TFC T20 Blast 2017

[ooozzzie]

Weather is awful and I don't give ANY game 100% chance of no rain. All day the wind has been due North which has meant the weather has stayed in the West and so of course Taunton Glamorgan and Worcs are pretty much no chance. But in the last hour or so it has started to move the HUGE rain band slightly east, certainly
bringing Leics and Notts into the equation. At first glance looks like London will be ok......but now I am not so sure. It does mean that Taunton the rain will have
passed though at last, but how dry the pitch is...well.

Worth a look http://www.raintoday.co.uk/ Prem version gives a 3 hour forecast and its definitely moving east....which has not done ALL DAY.

[jimwinn]

Somerset vs Gloucs abandoned

Worcs vs Lancs delayed

[ooozzzie]

Looks like Rain Nottingham and Leicester at 8pm and Oval 8.15pm so they might battle on for a bit, and not lose too much play, but if they do come off, they won't get back on again.

[Bluearmy16]

Looking very dark and grey in Leicester. Worcs v lancs not looking good at the moment yet I still have Joe Leach who is currently on-13 points!!

[ooozzzie]

Nice and Sunny on the Tele! Here comes KP

No xmas cards from Finch then

[Fantasist]

Had a wasted Taunton ticket today - it was clear from early morning it would be off though. Hopefully better luck on Sunday.

I've had some really poor days this week with my two teams. KP running out Finch tonight didn't help.

[kingcurtley]

A quick sweep of BBC weather while watching the women's final, says unsettled... but i'm no expert

Lanc v Dur - okay
War v Der - sun/stormy
York v Wor - lightning/rain
Glam v Ess - sun/stormy
Ham v Surr - stormy
Som v Midd - okayish
Suss v Kent - rain/stormy

[ooozzzie]

There are hundreds of small showers all over the place unfortunately, Taunton just had one, and have called an inspection at 2pm
Ground is pretty wet. Will get games on, but will get lots of stoppages as well.

Start delayed Cardiff Southampton Taunton

[wizardoffire]

well at least Willey is giving my starting XI a nice boost

shame its not impacting my overall position

[Toffeeman]

Notts Outlaws squad to face Durham Jets (from): Brendan Taylor, Steven Mullaney, Riki Wessels, Alex Hales, Harry Gurney, Luke Wood, Matt Carter, Samit Patel, Tom Moores, Brett Hutton, Jake Ball, Dan Christian, Ish Sodhi, Billy Root.

Squad vs Notts Outlaws (25 July): Paul Coughlin (c), Cameron Steel, Graham Clark, Michael Richardson, Jack Burnham, Paul Collingwood, Gareth Harte, Stuart Poynter (wk), Ryan Pringle, Usman Arshad, Liam Trevaskis, James Weighell, Barry McCarthy, Chris Rushworth

[jimwinn]

Leicestershire (from): McKay (capt), Aadil, Ackermann, Cosgrove, Delport, Eckersley, Griffiths, Hill, Klein, Parkinson, Pettini, Pillans, Ronchi, Sayer, Wells.



Glocs squad: Klinger (c), Mustard, Cockbain, Hankins, Roderick, Howell, J.Taylor, Perera, Smith, Noema-Barnett, Payne, M.Taylor, Liddle

[Toffeeman]

Derbyshire Squad

1. Billy Godleman
10. Luis Reece
23. Tom Wood
77. Wayne Madsen
18. Alex Hughes
9. Gary Wilson
2. Callum Brodrick
11. Daryn Smit
20. Matt Critchley
21. Matt Henry
7. Hardus Viljoen
36. Ben Cotton
75. Hamidullah Qadri
99. Imran Tahir

BIRMINGHAM BEARS SQUAD

Ian Bell (Captain)
Keith Barker
Colin de Grandhomme
Grant Elliott
Sam Hain
Oliver Hannon-Dalby
Ateeq Javid
Alex Mellor (Wicket-Keeper)
Jeetan Patel
Ed Pollock
Josh Poysden
William Porterfield
Boyd Rankin
Aaron Thomason

[wld]

Something to keep an eye on - Junaid left the field a few times on Sunday. He was hit on the hand attempting a caught and bowled and it looked like the physio was sorting out a finger injury.

Not seen the squad yet but if he's not in it, that's why!

There was also a lengthy stoppage for Livingstone being struck on the wrist, not to mention the very unfortunate injury to Hickey. Hopefully he'll come back sooner than expected.

[Doogal]

Phew! Nice to see Ingram go fairly cheaply. For some reason I don't put him in my teams - have seen him in 4-day cricket and he never looks that good. But I suppose his stats don't lie.

[Fantasist]

Ingram is virtually an AR in this format. I always put him as captain when they are playing, as he picks up bowling points even when he fails with the bat.

Was going to put in Miller today until I noticed he isn't in the list. Instead will be cursing Willey tomorrow night when I transfer-jinx him...

[Doogal]

True, Ingram picks up a few wickets, too. I'll have to overcome my prejudice and put him in sometime. I have blind spots on certain players like this - having missed a couple of big scores, I can't quite believe they are going to 'do it again'. An example was Vardy in his prolific season - I didn't put him in my teams for months. I think I did it with Ramprakash for most of one season too, when he outscored everybody by miles. I think I need therapy.

Anyway, not a bad haul today - Matt Henry helped, having gone for 26 off his first over, ended up with 3-37.

Both divisions are hard to predict who will go through. The North division has the top 5 teams on 8 points and you can only really write off Durham and possibly Worcs. The South Division is in some ways closer - top has 9 and bottom 5. I fancy Notts, Essex and Middx all to get through, despite their dodgy starts.

[wizardoffire]

forgot to change my captain today was going to be either Hales or Patel

[Doogal]

forgot to change my captain today was going to be either Hales or Patel

Yes, this game certainly comes under the heading of 'high maintenance' (every day you have to monitor fixtures, weather, changes to squads, players being rested, England calls, injuries, different starting times, possible captaincy changes, etc etc.....).

[robgraham]

Crane?!

[Toffeeman]

No idea. Wheal wasnt in the original 13 so can only assume a late injury ?

Nothing on twitter

[The Catman]

Wessels gets 49 two days running

[wizardoffire]

Wessels gets 49 two days running

jug avoidance

[ooozzzie]

Wessels gets 49 two days running

Teach ya for picking freaking Weasels Opps Wessels. Sorry lurkers nothing important.

[ooozzzie]

Top 10 doing really well, go for it Ben hope you can hold out.

1 Ben Spark funky4 5517 0 2
2 Christopher Beard Walkley3 5480 0 3
3 Philip Dines LilJacknEls6 5430 0 4
4 Darren Taylor Dud 5291 0 13
5 Ben Spark funky2 5088 0 29
6 Robert Graham Bleach Boys 9 5041 0 39
7 Darren Taylor Bun 5010 0 47
7 Lewis Babbage Idea 9 5010 0 47
9 Paul Hughes legb4cricketdotcomA 4984 0 55
10 Chris Atkinson HC Heroes W2 4942 0

A few lurkers, which is annoying........Shame you can't contribute a bit more, but I suppose if you really want to win.

[02bburco]

I found the community here really supportive when I was in with a shout a couple of years ago.

It is very very tight at the moment. I have 4 teams in the top 66 places and theres only 600 points between the worst of these and the top.

The year I came 2nd, I called 3/4 QTR final captains right. The question is do the people up there have the transfers to get 11 out for the Quarters and 11 out for finals day. Also will they have the 4/5 Captain changes they need to have a different one for each of the 5 knock out match days.

There will also be 3 or 4 more really really big scores between now and the QTRs at least. If anyone picks all 4 of those they could come from 1000 back.

With the way the game is structured its impossible to have have all the players you want at any one time. Fixtures are way too close together, you look and think I really want Batsman X in and you see all your bats have got stacks of fixtures.

I am quite happy at the moment, at least 20 transfers and 12 Capt changes in the teams that matter. I dont know what anyone else has, any more would be too many, so its a case of how many less?

With the games so close together its hard to get value from them, of course some players go through fixture lulls and come out, but I have not had many in rank bad form, and almost no injuries. I am also reluctant to use a Captain change just to pick up 1 extra game. for example player A plays Monday but they often play Weds as well, the guy is (C) for a reason, so 2 changes to pick up 1 game seems a waste.

But as fixtures run down it may well come to that. I think that will so many players having so many fixtures its going to be more important to have right players at the right times in terms of their form rather than number of games, as you would expect most top players to play the fixture grid well.

Slow week for some of those at the top this week. I was trailing by 600 at the start of it and now its nothing like. I have not had an outstanding week by long chalk either.

Have they gone too hard too soon? tomorrow will tell a lot I think

Well my aim is to have a shot at some prizes, to add some spice to my trip to Birmingham!

[ooozzzie]

Very interesting 02bburco.....What is O2bburo mean/stand for anyway? Always wondered about that. I googled it and you came up all over the place.... in Spain/House of Lords/WW2. Not to worry glad you have 20 odd transfers. Should be able to catch up easily.

[Jezza3]

I have one team still up there and in a slightly worse position with regards to the transfer/captain situation. Doubt I'll stay there as I'd be pretty sure most in the top 50 have pretty similar or better transfer counts as a lot of usual names on the leaderboard who are unlikely to have burned them too quickly. You're in a good position with 4 teams still in contention enabling different choices to be made. Not sure how vital it is to have 11 on finals day as having a bowler who doesn't get a wicket or a batter who gets a duck will lead to minus points but obviously the more playing the greater chance of a high score. I'd have thought when it gets to finals day it's really just the luck of the captan pick for the final day that could determine the winner so I suppose whoever is in the lead will pick one of the most obvious and those a bit lower down will go for the slightly less likely captains. And of course rain could still have an influence in the run in and help those with greater transfers.

[getfunky]

Top 10 doing really well, go for it Ben hope you can hold out.

Thanks, so do I! It's weird being in this position tho as I've never come close to challenging so I'm in foreign territory & really have no idea what the best approach from here is but at the same time I did go into it with a very different & clear approach which was to ignore the bowlers & instead use transfers to give myself as many chances at captians points as possible while holding some back which has worked so far but luck has come into it as I've nailed four of the seven hundreds. Also, being first in the starting 11 league has made such a difference as it allowed me to be more conservative than usual when I'm burning transfers trying to catch up.

My biggest concern tho is the state of the tables, it's so close that I could easily go into the quarters with 11 players or none. I fear my fortunes later on will rest on who goes through rather than individual form & I'm not sure whether to really hold back in case which also means I risk missing out on vital points from form players leading up to it. No idea.

Also, nailing big captains pts makes such a difference, a few days ago I went from 5th to 40th in three days due to the rain & low scores from those that did play, I then brought in Willey & captained him & shot back up to 2nd so don't give up if you're a bit behind, alot can change in a short space of time.

[The Catman]

Glad you said someone could come from 1000 pts back....that sums up my best team now after some "wonderful" team changes.

Agreed that there is a big chunk of luck on finals day, someone could get 2 games for all 11 players someone mostly a single game....at least having a few teams at the top gives you options.

Good luck anyways

[Jezza3]

I suppose all fantasy games are a mixture of skill and luck but think with the structure of the t 20 on finals day the luck element is somewhat increased with semis and final on the same day and decision as to who one thinks will progress to the final affecting transfers. There is also the question of the order that the quarter finals are played. As I understand it 1 in north plays 4 in south etc etc but I'm assuming which day the quarter finals are played on is just decided by a draw. A good advantage if whatever county your best players are in is drawn in the first quater final.