The Contenders Athlai Unfortunately it looks like the Avengers will be pushing for a top eight spot, if not outright title contenders. Extremely strong draft from him so far - despite patchy form as of late Mathews will be h4x in this, Younis Khan was a steal, Shadab Khan was a really good pick from a balance point of view - though isn’t a strong 7 in this comp, Aaron Finch will probably be annoyingly good. The attack is diverse and good. There’s no real weaknesses in this team so far. Baxter I think Baxter went through a bit of a rough patch mid-draft, but has pulled it back very nicely with a set of three Test-class county players in the late rounds. Going Lyon and Anderson in the first two rounds was a gamble, but I think it’s paid off - especially given how stupidly good Pope has the potential to be. The attack will be good, the top order is probably better than it looks on paper, and in Mulder he has a good all-round option. Captain Good draft so far from Captain. Amla and Kohli will make for an awesome batting line-up, and Chase probably slid too far to get to him. Question marks strike me as being over the openers - especially if Kaushal is going to keep and Petersen gets nerfed a bit - and I think Roshen might look better on paper than in reality. He rounds it out with a very solid attack with spinners who turn it both ways, two quicks with awesome recent records, and a promising young gun in Coad. Should do well. Hunter First four rounds were perfect, his next five were middling, his final three back to good. Sibley was a bad pick at the time given he got a better English top order bat 30 picks later, but the Test ton in South Africa is properly jammy. Rizwan and Ambris are very good late picks and filled what could have been glaring gaps, Muthusamy is a no-rounder but fills that #8 batsman and fifth bowler role well. Holder really gives the side flexibility. The team is crying out for a spinner to replace Harry Conway, but should go well. Magrat Garlick So many potential openers! The bowling attack here is very awesome and should go well, but the Markram and Burns picks in Round 2 and 3 means that there’s no batsman that jumps out as averaging 50+. The balance is very nice with Verreynne being a genuine #6, while Cornwall was a good late pick-up given the recent Test exploits and provides added batting depth. I think Mitch Marsh will play an important role. I wasn’t expecting to see Imran Farhat get picked in CPL 2020, but the more I look at it the more I think it’s a good call. Number 11 This is the dark horse of the competition imo. Picked up a lot of solid test batsmen while everyone else tripped over themselves trying to out h4x each other with domestic heroes who’ll probably turn out to be average, and then identified some domestic heroes who’ll probably turn out to be very handy. And he has Devon Smith, who I assume Cribb has hard-coded in as Bradman. Dickwella went too early, but that was the only mis-step imo. Mahmudullah and Kusal Perera give some real flexibility as well. Spark Taking the approach of picking India A plus a few is pretty sound, albeit more Tory/Royalist than Revolutionary. Less so when decent Test players are still on the board, but it certainly minimises the risk of spuds. Cam Green is a huge risk when there’s about eighteen different ways he could get nerf-owned, but Imad Wasim covers off some of that by being way better than his recent stats suggest down at 8. Philander at 9 is also ludicrous batting depth. I think the attack is heavily reliant on Vern, but in fairness it’s easy enough to bring in more bowlers if needed. Dark Horses Alex Noting that Livingstone is pencilled in as 12th man in the thread, I actually think this is a pretty reasonable line-up irrespective. Batting is reasonable but probably lacks that real star batsman - Azad is unproven, Jadhav is relying on ODIs, and I can’t fully bring myself to rate Nair or Handscomb even though both will be fine. Lots of runs from Cook and Wade are key here. I think the main weakness will be addressed somewhat when Livingstone swaps out for someone who can bowl - both Parnell and Curran strike me as fourth bowlers at the moment. Boobidy Stokes was a huge call but a good one, I think. Following it up with two specialist quicks less so - although it makes for an absolutely stacked bowling attack (especially when Swepson will probably be better-than-he-should-be). Renshaw and Ferguson strike me as weaker links batting-wise, but all things considered it’s a pretty reasonable middle order. The depth picks are gonna be key - could make a big play to move into the top bracket if the replacements are good when Jofra decides he cbf bowling any more. Chewie The meme is that Chewie doesn’t make bad picks and it’s rung true throughout, but when they all get stacked together it seems to have created a balance conundrum. Someone has to bat out of position, the tail is insanely long, and I don’t think Somerville’s going to pay off at all. Pencil this team in for 9th imo. Gazza Great start to the draft, and then turned into a bit of a mixed bag. Picking a third opener in R11 was also pretty weird. The batting is good and Buttler-Pandya-Woakes provides some nice balance, the bowling is good-but-not-great and misses a star bowler, and I think there’s a couple of question marks over the openers. Jeets an ATG pick, but Robinson went too early. GoodAreasShane Feels like GAS started off trying really hard to win and then gave up to go for people he liked instead, which is an entirely fair way to approach things. The batting is pretty good, but the bowling less so. No fifth bowler, a weak #8 and Klaasen being pretty bad as of late pull GAS back into lower mid-table imo. HeathDavisSpeed I’m sitting Heef right in the middle because I have no idea what to make of this. On the one hand, I don’t necessarily think his first XI picks in any way correlate to his first XI, on the other I was expecting him to go to go hard down the Essex-and-Associates-only route once he went for Bopara. Smith is absolutely going to help, he’s found a h4x Namibian left-armer, and Mitchell was a very good pick. Bess is going to struggle, Taylor’s a bit ehh, and I think the lack of a keeper who won’t get nerfed for taking the gloves is a hole at the moment. The first five picks were absolutely awesome though and set up a ridiculously gun core to play around with. jimmy_c8 First time CPL-er, right? Pretty awesome effort for it - especially with the starting five picks. I think this team lacks a real ‘strike rate’ bowler, given it’s hard to know how Behrendorff will go given he hasn’t played an FC game in 2 years + and has no Test record to fall back on, and Taijul probably won’t be incisive in this imo. Theunis was an awesome steal at pick 188 and really filled out the middle order well. Like Boobidy, this team is really pushing the top bracket if all goes well. Skippos I mean, Marnus paid off. Higgins is weird for balance but given the tactic is to prepare a dustbowl and see what happens it works I guess. Not a fan of the opening combination - DdS should be fine, but I reckon Oshada’s gonna get owned for coming straight outta Colombo First Grade. Rashid ODI h4x should go well. Feels half a batsman light to me, although Saha’s non-Test record means he should be pretty fine. The Midfield Benny Pattinson and Warner was a great start, Dhoni’s going to be ODI h4x, Pant and Marsh will go well. But I worry about the attack a bit - it’s heavily Patto-reliant. Hendricks is ok, but Piedt and Sayers aren’t the strongest depth options and there’s no real fifth bowling option. Some good depth picks will put this team into contention, but for now I have it as a team that will cause upsets and bat well, but struggle for 20 wickets consistently. Cabinet96 The batting just looks really light here - it’s missing an absolute gun. Vince is not an inspiring three given his recent FC record isn’t super amazing or anything, so I think this team is going to need big opening stands that just aren’t quite there. Pandey will do ok, I don’t think Gurkeerat is quite good enough to be a five so that kinda cancels out the reasonable strength of 6 and 7. But Moeen’s bowling will be very useful to balance things and Bumrah could be outright game-breaking. So there’s that. Dhokchau This is a bit rough - first time player at this, doesn’t have the context and inside knowledge of how the sim works, had his balance screwed over from the start by some questionable ElvisSpike picks. Shan Masood and Marcus Harris were astute picks to try to salvage what ElvisSpike had left behind, but Mukund and Weatherald have left Dhokchau behind the eight ball here imo. Julian This strikes me as an extremely good draft from someone who entirely missed Round 1. I get what the plan was with de Grandhomme but I just don’t quite think it was justified. With Maxwell and Henriques it was looking too all-rounder heavy given Bairstow’s recent shit-ness, leaving it overly reliant on Agarwal and Ballance for runs. Trott in R12 is a good fix, but I still think the middle order will struggle a bit. Dilruwan is a real weak link imo - the statistics don’t make for good reading to begin with and he’ll probably get SL pitch-owned too. I had it sitting as a Dark Horse, but as I went through the rest of the teams I kept finding ones that looked a little bit better. MrPrez The batting’s decent, the bowling may surprise - but matching it up against the other teams on offer, I struggle to see where Prez will find wins. Drafting a no-rounder who bowls left arm spin when Shakib is the #5 is weird. Also you keep timing out, so down to the bottom you go. Also you swapped out Cook for Shahzad after I did all this and I’m not entirely convinced it makes your team better anyway. Lack of any actual Presidents is disappointing. Phlegm You drafted a 12th man in Round 4. Fuck you. You’ll suck. StephenZA Rabada and Rohit was a gun start, but it’s clear that this is a team of favourites rather than hard-nosed drafting for a title contender. Linde-Smith-Nabi really need to be fighting over two spots, so identifying the right depth picks (probably using that RSA domestix knowledge ) will be crucial here. There should have been two picks between taking Sharma and nabbing Hamza, but otherwise I think there’s a lot to like about this team. Williams F1 morgieb You were the best team until Round 8 and then you insisted on drafting absolute spuds and screwing your team balance in the process. Nissanka-Paine-Hasan was a great way to squander a very good start - and picking Jarvis in R11 means that Jadeja is at 5, Stevens at 6 and Paine at 7; there’s probably some 50yo Minor Counties ‘keeper out there who’s #BetterThanPaine as a 7 ffs. Also Gill trying to un-fuck his average by actively cheating is not a good look. Koyal Kamplers to hilariously khoke their way to a spoon. Not Rated HoweDan Not gonna rate my own but Larkin’s gonna fuck you up.
I would like to clarify that A) I didn't swap out Cook and Shahzad; I have both of them in my squad. B) Your comment about Dhokchau being a first-time CPL player applies to me too c) I should be in Williams F1 category. I fucked up my draft in the second half of my first XI as I was on holiday so couldn't do lots of research. That's why it morphed into such an SA-dominated side. I've long conceded that I'll be in contention for wooden spooning this one. Not sure how frequently CPL's happen but I'm already using this draft to work out how best to execute an effective draft in the next iteration. Side note - will be opening to trading one of my batsmen for a good bowler down the line, since Phlegm is being a cunt and not trading me for my one true love, Morne Morkel.
Heh, don't think it's exactly inaccurate though. The batting looked really solid from memory and Philander alone automatically made it a much better attack. Also is the Williams F1 category the "terrible" teams category, or just "massive underperformers" category?
Well that CPL didn't have 24 or whatever teams so teams are always going to be much stronger in that scenario. Williams F1 is terrible category.
I wonder how my side would've been viewed if I didn't manage to underperform that badly in CWPL. Realistically it's still one of the better teams (agree that if the draft stopped here my balance would be a big concern - but then I wouldn't have drafted both Mehidy + Jarvis with R10 + 11 picks)
Na he’s heading for the spoon. Team is careening off the cliff. I can’t wait for him to fix the holes with trades.
Prez - research is overrated. As if we all have time to travel through teams of stats. Pfft. Just pick players from your own favourite team, retired hacks, cult heroes and Taranaki players like Phlegm does.
Yeah Morgie definitely needs to engage in some canny trades to fix his late picks, even if it means trading away some of his stronger early picks in 3-for-3 trades. Keatherald batting 5 for him is the Kamplers team we need.
