TFC 2017

[LondonFife]

Oh and ended up with - Wells, Mullaney, Denly, Nottheast, A Davies, Stevens, McLaren, porter, Archer, Coad, Leach (c)

[met_matt]

Thanks all. Matt - well played to come 2nd after also winning it a few years ago - looks like you had a solid team, but not being able to replace Barker quite costly.
Andrew - those ducks for Denly and Northeast in consecutive balls must have been annoying! And unlucky with those late runs for Abbott.

Here are just a few details for my winning team 'Thunder Lightning':
Starting XI: Ingram (to week 6), Wessels (11), Ervine (9), Ackermann (2), Cooke (13), Bresnan (5), Stevens (13), Pattinson (6), Coles (11), Buck (10), Harris (1)
I brought Archer in early for Harris and he scored me 3200 points including 870 captain points. Ingram also got me over 900 captain points during the 1-day cup.
Collingwood came in for Ackermann and scored me 1779, and Joe Leach came in for Bresnan and scored me 1600.
Towards the end key players were Norwell, Sangakkara (what an amazing year he had), Harmer, Overton, Mitchell and Wells.
The top scorer who I never had was Samit Patel, also only had Porter and Mullaney the last 2 weeks.
I tried to spread my transfers out and had enough left to ensure I had a full team each week during the final stretch, but I think I was generally quite lucky to avoid too many injuries or international call-ups. My biggest failures were Coughlin and van Buuren who scored me negative points, as well as Eskinazi who was poor the last few weeks.
I entered the top 100 then top 20 with a couple of strong weeks in May and then got into the top 10 in July.

[jimwinn]

Outstanding Matt ☺

I'm terrible at the game but love it - great value and so frustrating

Roll on next year and maybe an Ashes game to help with withdrawal symptoms

[owenclass]

What a great day of cricket

Middlesex could have been relegated a year after they won the title

[Nabby]

Yes...irritating start to the day...Bess was my last throw of the dice this week...last transfer from Norwell but could not afford Leach. Forgot VdM was also in the side and nicking valuable wickets
Also making Ashwin my captain for the final day I could have done with an early wicket at Worcester and him scoring a few runs. Hopefully he will take a few wickets.

Is a 5-fer good enough?

Not quite
Unfortunately wells and Mitchell made hay today and they were 2 players many around the top had and I didn't. In the end there were only 30 points between 4th and 7th, which is 0.1% of the total points scored over the season. Incredibly I started the week in 7th...scored over 2000 point in the week, enough to get me to 36th in the weekly standings, and ended up 7th...no places gained. Just goes to show how difficult it is to gain positions near the top of the board.

Congrats to Matt P and Matt H - Matt P nailed it in the final weeks - over 3000 points fromn Archer alone nice touch
I can't believe Matt H had neither Harmer or Porter and yet still managed to hold off the chasers.
Well played guys.
I ended up with Mullaney, Sanga, Denley, sibley, Cooke, J Patel, J Porter, J archer, D Bess, S Harmer, R Ashwin
None were season long.
Cooke and Archer pretty early on...Sanga and Porter way too late and Mullaney and Harmer nailed.

[kingcurtley]

Congrats guys. A word for Jofra Archer. What a player/season. I missed the boat early doors but eventually got on board. The guy was phenomenal throughout. When does he qualify for England?!

Worcestershire team of the season for me. Some great young talent in Barnard, Clarke and Tongue, and they always pick a great overseas. Hope they get a good run in Div 1.

[Nabby]

Jofra Archer was outstanding and a must have in TFC terms this year.
Will be re-classified to AR next year I reckon making it harder to justify selection.

[primitive man]

Congratulations to the 2 Matthews and Andrew on their top 3 finishes! How close were the scores down to 7th?

At last I find myself no longer interested in the weather forecast - roll on next season - already plotting my team!

[Jezza3]

Yes congrats to all the winners. A good effort by all the fiso members. My team thatwas up there for awhile in about 5th sunk without trace to finish 24th but clung on for a 3rd in £10 elite. Stoneman's call up and injuries /awol/rotation for the likes of dent tavare Ingram buck Hameed and a few others combined with bad captain choices over the run in . Decisions to bring in trott and Hamed as differentials late on didn't work out but I think the luck was certainly with me in the t20 so was bound to run out sonetime . Roll on next year

[Doogal]

Congratulations to Matt, Matt and all other winners. I had a moderate to good season, but won nothing this year. My problem was an unerring instinct to pick the wrong captain. Same thing in FPL, by the way. I'd welcome a training course in captaincy. Roll on summer 2018.

[bluelionman]

Bad news for you all I'm afraid - Telegraph Towers confirmed to me in a PM last week they will no longer be running cricket games as it's not financially viable. So there will be no county or T20 games next year and thus don't expect an Ashes game either. They said they just don't get enough entrants in their paid game and with so many free fantasy games out there (generally on other fantasy sports - not cricket per se, that people just expect fantasy games to be free and no longer willing to pay to play....)!

[primitive man]

Quote from prize page TFC

What’s more, the winners of each 2017 Fantasy Cricket Century League will be entitled to a free entry into next year’s Telegraph Fantasy Cricket games.

Hmmm!

[Doogal]

That is disappointing news. I enjoy the cricket games more than football, to be honest. The only hope to cling on to is that they have said this before and still run a game when the summer arrived, but I have a feeling this time it's terminal.

[LondonFife]

Hopefully a bit more positive news. I also received a reply and was told no decision has been made yet and it's always a very late call as to whether it comes back or not.

It was mentioned that dwindling numbers and a lot of negativity from a vocal minority means it will eventually stop, but no decision has been made at this stage.

So let's all get our friends interested in next season and only be positive towards Telegraph Towers!

[kingcurtley]

Hopefully a bit more positive news. I also received a reply and was told no decision has been made yet and it's always a very late call as to whether it comes back or not.

It was mentioned that dwindling numbers and a lot of negativity from a vocal minority means it will eventually stop, but no decision has been made at this stage.

So let's all get our friends interested in next season and only be positive towards Telegraph Towers!

Not quite sure what this means - can't see many, if any, negative comments on their Facebook page. Unless it's internal to the Telegraph. Feels a pretty positive season all round on these pages.

[LondonFife]

Agree - hopefully that's just a historic thing and with lots of positivity we can get it back again next year.

But the best news from that is that I've had it from the horse's mouth that there defo has not been a decision to not run it next year. That may well still happen but when I put the previous poster's message to them their reply was "no decision yet" and one will be taken "closer to the start of the season"

So fingers crossed all could still be well.

[mincer]

There were 11805 entrants for the County game, and 4548 entrants for the T20 this year. Slightly down (10%) on the County game, and levels on the T20. Hopefully enough for TFC 2018.

Congrats to the winners. On a personal note my worst County performance ever. Completely missed the boat on the early one dayers (found myself too far back). On the plus managed to nick a T20 elite league prize.

[irtysh]

Reckon the best chance for TFC is to try to hang on until the city t20 launches and then try and use that as a springboard. I think there is a 100,000+ market for a free to play game for the city t20, so perhaps try to be the main game for that and then sell the county championship game and a premium version of the city game (with cash prizes) as pay to play add ons.

[roverinexile]

Despite being terrible at this game compared with most FISO-ers, it's been an integral part of my summer since the 90s when it was via mail in the Times. I sincerely hope it keeps going.

[bluelionman]

Agree - hopefully that's just a historic thing and with lots of positivity we can get it back again next year.

But the best news from that is that I've had it from the horse's mouth that there defo has not been a decision to not run it next year. That may well still happen but when I put the previous poster's message to them their reply was "no decision yet" and one will be taken "closer to the start of the season"

So fingers crossed all could still be well.

I hope I didn't miss-lead anyone (and hope I'm wrong and the cricket games do come back despite me being useless at them) but here are some extracts from the conversation I had via FB messenger with whoever is behind the TFC FB page which were replies to questions I posed about the county cricket game and issues I had around the last weeks deadline and site not working for me on mobile - these remarks / comments of there's lead me to believe that they had decided the game was not viable and not returning next year:

TFC FB reply.png

[Ducks Deluxe]

Sorry not to have been on since last week..complications... ...I am already feeling bereft of my cricket fix...really, really miss it...

Many congratulations to those of you who did so well,especially those with only a few teams....I can never remember who is who on this board and 'the real world!'

I was rubbish this year,as I was last year. I have been playing from the very beginning... and seem to be getting worse!...But I don't care!

Geographical complications this year meant I couldn't give as much TLC as needed...For the second season in a row my league ended up (I think) around 31....Simply couldn't get my fifth team to improve, no matter what I tried!

We can only hope that we are all back again next season... Couldn't face a summer without it...

A couple of thoughts on the future... If the game isn't financially viable, why not cut the prizes to a token level and increase the price to..eg £5 to £10 per team?

Due to the nature of TFC I imagine that we regular players have a pretty unique ' across the board' knowledge of county cricket that folk who just follow their local county may well not have..In a world where people worry about the future of the county game I am sure that this is a resource of enthusiasm that is very valuable to certain organisations...

I am sure that some of you have really useful contacts either cricketing (ECB or individual Counties?) or commercial... I can't believe that some organisation wouldn't be prepared to take over running the competition 'off the shelf' for prestige,even as a 'loss leader..'...Eg...it would seem to make sense for whoever sponsors the Championship next year,or the ECB to snap the format up and relaunch/rebrand it?...The advertising slogans are endless....What do folk think?

Best to all, DD....

[Ducks Deluxe]

It's gone very quiet again....

I read today that the ECB is to consider Middlesex's appeal against the two point "crossbow bolt incident " deduction...

Without checking the tables, I think this could have relegation implications!... Eeeek!

I also read that the SA T20 competition isn't going to happen next month....

DD...