
A boundary to Man of the Match Richardson handed West Indies a 7 wicket victory, their second on tour in 50 over games, putting their tour back on track.

West Indies won by 7 wickets

Man of the Match: R.B.Richardson

Sri Lanka Board XI 197 all out (48.4 overs)
(D.Ranatunga 77, A.Ranatunga 60; C.E.L.Ambrose 3-27, W.K.M.Benjamin 3-42, C.L.Hooper 3-23)

West Indies 198/3 (37.5 overs)
(P.V.Simmons 29, R.B.Richardson 81*, B.C.Lara 64; K.S.C.de Silva 2-46)


Full scorecard and report on the blog:

Planet Cricket - International Cricket - 1991/2 and Onwards

 

[Slowcoach]

@Nitrogen @CerealKiller

Score update:

India A v West Indies A - 3rd Unofficial ODI - Calcutta

West Indies A 104/5 (30 overs)
(F.L.Reifer 20, S.Chanderpaul 30*; B.K.V.Prasad 3-22)

West Indies A again lose early wickets, Chanderpaul their only hope now, weak tail to come in this one, no real hitters left.

 

[Nitrogen]

Have you posted it in ur blog?