Shaggy's School of FTP Tactics and Planning

[8-6 Suited]

Okay so I have come up with the thought that I can create a thread, and do a week in my life as a master tactician. Okay, so the master part is a bit off but I do believe that I am rather decent.

In doing this, it will allow you guys to see what you have to look at when planning ahead for a match, as far as pitch choices and then finally tactics and orders for your matches. I will do it for a few separate opposition teams thus showing how to scout efficiently and effectively. It will contain my team as that is the one that I can actually do and show actual orders that I use in that match, and reasons for why. May also include several NT games too.

It will take some time to get this done but I believe that the benefits will be extremely helpful to not only the newer members but some of the older guys as well.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

[8-6 Suited]

For the first lesson, I am going to break down selections and tactics to get past one of the stronger teams in Division 1, and probably the most experienced manager equisiteblue and his team The Ultimate Blue Roses. This is a SOD match for this Friday and I have the home ground advantage.

I will refer to my opponent by his in-game management name equisiteblue so you now are aware of whom I am talking about throughout this first guide.


The Match

Match Details
Home   Tickle My Timber
Away   The Ultimate Blue Roses
Ground   The Centre of Excellence
League   One Day 1.1
Date   23 Sep 11 09:00
Weather (forecast)   Sunny
Pitch (current)   Hard

As usual, I have moved my ground on the day of my last SOD to ensure that it was on a Hard pitch by the start of the week to allow for movements prior to the game. This way, I am in a middle position and allows me to change to basically every pitch possible to give myself an advantage.

Now I will go on to break down how I scout my opposition and come to the decision on which pitch to select.


Scouting and Pitch Selection

Scouting

So the first thing that I will do is find out what sort of bowling attack that equisiteblue utilizes, by checking what bowlers he has used through-out the season.

Now I could check every scorecard for the season of games that has been played but that would take an incredible amount of time, so here I will tell you the easiest method of accomplishing this task.

Load up his club page, Go to Stats Centre > Career Averages then ensure that you are looking at his One Day games of the current season, and the Bowling stats. It should look like the following.





Once this page is loaded, I look for possible weaknesses in the bowlers used. I notice that he hasn't got a Fast bowler, and only has 2 FM. I then go to his Squad Page in a grid view, and check if he just hasn't been playing them.




Notice he has no Fast bowlers so I am correct to say that it is a weakness I have discovered. His youngest FM is only 20 and with a 3.6k wage, I can summarize that he is highly likely to be only accomplished/accomplished summary or at most, expert/expert. Against my batting attack, that stands little chance.

His best FM however, Faraz Hamid is a National squad player so he must be a decent player. But given this is a Senior NT touring week, I will now check on if he is touring. To do that, I go to his Nation > National Team > Tours > Current dates tour squad. In it I find that he is touring meaning he will be unavailable to equisiteblue in this weeks league matches. Both his other 2 NT players are however available and with Ogot being a Medium, its a given that he will be incredibly strong although Powell is a WS bowler who is rather strong.

Pitch Selection

So now that I know he will only have a 20yo FM at best to play with the rest of his bowling lineup consisting of Mediums, Finger Spinners and a Wrist Spinner, I can now decide on the best Pitch to set for the match up. I will list every pitch and reasons why its a potential or definitely not choice to play.


Sticky - Heavily favours all bowlers.
While the selection of this pitch could be warranted, the quality of his mediums and spinners is undeniable. And considering the aren't disadvantaged by this selection, it could also be harmful to my chances as it doesn't take much for them to fire and devastate a line up on this pitch. -OUT-

Uneven   - Favours seam bowlers, particularly fast and fast-medium bowlers.
A definite thought has gone into this pitch considering the lack of Fast and Fast Mediums in equisiteblue's line up. The only concern is that it favours seam bowlers as a whole, while the F/FM get an extra benefit. It also doesn't disadvantage his spin bowlers so it makes it equally dangerous as a choice. -Originally short listed but OUT-

Green - Favours seam bowlers, particularly medium pace bowlers. Slightly disadvantages spin bowlers.
With a heavy bowling attack consisting of mediums, this is not even a second thought. -OUT-

Hard - Favours batsmen, although fast and fast medium bowlers sometimes enjoy the additional bounce available.
Given Fast/Fast mediums have an advantage here, it is also open to all types of bowlers. But it can be a disadvantage to mediums due to the high amount of runs that can be scored of them. Took some careful consideration but I have leaned another way. -2nd best option but OUT-

Flat - Favours batsmen.
The best option for this match due to us both having strong batting line ups, his lack of pace bowlers will leave him vunerable with Mediums and spinners having the potential of being smacked around. My bowlers with 2 Fast and 2 Fast medium, along with a FS AR will be able to take wickets and restrict on this pitch type thus would allow for my best chance at the win. -WINNER WINNER-

Slow - Slightly favours medium pace and spin bowlers, with batsmen finding it harder than normal to score quickly.
Strong Mediums and Spinners guarantees that this pitch, as with the green pitch, is also ruled out immediately. -OUT-

Dry - Favours spin bowlers. Slightly disadvantages seam bowlers.
Given his stronger spinners, it is definitely not a chance as it is too risky. I'd be relying heavily on the weather to counter-act the disadvantage to seam bowlers which at the same time would allow his bowlers leeway.  -OUT-

Crumbling - Heavily favours spin bowlers. Slightly favours seam bowlers.
Once again, just as with a Sticky pitch, it could go either way. He has stronger spinners as well so I can safely rule out this pitch as well. -OUT-


So now that I have decided on the pitch, being Flat, I can look at how long it will take to set and organize it. From Hard which it is currently on, it only takes 2 days. So I will change it early and hope that he suspects a Slow pitch due to catching it as Flat on the Thursday thus weakening him early.


And this is how you Scout and decide on a Pitch Selection. Takes a mere 15 minutes to do with confidence in the right thing for your chances.

[8-6 Suited]

Reserved for the school.

[bomberboy0618]

Yeah why not. I am awesome though, I beat Heppa. He seems really angry about it.

[Luigi197]

Why are you saying Reserved for School?

But yeah i like this a lot 8) Brilliant idea :)

[bomberboy0618]

Why are you saying Reserved for School?

But yeah i like this a lot 8) Brilliant idea :)

So he can edit it later on.

[8-6 Suited]

He was out-rated so it is fathomable albeit that he had a terrible weekend in the game with his Friendly against the Dutch for the NT squad ended up an utter demolition.


PB, can you delete that post you made and repost it. I am going to do a T20 and SOD version. Obviously I do well in T20 so I would like to be able to share that around with the other guys and I'm no slouch in One Dayers either. :D

Luigi, so I can edit in everything at a later time while it can all be up at the top of the thread.

[PowerBug]

Why not? I defidently need the help with my tactics and it'll make a good read every few days. I'm thinking that it should just be for SOD as that's the main league. And it keeps the posts down.

[bomberboy0618]

He was out-rated so it is fathomable albeit that he had a terrible weekend in the game with his Friendly against the Dutch for the NT squad ended up an utter demolition.


PB, can you delete that post you made and repost it. I am going to do a T20 and SOD version. Obviously I do well in T20 so I would like to be able to share that around with the other guys and I'm no slouch in One Dayers either. :D

I was really scared though, as I thought he would pull something off. I nearly forgot to set orders, but checked the time it started luckily.

[8-6 Suited]

Thanks PB. Just keeps it tidier when I start putting everything in. My son is sick so I'll be home with him everyday and because he is sleeping constantly, I'll be bored with day time TV. :P So I figured I will show the reasons behind orders and such the way I did with Nails when we talked about who to play and why and how and where.

[Fletch74]

Yeah cool, I have absolutely no idea on FTP. With legendary coaching by Shaggy I'll be No. 1 before EOS :P

[DazBurg]

awesome shaggy i look forward to reading it

as i statedin the swing kings thread on FTP i've been looking to learn more about tactics then i already know and use  ;)

[Cicjose]

im hoping this isn't a response to me having 1 million tactics

[8-6 Suited]

This has absolutely nothing to do with you at all Cicjose, but I do hope you learn something from it. If you do learn even just 1 thing then my job is complete.

[Fletch74]

This has absolutely nothing to do with you at all Cicjose, but I do hope you learn something from it. If you do learn even just 1 thing then my job is complete.

I might set up competition against you Shaggy. Don't want you to take all the glory :P