How to: Setting match orders (Match 1 complete!)

[PowerBug]

This would have to be the area I like to claim to know the most about, or at least have the most success in. At the end of every match you'll be given your match ratings, to see how good your team is, compared to your opponents. However they do not tell the full story, nor should you expect to lose every game against an opponent that 'rates' higher. If you set good orders you can cause upsets against opponents that rate 10, 20 or even 30k more than you.

So for this I'll need a recent example, so I'll use a match where I caused a big upset this season, in my Division 1 SOD match. I'll go through the steps I went through in creating my orders, and show how they worked/didn't work in the match.

Match 1, the perfect scenario

The situation
I was drawn to play Risk Factor! in the 3rd week of the season, at home. At the start of the week, I noticed that the weather would be either Sunny or Cloudy, which doesn't affect much. The next step was I went onto his club page, and then had two tabs open, one of his senior squad, and the other of his bowling statistics from this season (Club -> Stats Centre). I did this to see what bowlers he had at his disposal to try and find a weakness.

(Ignore fatigue and NAT symbols)
So from here, I noticed he had 4 seamers available, and 3 spinners, and not fast bowlers or wrist spinners, the strike bowlers. This made my decision easy, as my options are as follows:

(Not revealing the skills of all my bowlers :P)
So I will choose the following bowlers: Mukund, Oldfield, Zahra, Mupariwa, Kuhlengisa. And the pitch I will choose is a Green, as he only has the one medium, I have two, and Green disadvantages spinners, and he will be forced to play one of his three.

The Orders
So the condition for the match are Sunny/Green, time to set orders. My batting order minaly picks itself, however I have a few tricks that I like to play. I open the batting with a bowler, to protect my batsmen from the opening bowlers, as I know that my batters are weakers than his bowlers. so this was my batting order:

Aronstam is a Seam Specialist, Oldfield is my bowler, Wardlaw is an Opener and will likely come in early anyway, Butt is an Accumulator, a talent that is good to have in the middle overs as it keeps the scoreboard ticking. Mukund is my AR and was on Aggressive as he has world class power, to try and keep the pressure on. Craig has no talent but is probably my best batter, Horton is my Finisher and Waston my keeper has Spin Spec talent. I wanted to bat first to try and post a score around 200-220, which I believe with my all seam attack, I could defend.

Now, the bowling orders:

Now this may cop criticism from others, but let me explain. I open with Mupariwa for 7 overs as he is a NBB. Mukund as the other end is there to take an early wicket or two. After the 10th over, all the way through to over 35, what I want to do is build up as much Run Rate pressure as possible, that's why there are all those defensive overs. I also never bowl my mediums in tandem, likewise with my fasties, I keep them sprea out so that there is always that mix of attacking/defensive bowler type going throughout.

Over 36 is the one where the batsmen decide, "let's pick things up" and they start to attack more. This happens again at over 41. So from over 36, I put my best two bowlers on, Zahra and Oldfield. Oldfield is an OBB whilst Zahra I forked out $1mil on and is close to NAT selection (yes it was an overpay) and is by far my best option, also is a fast bowler. At this point, I hoped to have them about 4/5 down but needing about 75 runs still off the remaining 14 overs. There are overs at the death by Mukund and Kuhlengisa, which may surprise a few, as they are my worst bowlers. I have done this because I have no intention of bowling those overs, as if the game is not done by the time Oldfield is finished, I won't win. I expect my bowlers to bowl out the opposition by the end of the 46th.

[PowerBug]

The Match, First innings
"Halpert has called heads and lost the toss. Watson ponders for a moment before deciding to bat first. PowerBugCC will start their innings shortly."
That was probably the most important part of the game, had I lost the toss, these orders may have not worked as they did.

After 10 overs, I found myself at 47/2. Both my opening batmsen fell, but remember one was a bowler. Aronstam was out first for 10, then Oldfield fell soon after for 13, very happy with that effort from Oldfield. Also at this time, Butt had scored 15 off 9 balls, his Accumulator talent had triggered 4 times already. So this start was positive, I was on track for a good score, saw out the openers, and I had two batsmen that would hopefully survive until the 20th over.

End of over 25 (1 run) - PowerBugCC(114-3) RR 4.56
S. Mukund 4 (6b), F. Butt 32 (48b), A. Ramsay 3-0-9-0
And survive they did, they got throught the next ten, scoring 37 runs. Both these guys are on defensive, I just want them to bat out time for now, and then look to press on later. Wardlaw got out to the opening bowler, who returned in the 21st. For some reason he was bowling in 5 over blocks, so his 5th bowler had bowled 3 at drinks, whilst one of his openers had bowled 7 already. This made me feel pretty good, as there was still7 overs of spin to come, and Butt was still going, his talent had triggered 9 times all up now.

End of over 30 (5 runs) - PowerBugCC(141-5) RR 4.70
K. Horton 5 (7b), F. Butt 50 (67b), M. Saleh 8-0-42-2
Not the best five over period, I lost both Mukund and Craig in the one over, and I thought I had run my race, and that would be it, I'd get bundled out for 160 and it'd get chased down easily.

End of over 35 (4 runs) - PowerBugCC(171-5) RR 4.89
K. Horton 13 (20b), F. Butt 68 (85b), H. Bashar 8-0-34-1
Accumulator talent had triggered 12 times at this point, and the longer Horton sticks around the better, as his Finisher talent will start to kick in soon. The run rate was brilliant, bit worried about the wickets fallen, but I still had my keeper to come, who can bat.

End of over 40 (8 runs) - PowerBugCC(215-6) RR 5.38
K. Horton 27 (33b), S. Watson 20 (13b), A. Ramsay 8-0-49-1
This is why I chose a green, that spinner is going at over 6 per over, and is starting to cost his team. Horton looks settled, Watson doing well, 270 maybe? Butt got out for 77, talent triggered 13 times all up.

End of over 41 (maiden) - PowerBugCC(215-9) RR 5.24
K. Horton 27 (33b), A. Zahra 0 (0b), J. Kreder 6-1-13-3
Suddenly, all my hopes fell in one over. The game here will tell Horton to farm the strike and not take singles until the 5th or 6th ball. And farm the strike he did...

End of over 46 (9 runs) - PowerBugCC(249-10) RR 5.41
K. Horton 57 (57b), G. Dighton 8-0-50-3
Very very defendable.

The Match, First innings
End of over 10 (6 runs) - Risk Factor!(45-0). 205 runs required from 40 overs. RR 4.50 RRR 5.12
M. Baisya 18 (37b), C. Mwangi 18 (24b), S. Mukund 5-0-23-0
This was a poor start by my bowlers, I really wanted the breakthrough early here, they weren't my top bowlers, so considering they only went for 45, it was a pass mark, but only just. (Mupariwa ended up taking a wicket next over)

End of over 20 (6 runs) - Risk Factor!(102-2). 148 runs required from 30 overs. RR 5.10 RRR 4.93
S. Salman 4 (2b), J. Halpert 27 (29b), D. Oldfield 2-0-7-0
So Mupariwa's 7 overs went for 22, Oldfield has bowler two good overs, Kuhlengisa and Mukund weren't shocking, but Zahra was 3 overs, 1/24! Costing me big time, and I wasn't happy at all, he was letting this match slip.

End of over 25 (3 runs) - Risk Factor!(121-5). 129 runs required from 25 overs. RR 4.84 RRR 5.16
J. Kreder 0 (3b), J. Halpert 39 (46b), A. Zahra 6-0-34-4
Never discount a champion, despite the economy rate, four wickets makes up for that easily! Game on again, advantage PowerBug.

End of over 35 (2 runs) - Risk Factor!(174-6). 76 runs required from 15 overs. RR 4.97 RRR 5.07
J. Kreder 13 (29b), G. Dighton 13 (23b), J. Kuhlengisa 8-1-26-0
Hit the 36th over now, and it's right at the position where I wanted it to be, RRR is higher than the RR, and he only has 4 wickets in hand, and my best two bowlers are on. I knew I was going to win at this point, just a matter of by how much.

End of over 39 (5 runs) - Risk Factor!(196-6). 54 runs required from 11 overs. RR 5.03 RRR 4.91
Yep, I'm gonna win....

End of over 40 (6 runs) - Risk Factor!(202-7). 48 runs required from 10 overs. RR 5.05 RRR 4.80
See, I told you.

End of over 42 (6 runs) - Risk Factor!(211-9). 39 runs required from 8 overs. RR 5.02 RRR 4.88
How easy was that. Zahra still has one over left and Oldfield has two.

End of over 44 (9 runs) - Risk Factor!(225-9). 25 runs required from 6 overs. RR 5.11 RRR 4.17
Or maybe not... Kreder was hogging the strike, Zahra was bowled out. The nerves were kicking in.

End of over 45 (5 runs) - Risk Factor!(230-9). 20 runs required from 5 overs. RR 5.11 RRR 4.00
uh oh.

End of over 46 (4 runs) - Risk Factor!(234-10). 16 runs required from 4 overs. RR 5.09 RRR 4.00
M. Saleh 0 (2b), D. Oldfield 9.5-0-52-4
SAVED! Oldfield takes the wicket! Lets go back to the previous post for a second: "I expect my bowlers to bowl out the opposition by the end of the 46th." The final wicket fell on the 5th ball of the 46th over, ta da! That's how you do it!

Match Ratings
Match Ratings
PowerBugCC Risk Factor!
Batting - Top Order 9,642 13,776
Batting - Middle Order 11,493 11,614
Batting - Tail 3,880 5,034
Bowling - Seam 11,524 (50) 12,997 (40)
Bowling - Spin 0 (0) 14,078 (10)
Fielding/Keeping 13,464 14,093
Overall 194,194 225,012

It was a huge upset in the end, did I deserve to win? I think I did. What was the key moment in the game? Perhaps if you look at the Scorecard you'll have a better idea. It was the spinner, 65 runs off his 10 overs, and wicketless, that was the difference, if he had that 5th seamer, he probably would've only gone for 40 runs and taken a wicket or two, the spinner released the pressure.

Thanks for reading, I'll try and find another one where things didn't go as I hoped, or if someone has something they were very happy with on different conditions or even a different format, I'll do that, as I don't have much experience on anything but seaming decks and OD. :P

[PowerBug]

reserved.

[PowerBug]

reserved