Cricket World Cup 2011 Fantasy League

15 days away now!

I love the cricket world cup. It's always got a nice grass-roots amateurish feel to it But, even though we're pretty shit at the moment - there's always much to be excited about. If nothing else it's still going to be a month or so of awesome cricket.

Aaaaand what better way to kick off the anticipation than with a fantasy league! It's probably best to have two different threads (one for WC news, one for fantasy league) so it doesn't get all jumbled up. So this can be the fantasy league thread.

http://espncricinfo.fantasyleague.com/Index.aspx

Go here and sign up and choose your teams. You get to choose of three different combos of bowlers / all-rounders / batters / keeper - so read up on all the rules to make the signup process easier. I've just chosen my team now. Here's my prelim team that I've put about 10 minutes of thought into so far, so will be reviewing (you have unlimited changes until the tourney starts):

Smith
Sehwag
Taylor
Bell
Kallis
Oram
Treadwell
McCullum
Johnson
Malinga
Steyn

Which fit perfectly into the budget

So yeah, when you're all signed up. Join the "Biggie" league, and the PIN to join the league is 1262.
My team name is "YaK AttaK" <-- lolz

In

IRON_FIST_NZ


Prop bet imo. Make it $25 US so the nits can join?

US?



gc.

poker account transfer, normal people only deal in USD supermuff

You guys are weird.

Anyway - I'm in. Here are "Nathan's Noodlers"

Shane Watson
Jesse Ryder
Johnathan Trott
Mahela Jayawardene (c)
AB De Villiers (wk)
Eoin Morgan
Yusuf Pathan
Michael Yardy
Harbajhan Singh
Ajantha Mendis
Dale Steyn

I chose a lot based on 'all round' potential. I think particular value will come from added little bonus runs from bowlers, or the likes of Trott & Ryder chipping in with wickets. Watson, De Villiers & Jayawardene are just too good to leave out imo.



gc.

wot

This isn't a 'who do you like best' competition, is it? Too good mate. Will be the key factor in Aussie's success at this WC I think.



gc.

heh yeah.. One interesting thing you have to weigh up though is the run rates (for bowlers and batters).
So if you have a guy that's listed as a batter but also bowls a bit, but isn't experienced and ends up going for 9/over, then you lose 50 points :o

IJL Trott
CH Gayle
AB de Villers
DJ Hussey
JEC Franklin
M Morkel
M ul-Haq
RN ten Doeschate
Z Khan
HM Amla (c)
H Singh


Ship it

Also keen for US$25 prop bet

+1

Well yeah. Pretty much a lottery methinks!



gc.

Yet you still pick fucking Shane Watson, Im telling Quintin!

You know we can see your team right Maestro? You picked Watson too?

im in & in.

As soon as i figure out how this cricket thing works

or more importantly how the points in fantasy cricket world cup will work - then I will submit my team

You have unlimited changes until Cup starts anyway so no dramas if you don't get it perfect now

lol just hit LUCKY DIP to see what the random draw would look like. OMG rubbish rubbish rubbish

Am so tempted to start two teams just to see what sort of points the random team would get vs our selected and considered picks. Im not saying this is the worst team ever but really come on


SK Raina
BAT, IND
Y Khan
BAT, PAK
HM Amla
BAT, SA
RR Sarwan
BAT, WI
M Hafeez
AR, PAK
DJ Bravo
AR, WI
AB de Villiers
WK, SA
SCJ Broad
BWL, ENG
Z Khan
BWL, IND
TG Southee
BWL, NZ
NO Miller

All go here ...

Team: Bash n Dash!

Amla
Ryder
Trott
Kallis
Afridi
Duminy
Prior
Pollard
H Singh
Morkel
Steyn

Gonna smash you lot up large!!

Not one saffa, fuck you spencer you cunt!

smf/reaction in for US$25 ?

wtf @ me picking watson. I did fucking not! Stupid site must be broken! Changing it now

And I picked 2 safas *Reaction*...they just happen to play for England! (its not even close to my final team anyway, I just rattled off some names so I could join the league and get this thread moving

Keen mate, but not sure how I would pay/transfer? I do not have such things as poker accounts. Not even a credit card to activate one.



gc.

Not that bad really!



gc.

I think I might have too many kiwis in my team

Six Hitters:

Taylor, NZ
Ryder, NZ
Bell, ENG
Hussey, AUS
Gayle (c), WI
Collingwood, ENG
Styris, NZ
McCullum (wk), NZ
Malinga, SL
Tait, AUS
Muralitharan, SL

Then you can just nz bank transfer NZ$ equivalent I still have NZ account heh

I do apologize for continiously picking on you in this thread supermuff, but you need to stop beiñg such a pussy turncoat liar!

You and Yaksha INTRODUCED me to online poker, you have a Stars account!

PS Its not "weird" that USD is the gogo mate. Its SO MUCH more convenient than crappy NZ bank transfers, so fix that shit up!

Hmmm. I think I do have a Pokerstars account, but I've never put any money on it. Haven't played online poker in about 5 years.



gc.

I just selected a bunch of randoms. I'll put more thought into it though before the comp starts

Ponting
Guptill
Ryder
Amla
Tendulker
Vettori
Al Hasan
McCullum
Shuvo
Singh
Chawla

No quicks, i think spin will rule this cup, and with 40 changes in group play it's easy enough to drop one in if a top teams playing a minnnow. Ricky's last WC, he will score runs imo, and the rest are all good players of spin. Birkenhead FTWCC, boh!

sup biggie.

My selection have come together to play for New Zealand's unsung cricket hero, Michael Papps. Sponsored by the Michael Papps Awareness Society.

The Michael Papps Invitational XI currently consist of:

Trott
Smith
Ryder
Sehwag
Pathan
Watson
Franklin
Sangakkara
Steyn
Johnson
Chawla

Brutal hundred from Dhoni last night. Vintage stuff.

New Zealand will not make the semi finals, not one of our players - not a single one - have the talent or temperament to cope with good spinners. Especially not in those conditions. If Ashwin, Chawla and Harbajhan bowl well through the tournament, India should cruise through. Ominous!



gc.

Yeah Im thinking that the safas are the only ones that can stop them, SA are ridiculously due and stacked with firepower. They dont NEED certain players (ie Kallis) to fire to win this cup imo. They have plenty of match winners right across their squad, I'll be watching them closely and this really should be their World Cup imo

Apart from putting up with neil and *Re-Action* I wouldnt hate SA winning either. Better than India who I am starting to despise with their influence, Aussie I obviously hate and I will always despise Sri Lanka too. I like the Pakis but they piss me off with their match fixing greed...so that leaves me rooting for WI SA, ENG and NZ.

As for us...... even though we can be batting Southee/Mills at 11 we still cant be chasing down 350ish alla time so the bowlers have to fix up, still really concerned about Mills, he is just the wrong pace.... but I thought Jake looked good at times.

Mills has always just bowled along the pitch and will get carted at this WC. We're in for a pretty rough ride, I promise you that. It wouldn't even surprise me if we got toppled by a minnow at this point. Our bowlers have all of zero confidence, and our batsmen have more confidence than talent.

Ross Taylor looked utterly hapless, the worst I've ever seen him, last night against Ashwin.



gc.

Rooting for NZ in the WC is going to be so hard. But lets not write them off until the semi's they always have that one good game in them. In saying that they will either face SA or India in the QF's so yeah

So my predictions for the groups would be the following:

Group A
1. India (I'm going to give India home adv here but I think SA will have it over them, to me we are just more complete team)
2. South Africa
3. England
4. WI / Bangers (it will depend on who wins the game between these 2 I recon)

Group B:
1. Sri-Lanka
2. Australia
3. Pakistan
4. NZ

Then this is how the QF will be played.

GR A1 vs GR B4 Sril-Lanka vs WI / Bangers

GR A3 vs GR B2 Pakistan vs SA

GR A2 vs GR B3 Australia vs England (Australia have proven they can't play spin, if Swan plays they will have a hard time beating England)

GR A4 vs GR B1 NZ vs India

Semi's:

SA vs Sri-Lanka
India vs England

Finals:

SA vs India

SOUTH AFRICA AND MAN OF TH E SERIES!!!!!

odds?

Not willing to bet on something I'm so emotionally attached to!



gc.

SO….I’m just finally reading the rules of the Fantasy League with a view to confirming the prop bet…. but something seems weird

The rules state you can make 40 changes during the group stage….and there are 42 games

So that pretty much means that after every game you have to fk about checking the schedule, team lists and logging in to change your team etc

Seems like too much work, I’m not wanting to be a slave to cricinfo, especially if they up with servers problems (which wouldn t surprise me) I’m out of the prop bet unless we compromise to limit/cancel the group changes or something (or unless Im not reading it correctly and someone can that point out)

Look out! Killjoy was here!

Wot.

Don't be a dick - it's up to you to make, or not make the changes. It makes sense to change your team lots because sometimes you won't have players playing in any of the games?



gc.

Prop bet is confirmed already you dirty piker. No returnsies now

And you don't have to go through your team lists every game. Otherwise you'd only be making one change at a time, so there's no advantage. It's not like you can have 6 aussies for the first AUS game and then switch them all out for the next game they're not playing, cause you'll run out of changes too quickly.

So you set your team, wait for 2-3 games or so, then make a bulk change or something.

So looks like from the thread me/maestro/deadmoney/interbreed/smf are in so far.

Anyone else in for the prop bet? Obv will need to confirm before the first game starts.

FUCK! Slave to a crappy internet comp! I thought I got out of all that when I vetoed NRL tipping! Its no wonder gummi has been conspicious in his absence, its not cos hes nitty its cos he's got glasses and is clever!

sigh

I thought you would be into skill vs luck Maestro.

I reckon 40 changes in pool play is too big but hey its up to the participants if they want to try and work that to their advantage and how hard they want to work at it.

TBH I already made a dozen changes to my team and am thinking about a dozen more based on points structure.

The only thing I havnt worked out yet is "Transfer fees" and how much you get for your accumulated points cause if the transfers a free then thats a crap load of thinking/work and you would HAVE TO make the 40 changes to get max advantage

Whereas if it is a max of 40 and you have to accumlate points/money to afford transfer fee for good players then the strategy changes...

anyone seen the transfer details?

Seems like it will be free?

I just had a look at the first 3 games which are all on the same day and made a couple of changes. I think I'm just going to attempt to keep a good core of 6-8 players and only change if particular teams aren't playing for a few days. Also... GUTS if you're not paying close attention and one of your cheaper players gets named 12th man. I've picked Guppy as we're up against Kenya and he had a feast the other day against Ireland... but if for some weird reason they pick How, I'll have to be on the ball to change it over...



gc.

I just changed my team to reflect the first 3 games of the tournament. Pretty solid team I have to say without breaking the budget.

BAT JD Ryder NZ 85000 0 0 0 0 0 0
BAT T Iqbal BAN 85000 0 0 0 0 0 0
BAT V Sehwag IND 100000 0 0 0 0 0 0
BAT DPMD Jayawardene SL 95000 0 0 0 0 0 0
AR SB Styris NZ 90000 0 0 0 0 0 0
AR Y Singh IND 95000 0 0 0 0 0 0
AR TM Dilshan SL 95000 0 0 0 0 0 0
WK MS Dhoni (c) IND 100000 0 0 0 0 0 0
BWL NL McCullum NZ 75000 0 0 0 0 0 0
BWL S Sreesanth IND 80000 0 0 0 0 0 0
BWL H Singh IND 95000 0 0 0 0 0 0


This is going to be AWESOME!

Yeah I did the same thing mate, but you still have to be careful not to make wholesale changes because you'll find your 40 changes will evaporate pretty quickly. I made a few changes that I'll probably keep, such as changing Sangakkarra for De Villiers.

BAT JD Ryder
BAT DPMD Jayawardene
BAT EJG Morgan
BAT MJ Guptill
BAT V Sehwag
AR S Al Hasan
AR YK Pathan
WK KC Sangakkara
BWL PP Chawla
BWL H Singh
BWL BAW Mendis



gc.

prop bet should only be only if you dont change your team at all

only homos bring in players if theyre in form, live with what you choose

^^ no way... it's a level playing field, use the rules to your advantage as best you can.

And remember we're not just competing among ourselves. There's heaps of cool overall prizes, so effectively ruling out our chances of winning by privately limiting our options wouldn't make any sense.

And... it's just plain stupid to pick one team and stick to it. This competition is spread out over like 2 weeks and you're afforded 40 changes - would be foolishness to just stick with one team.



gc.

BAT LRPL Taylor
BAT V Sehwag
BAT G Gambhir
BAT JD Ryder
AR SB Styris
AR JM Davison
AR Y Singh
WK BB McCullum
BWL SL Malinga
BWL PP Chawla
BWL H Singh

My new team for the first 3 games

Those with Nathan Mac in their team might have something to think about - he's been admitted to hospital. Doesn't sound serious and will be discharged in the morning, but 24hrs before the game!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/4678218/Nathan-McCullum-hospitalised-in-Chennai



gc.

Totally agree with you Interbreed and I would just play you HU, but Yaksha will bleat at me too much so I sighcall

So its just smf/Yak/me/deadmoney now? $100 pot gl all

Don't think Interbreed is actually pulling out?

ill play you heads up mastro

gl all

Could you be clear Interbreed?

Are you playing Maestro HU additionally?

Yeah right

cant play you HU AND play the main game Interbreed,. its too late now anyway .....+ I asume Interbreed is out thats what he said. So its 4 of us but I cant exactly see where smf comiited either?And gummi didnt even come in. Fuck Yaksha your comp is a total mare man

SMF said he's keen, you confirmed, I confirmed, and deadmoney confirmed, Interbreed confirmed - and hasn't said whether he's out or not? Stop trying to wiggle out you bloody nits. Honestly

TY SEHWAG

i r confused.

im just playing for fun now. no $$

k

GAY.

I'm obviously in. And annoyed at fucken nits not reading how the game works and trying to back out because it doesn't bloody suit their lazy disposition. Very lame. Even more lame pretending you're "confused" and backing out of a *massive* $25 bet, when the premise is pretty simple anyway.



gc.

Agreed very lame smf Anyway..

HAhahaha, very first batsman of the whole Cup and he's over 150* already. Huge man-crush on Sehwag here :>

We don't get bonus points for 200??



gc.

Haha ya So 275 points just from Sehwag today lol. He just scraped in for the 30 point bonus with exactly 125 strike rate too FML if anybody had Kohli too

edit: Oh actually probably 375 points for Sehwag cause he'll be a lock for MoM too.

Greg Chappell had Sehwag and Kohli on the "celeb" page.

I had Pathan who I *think* ended up costing me 2 points. Need him to bowl to make up for that.



gc.

Would have picked either Ashwin OR Chawla for this game and they're not even fucking playing. Ugggggh



gc.

Although did have a random spot of luck with Al Hasan getting out (after scoring 50 as one of my players) - got out to one of my bowlers, and caught by one of my other players, thus actually getting a positive point score out of him getting out!

Heh

:>

gc.

TY "CAPTAIN" Shewag.... 750pts

Good start for me but in last 24hours I have changed my mind on forward strategy about 3 times now...

Will see what happens tonight and decide on next steps.

Boom captain Sehwag I like it! Sick move. Captain moves could be crucial and something I hadn't considered, as I think you can do them freely... so you can still get yourself extra points without actually moving players around. Still did pretty well out of that 1st game. Let's see how the Crap Caps and Lankans go.

This is turning out to be more fun than I expected.



gc.

Ugh I *completely* forgot about captain! It auto-chose Yuvraj Singh for me... horrible choice

It's fine though really, you haven't missed out on *that* much. No worse off than me because I had my captain as Mahela Jayawardene and obviously he wasn't playing in that game. It would pay to change the captain almost daily, assuming someone in your team is at least playing on that day.



gc.

I prob would've chose Sehwag though if I'd remembered heh. I had him as my captain before I deleted everyone and started again to choose players for the first 3 games Doh. Oh well.... let's go B-Mac

yeah captain moves and MOM are the money along with milestone bonuses

point to note is double NEGATIVEs if the Captain has a bad day though which could suck...

Cant believe I had a player in my team that didnt play at all ASHWIN..... for the first round when it was no cost/to transfer him :o( Could of had Kohli...

Yeah so great...now we have to log onto cricinfo after EVERY game and change the captain. Fuck you work dodging cricket nerds aye, some of us have proper important jobs you know




PS Nice pickl dm, I would have done the same if it had occured to me too, instead my capatin for that game from Brendon McCullum

Yeah. I had Chawla. Motherfuckers.



gc.

I'm now struggling to decide who she be my fucken captain today! I had Jayawardene originally because he'll be consistent through the whole WC, but it seems that is pretty much irrelevant and 'captain' is really just a rotating bonus tool.

Should probably change to Sangakkara just for the bonuses of catches. HMMMM

:>

gc.

ok thats enough bleating now

Im goingto make Guppy my capati for tonight, he's a bully that man. 140 from him tonight

Dammit we're bowling first Hopefully the Kenyans can post something half decent so we can get some decent runs. If they can get to at least 180 can still get a century out of B-Mac

Yeah I agree Pechora I was soo hoping we would win and Bat first so we could have a shot a the big runs. Now I gotta rely on our bowling attack.. sigh

Oh well thats 1 wicket for Southee so far

oops. I forget to go back and change my picks

BOOM 3 wickets for Bennetts early in his spell to go with 1 for Southee.

All I need now is a Vettori double 1 more for Bennett and a Guptill 50

wtf you have Bennett?

What a sicko!

Ok so if it wasnt for wicket grubbing Oram my picks would have taken all 10 wickets from Kenyan side.

But at least two of my players picked up Oram catches so the good run continues......

How the fk did you choose Bennett

At least B-Mac got over the 150 strike rate so will get bonus from that.. Disappointing all 'round for me though heh. Had no NZ bowlers so really needed to bat first. grr

I ended up subbing in N McCullum pre-game because I needed to take out Chawla as it seems he's unlikely to feature much. Just had to make another transfer for the SL game too.

Thanks to Sehwag I'm not doing too badly I guess - Deadmoney you must be over 1000 points by now?



gc.

middling start for me, Tendulker getting run out sucked, that should have been his 170!!!!!! Plus picking Chawla and Shuvo, and not spotting thier omissions until too late, grr. 5 changes for tonight, will use 5 more to settle my team then try and be clever with the last 30. Interestingly, the guy in number 1 spot has made 6 transfers already.

And... Malinga gets rested. *sigh*



gc.

^&%^*&^ Malinga not playing.. softcock.....

Seemed a pretty last minute decision as well so I had him in....

Grrr Malinga... and Grrr I had Jawawardene in my team initially but had to sub him out cause I was 5k over budget.. FML. I've got Davison who got 2 wickets at least, hopefully he can get some runs too.. Gunna have to start planning transfers more effectively too cause can't be changing the whole team every few games.

LOL Davison out for a golden duck. F U!

Jayawardene + Sangakkarra (c)... Finished off the round pretty well, just on your heels dead money.



gc.

Nice work SMF I didnt want to make too many transfers for that game....

and looking at it I think I made a bit of a mess with SL vs CAN game. Missed Sanga as (c) cause I wasnt home when Malinga was pulled and game started otherwise would have got those double points.

Have to say that SL looked pretty average last night. They will have to make serious improvement if they are going to trouble the top 4 at the moment...

heh, it just seemed to be something that was gonna take a fair amount of work to maintain my team and I always lose interest pretty quickly in these things. Would have been such a dog in the comp if I joined -- sif I'm gonna donate $20 or whatever it is to one of you nits :>

Would have been much more interested in choosing one team for the comp and sticking with that XI the whole way through....

Am keen on some other bets later on in the comp though once all the minnows are knocked out

Pretty dark about them resting Malinga - I went and read Cricinfo about 2hrs before the game and looked at the probable side which didn't include Mendis, so of course I swapped him out for Malinga... Then what happens? He bowls 8 overs 1/18 and Malinga doesn't play. Grrr.



gc.

Anyone know who Punit Minj and Andy Mikheev are? They've applied to be in our Biggie league.
Make yourselves known!

Dunno mate!

Man... just agonised over my second round of changes. Ended up making 6 changes, but that should get me through til Saturday. Very hard to keep all your players in action through any given period! Now quite annoyed that I had two changes wasted for no points - this is gonna get very hard.

Had to pick 3 Aussies in my team too, because they have 2 games in the next 5 days. Will definitely have to decide on a more settled team shortly.



gc.

Saw that dont know them..

Top place overall has 2634pts and has made 19 changes to his side with an entire side worth of changes likely to be made today (as he has 11 SL,IND,CAN players currently) classic case of early glory no longevity..... Bet you he finishes bottom 30% overall

Yeah the whole top 10 have made around 20 changes each... idiots. That bloody guy who's winning had like 5 Canadian players in his team, what a fucken idiot. I tell ya though - that Greg Chappell is looking like a dark horse... He's only made 2 changes, and one was the forced change with Mills, and is sitting on 2000+ points, 219th place!



gc.

Yeah this is about to get very tough 39 games remaining in group stages, 40 changes remaining for me.

I'm actually somewhat regretting loading up my whole team with Indians/Kiwis now, cause now I have to find some way to switch most of them out without leaving myself dry at the end of the group stages. With an average of one change per game allowed now, it probably would've been better to sacrifice more runs at the start and not have to make as many changes now