Nightmare season for me, never managed to get to grips with my bowlers' PFLs, and ended up triple relegating. Hopefully will have slightly easier leagues in Od and BT20 IV, and FC VI next season, so took the opportunity to do a bit of redeveloping for the future. Staveley, Wond/Qual bat, and Lombard, Prof/Sup Bat, Qual/Qual RHS, were both tipping 30 at the end of the season, so I sold them on for 2.7M and £2.6M respectively. I've kind'a replaced both of them with,
Matthew Heelam - 27 yo, BT Rating=58,014 shortcuts.asp?action=add&type=p&id=503511 shortcuts.asp?action=add&type=p&id=503511
RH Batsman, RH Spin Bowler. He is a destructive player with abysmal leadership skills and exceptional experience.
He currently has strong batting form, superb bowling form and sublime fitness.
Stamina: HYPERLINK proficient Wicket Keeping: worthless
Batting: remarkable Concentration: quality
Bowling: remarkable Consistency: superb
Fielding: woeful
For £4.2M, which, in the short-term at least, does weaken the side a little. But at least I do have a very small amount of change with which to buy a Strongish back-up bowler, to hopefully lessen the chances of a similar PFL crisis next time around. Heelam is a bit older than I'd have liked ideally, but I'll tart up his Stam, and then stick him on a fielding net. At his age his secondaries should pop like crazy, and he'll end up being quite useful I reckon. My keeper, Noon, is a Rem/Elite bat, and he's regularly in the top ten bats in my league - So if Heelam ends up something like Rem/Exc, he should do a job.
I'm hoping to pull a batting trainee in the first few weeks of next season, as there's a bit of a hole in my team ATM, after selling Staveley, which I'm having to plug with my second keeper, a 27 YO Comp/Med Bat. Still there's nothing left in the kitty hardly, so I'll have to get on with it, as a back-up bowler is a far more pressing concern than a No.8 bat!
Current team is (as usual absolutely no tabulation, sorry!)
1. Doug Greening, 28YO, Steady. Stam-Strong, Bat-Mast, Conc-Sens
2.+. Joe Noon, 28YO, Steady. Stam-Prof, Bat-Rem, Conc-Elite, WK-Wond
3. Matthew Akhtar, 23YO, Dest. Stam-Strong, Bat-Mast, Conc-Wond
4.B4. Matthew Heelam, 27YO, Dest. Stam-Prof, Bat-Rem, Conc-Qual, Bowl-Rem (RHS), Cons-Sup
5.B5. Simon Pace, 23YO, Def. Stam-Comp, Bat-Qual, Conc-Wond, Bowl-Qual (RF), Cons-Rem
6.*. Neale Patel, 29YO, Steady. Stam-Resp, Bat-Strong, Conc-Resp, (Sup Lead, Exq Exp)
7. Frank Mohammed, 26YO, Def. Stam-Med, Bat-Strong, Conc-Feeb
8. Thomas Lovegrove, 27YO, ATT. Stam-Woe, Bat-Comp, Conc-Med, WK-Comp
9.B1. Jon Wilde, 25YO, Caut. Stam-Sup, Bat-Feeb, Conc-Med, Bowl-Exc (RM), Cons-Sens
10.B2. Dirk Katleho, 22YO, Caut. Stam-Strong, Bowl-Sens (RF), Cons-Qual
11.B3. Keith Benamar, 21YO, ATT. Stam-Prof, Bowl-Sens, Cons-Sup.
As discussed above, I ramped up my younger players' Primaries, and am currently in the process of rounding out their secondaries. I think the team's still making progress, though I'm falling behind the strides made by a lot of CW sides. However I'm starting to get nets free, so a new generation of trainees could turn things around in a few seasons.
Later, Trev