Story Lee's Career Diary (ICC 3)

[Skater]

I have just finished the 2009 season as the Essex coach. I was offered the England job starting with the 2008-09 winter tours which I accepted.

Despite me being with England for much of the season, Essex managed to win the County Championship! They finished on 218 points, 7 clear of Middlesex in second place.

In the Friends Provident Trophy, we finished 6th, 5 points away from qualifying for the semi finals. In the Pro40 (Division 2), we ended with only net run rate stopping us qualifying for the play off. We had 8 points, the same as Northamptonshire, who went on to beat Yorkshire and get promoted to Division 1.

The Twenty20 Cup continued to prove that I am clueless when it comes to One Day Cricket. We won only 2 of our 8 games and finished 5th, 6 points away from qualifying for the quarter finals.

With England, my first home series was against New Zealand and we won the tests 1-0. There were two to play, and we won the 1st one by an innings and 177 runs and then drew the 2nd one.

Again I failed in OD Cricket by losing the ODIs 3-0, by 8 wickets, 7 wickets, and 7 wickets respectively.

The Ashes came up after that and we were thrashed 4-0 by Australia. We only managed to draw the 2nd test, one that we should have won.

I managed a rare ODI series win against the Aussies though, winning the first 2, losing the second 2 and then winning the decider by 1 wicket.

The 2009-10 winter tours are up next with a trip to Zimbabwe for 2 tests and 3 ODIs followed by a tougher journey to Pakistan for 3 tests and 5 ODIs.

EDIT: Can someone send me their Fonts file for ICC 3 please?

 

[mattfb]

Haha you need to improve in OD but it looked like you started to catch on by beating Australia!
Looks good mate, good luck with it.

 

[Skater]

Haha you need to improve in OD but it looked like you started to catch on by beating Australia!
Looks good mate, good luck with it.

All of my strategies for OD Cricket don't work. I try to bat first and get runs on the board, I bat aggressively and sometimes, even if I make a good start, a wicket will fall and a collapse will follow.

Can someone send me their Fonts file for ICC 3 please? All of the fonts are too big in my game and it makes it quite difficult to play.

 

[mattfb]

All of my strategies for OD Cricket don't work. I try to bat first and get runs on the board, I bat aggressively and sometimes, even if I make a good start, a wicket will fall and a collapse will follow.
Can someone send me their Fonts file for ICC 3 please? All of the fonts are too big in my game and it makes it quite difficult to play.

Dont worry, i usually have the same problem.

 

[Skater]

Dont worry, i usually have the same problem.

Have you ever found a technique that works though?

In real life, Essex are good at OD Cricket - they won the Pro40 last season - but a bit ordinary at First Class Cricket. I have reversed that!

EDIT: PhilD123 sent me his Fonts file so everything is alright with my game now.

 

[Simbazz]

Nice diary, some advice for OD games, if you can, bowl first, chasing is easier than posting a score i find, you know how to set aggresion, as in posting a score, you go too agressive you post low and lose wickets.

 

[Skater]

Nice diary, some advice for OD games, if you can, bowl first, chasing is easier than posting a score i find, you know how to set aggresion, as in posting a score, you go too agressive you post low and lose wickets.

I will give that a go, the ODIs against Zimbabwe should be a good place to try different strategies out.

I've sorted out my contracts and new signings at Essex for the 2010 season. If I had got rid of all the players I wanted to, my squad would have had just 9 players in it!

Instead, I resigned them all and signed 3 new players. I wanted to renew Matthew Hayden's contract but I couldn't because he would be playing for Australia all season. So, I filled up the overseas player spot with Justin Langer!

I also signed Alex Gidman and Mark Chilton to boost my squad up to 18 players. Here is my full squad:

Ravi Bopara
Varun Chopra
Alastair Cook
Mark Pettini
Mark Mudie
Justin Langer
Alex Gidman
Mark Chilton
James Foster
James Middlebrook
Tim Phillips
Ryan ten Doeschate
Danish Kaneria
Ian Ardley
Robin Lane
Lawrence Morris
Thomas Sadler
Keith Redfern

I have also selected my squad for the England tour of Zimbabwe. Here it is:

Andrew Strauss
Alastair Cook
Michael Vaughan
Kevin Pietersen
Ian Bell
Marcus Trescothick
Mark Pettini
Matt Prior
Luke Sutton
Paul Collingwood
Andrew Flintoff
Ryan Sidebottom
Chris Tremlett
Monty Panesar
James Anderson
Liam Plunkett
Simon Jones
Larry Rendell

I think it's a fairly skilled and balanced squad, but comments on it are welcome!

We have played one tour game so far, a 3 day match against Mashonaland. We won the toss and chose to bowl first on a pitch that was good for both pace bowlers and spinners, and we bowled them out for 250 in their first innings. I was a bit worried about how we let partnerships develop a little more than they should have done. James Anderson was fantastic with figures of 6/51!

We only made 278 when we batted, which was a worry. A lot of the batsmen got starts but were then out. Alastair Cook was the top scorer with 63. I was willing to put it down to the pitch on this occasion.

They were 178 all out in their 2nd innings, 7 of their batsmen failing to make double figures. Anderson took 6/38 this time!

Chasing 154 to win, only Andrew Strauss was out as we won by 9 wickets. Alastair Cook finished 76 not out and Michael Vaughan finished 50 not out.

The 1st test against Zimbabwe is up next and although we showed some frailties in the tour game, we won fairly comfortably and Anderson and Cook were superb!

 

[kookaburra69]

Good start mate,Nice England team there.

 

[mattfb]

Good win for you in terms of the bowling. Anderson did good picking up 12 wickets and you should be confident with bowling but the batting in the first innings was a bit ordinary. Anyhow the second innings was better for both Vaughan and Cook. Cook should have some good form leading into the tests.

 

[Skater]

Good win for you in terms of the bowling. Anderson did good picking up 12 wickets and you should be confident with bowling but the batting in the first innings was a bit ordinary. Anyhow the second innings was better for both Vaughan and Cook. Cook should have some good form leading into the tests.

A few improvements to the bowling and I should have a really good attack. I am a little concerned about the batting though.

The 1st test against Zimbabwe was a very disappointing draw. We won the toss and bowled first, but four of their batsmen made fifties as they were all out for 383 - about 200 more than they should have got!

We made hard work of the batting, losing wickets at regular intervals but we did manage 529 all out. Michael Vaughan made 140 and Ian Bell made 108.

Zimbabwe then made 292/8, 3 more batsmen making fifties. There were no outstanding bowling performances and we didn't have a full time spinner as Monty Panesar is out injured.

There was a lot of rain around, about 4 hours were lost because of it. Without it, I think we could have sneaked a win.

 

[surendar]

Monty's absence and rain interruption played a crucial role.. But Anderson who got 12 wickets earlier should have dominated here too..Unlucky! And nice to see the brilliant form of Vaughan continuing still..

 

[Gilly Fan]

Go to the cricket Cricket Strategies thread for advice.

 

[Skater]

Monty's absence and rain interruption played a crucial role.. But Anderson who got 12 wickets earlier should have dominated here too..Unlucky! And nice to see the brilliant form of Vaughan continuing still..

Yep, I've been having to use Kevin Pietersen as my spinner! I desperately need Monty Panesar fit and back in the side.

Go to the cricket Cricket Strategies thread for advice.

I've had a look. I'm more worried about my OD Cricket than I am First Class, so I will try some new tactics out in the ODIs against Zimbabwe.

The 2nd test against Zimbabwe has been played, and we won by an innings and 16 runs! We lost the toss and were put in the field. We let the opening partnership go past 50 which was really annoying. Only two Zimbabweans made half centuries, but there were a lot of men out who were within one shot of one! We eventually bowled them out for 334, Chris Tremlett taking 5/67.

The batting remained a cause for concern. It seemed more like we were relying on one or two batsmen making big scores rather than the whole team making decent contributions. Andrew Strauss made 116 and Paul Collingwood made 159 so we managed to squeeze a lead of 150, being 484 all out.

I changed my tactics for the second innings bowling, and it worked! Not a single man made 40, let alone 50! I kept the runs down, put the pressure on and bowled them out for 134! Chris Tremlett took 4/18 to finish with match figures of 9/85. He was man of the match.

Overall, our bowling problems are temporarily on hold but the batting still needs work. We have wrapped up the 2 test series vs Zimbabwe 1-0, now there's 3 ODIs to play before we head to Pakistan where we will be really tested.

 

[Gilly Fan]

Try going 3 bars for the first 10 overs in OD cricket. Then every 3 overs after that, go up 1 bar in aggression. Only go up to the 2nd last aggression until the 40th over. Then if you have wickets in hand, and your batsmen are in form. Go full. When wickets fall, start at the first or 2nd aggresion.

 

[Skater]

Try going 3 bars for the first 10 overs in OD cricket. Then every 3 overs after that, go up 1 bar in aggression. Only go up to the 2nd last aggression until the 40th over. Then if you have wickets in hand, and your batsmen are in form. Go full. When wickets fall, start at the first or 2nd aggresion.

I tried this in the 1st ODI, and it didn't go too badly.

England won the 1st ODI vs Zimbabwe by 5 wickets! We won the toss and bowled first, not only was I following Simbazz's tactic but the pitch also suited it. 2 of their batsmen made fifties, 1 unbeaten. We struggled up until I brought Paul Collingwood on at the end, his 4/28 really gave me a chance of winning as they posted 228/9 from their 50 overs.

Gilly Fan's tactic gave me an opening partnership of 85 between Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss (I had brought Trescothick and Monty Panesar back into the team for the ODIs), but we lost wickets at regular intervals after that. Strauss top scored with 48 as we made 229/5 with 3.1 overs left.

We lead the 3 ODI series 1-0 with 2 matches left!