Story ICC 08 - I dunnow what to name this.

[surendar]

Bah, this job will be a cakewalk....

Even in ICC games, you fixed your opponents by some means? Zorax is capable of doing that too, aren't you? Anyways, it should be interesting to see if you can manage to keep your winning path continuing or not!

 

[ZoraxDoom]

April 20 : Kent vs. Essex - Challenge Trophy - Group Match

After cruising to an effortless victory in my first game in charge, I looked to maintain my 100% win record by crushing perennial no-hopers in this first group match of the Challenge Trophy. I don't even know why we have to bother with the group matches, they should just give us the trophy...

Taking a look at the pitch, it seemed be a bit slow, and there was uneven bounce. Seemed like a seamer friendly pitch which had something for spinners, overall a good bowling track. Keeping that in mind, I went with the following XI:

Playing XI: Cook (vc), Bopara, Gallian (vc), Flower (*), ten Doeschate, Pettini, Foster (+), Middlebrook, Napier, Tudor, Kaneria.

A deep batting lineup, Kaneria really the only one who can't hit the ball. Middlebrook got a game as the second spinner, because quite frankly we didn't have anyone else much better. Flower is a good part-time option as well. Seam bowling wise, RTD, Naps and Tudor seem to be a good trio, and there is always Bopara if we get really, really desperate.

Now, before we start the match, I'd like to share with you some opinions going around the street...


"Zorax is a rookie who barely has a clue with what he is doing. Sure, he may have won the last match, but look at all the mistakes! Napier was criminally underbowled in both innings, and barely batted. Waste of a spot if you ask me. Bopara is batting WAYYYY to high at number 3, his two careless dismissals show that, while ten Doeschate isn't as good a bowler as Zorax is making him out to be. Also, Tudor sent in as a pinch-hitter above Napier and Pettini? Who uses a pinch-hitter in FC games anyways?!?! The whole squad is a mess and Zorax did nothing to address that, but made it even worse by ignoring the most obvious choice for skipper (Gallian) for one of his favourites. Essex aren't going anywhere this year, and will stay at the bottom of Division 2 just like they and Zorax richly deserve too." - Simbazz

"OMFGZ!1!1!! ZORAX IS TEH NXT COMING OF JESUS CHRISTZ LOLL!11!! He PWNEDZ the Northampts, WE IZ FINALLY GOING TO WIN! LOLZ! ZORAX FTW!!!" - Mani

"Zorax is a highly un-professional manager, often too busy with other engagements to focus on his team. This was shown when his side Manchester Divided were demoted last season. For all his talk and showmanship, he did eventually fall short where it mattered. One hopes he would bring a more focused outlook to managing Essex, but I wouldn't count on it" - Mr. Sharples, Managing Director of the PCPL.


While I do like to receive criticism and do my best to use it to improve myself and to grow as a player, manager and person...Mr. Sharples and Bazzqueen can both bite me and shove their thoughts up their fat ****, although I doubt there will be much room as their big fat swollen ugly heads are so clearly shoved up there as well. Mani gets free lifetime tickets though.

Off to the match!

​

 

[Dr. Pepper]

I always have something wise to say. Lifetime tickets . Anyway, urm...good luck in the match.

 

[mattfb]

I could have sworn I posted here. I remember reading the update and pretty sure I wrote something...

Haha nice work mate, liking the comedy. Hopefully you can win a few more games but I think the points against you outway the poitns for... only by a tad.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Haha nice work mate, liking the comedy. Hopefully you can win a few more games but I think the points against you outway the poitns for... only by a tad.

Then you can join Simbazz and Mr. Sharples

Grant lost the toss, and we were sent in to field. We would have liked to bat first, but I guess bowling first isn't too bad. We bat deep, so we should be able to chase down most targets.

Out to open the batting for Northampts were former England Nat player Rob Key, and future England Nat player Joe Denly. Taking the new ball for me was CURRENT Dutch player Ryan ten Doeschate. AH HA! Advantage: Essex.

Denly and Key started well, but Tudor struck an early blow by blasting through Denly's defences! 36/1!


As you can see, I tried to put my own personal touch on that image.

The new man in was Neil Dexter. And no, he isn't the Boy Genius...

Nope, that's not Neil Dexter...

But he was pretty damn good, and he and Key just laid right into my seamers. RTD was wayward, and Tudor was bowling too quick for his own good - the batsmen were edging the ball over the slips and keeper for four! Grant brought Naps into the attack from one end, and Kaneria in from the other, but that didn't work too well, Key and Dexter just kept coming at us. In no time they had a 100 run partnership and both men crossed fifty. Not looking good at all. Kaneria was finding some turn though, so Grant tossed the ball to James Middlebrook. That did the trick, as Key mistimed a lofted drive straight into the hands of our VC!



*Groan*. Bad effort at a pun. I apologise.

149/2, Martin van Jaarsveld joined Dexter in the middle. Grant realised now that spin might be the way to go, so he persisted with Kaneria, Middlebrook and himself. Dexter kept motoring along, but was the next man to fall, plumb in front to Middlebrook. BOO YEA! Jaarsveld and Kemp kept the momentum up with some breezy hitting, before Grant himself struck with another LBW. Tudor returned the next over and struck immediately with and LBW as well, and it was 222/5 with 5 and a half overs to go. Good stuff, we felt that we could rein them in to a score below 250.


The LBW montage!

But Arafat had other ideas. He blazed to 32 runs off 17 balls as the final 5 overs cost 47 runs. He pasted Tudor, Kaneria and Flower about - Grant's final over cost 13 runs. Stevens just poked the ball about and watched from the other end as Arafat tore into us, taking Northampts to 269. Yikes.


Arafat either signals that he wants a new bat, or flicks one through leg. I forget.




Too big a score I feel. We needed to keep them under 250, and failed at that. The quick bowlers were poor, although Tudor on another day might have picked up a five-fer, and it was down to the part-time spinners of Middlebrook and Grant to keep things under control. Expected more from Kaneria, but he didn't shine. Dexter played a fantastic knock, and pretty much all the batsmen weighed in. Arafat's blaze and Key's fifty were other crucial innings as we were set 270 runs to win.

Oh, and I blanked out the MOTM for you this time, so that it wouldn't kill the suspense.
​

 

[mattfb]

That's a good score and it won't be easy to chase down. You really should have kept them to around 250. Nice work mate, very funny update. kiu!

 

[hedger_14]

like the dexter bit lol.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

The Agony of De-Feet



Well, we lost. Chasing a score above 250 was never going to be easy on this pitch, and we lost in spectacular fashion. Not to mention my feet hurt now as well, that jackass David Masters thought it would be funny to tie my ankles to the chair on which I was sitting, and then nail said chair to the floor. I got up and ran to the next table to answer my cell phone and damn well near snapped my feet in half. The idiot. He clearly doesn't take to being dropped very well.

Anyways, the innings started of fairly well. Alastair Cook hit the first ball of the match for four! I'll say that again. Cookie hit a four. Off the first ball of the match. Took a while for that to sink in...



Ravi and Cookie proceeded to string together a solid opening partnership. It's wasn't spectacular -they were only going at about 3.5 and over- but it was giving us a base to build on. Ravi was getting his eye in, and was just about ready to dig into the bowling when disaster struck and edged Arafat to McLaren at slip. 55/1, and with the required rate sneaking to 6, we were in trouble.

So I sent in Graham Napier.

Picture of Napier when he found out he had been promoted up the order. And yes, he is a little girl.

His job was simple - whack everything out of the park. And he did that brilliantly, picking up the run rate and tearing into the bowlers. And if Napier was cruising in fifth gear, Cook was stubbornly stuck at park and contemplating moving into reverse. His first ball four was clearly a false dawn, and his strike rate had since fallen from 400 by about 360 points. His innings came to an end when he poked one tamely back at Justin Kemp...


And this is why Cook isn't mean to play One Day cricket ever. Ever. And no, I'm not over-reacting.

And from then on, we stumbled. Napier was absolutely brilliant, reached his 50 and proceeded to hammer 70 from 76 balls, single handedly keeping us in the chase. But he didn't get much support. Gallian was bowled trying to up the pace, Pettini played a streaky, risky innings before falling. ten Doeschate, Grant and Foster didn't add to much, and in the end we were bowled out for 218 with 5 overs to go. A 51 run loss.


Grant hits a vital boundary, but it ends up being in vain.



So Dexter got the Man Of the Match award for his 86, which was instrumental for Kent setting up a large target. Only Cook, Bopara and Napier passed 30 in our innings, and allrounders Kemp and Mahmood took 3 wickets a piece. We lost. Oh dear, I'm going to cop SOOOO much flak for this...

'Success!' - Dexter celebrates his MOTM award/his greatest invention ever.

​

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Zorax starts Online Blog!

Essex's controversial rookie manager Zorax Doom has decided that the best way to cope with the frustrated fans of the club would be to address them directly, and has therefore started an online blog.
The blog, which can be found at http://www.thissitedoesntexist/thereisnoblog/dontclickhereitisallajoke.com , was started by Zorax a few hours after their disappointing loss to Kent in the Challenge Trophy group stages, Essex's second game of the season. He said the blog was a place for him to 'let the fans into the inner workings of the club', and to help him 'analyse and study the team's performance after a days play.' The first blog entry is as follows:

Well, that sucked. We lost, and we lost bad. And I am not happy. Looking back on the match, the scorecards, I have to put this loss down to poor judgement, nothing else. I read the pitch wrong. I felt the pitch was more bowler-friendly than it really was, and as a result I sent out a side which was lacking in bowling options and missing our best seamer from the game against Northampts a few days ago. I focused too much on putting out a strong batting side, and our weakened bowling attack ended up conceding too many runs. This in turn put the pressure onto our batsmen.

The second mistake I feel I made was shuffling the lineup too much. Grant came in to bat too late - he has the ability to guide a runchase, but by the time he came in it was too late. ten Doeschate and Pettini are both hard hitters, and struggled to rotate the strike. They would have done better coming in towards the end. Napier coming at 3 was another experiment and it came off, but it might not come off in the future.

So, looking back, I feel the boys played well and played their best, and that this loss should be put down entirely to my poor decision making. I apologise to all the Essex fans, and promise to make up for this. We play Derbyshire in an FC game in 3 days, and rest assured we'll be going in with our best side looking to maintain our 100% win rate.

Oh, and my foot still hurts. Thank's alot you fat ****** David...

 

[Dr. Pepper]

I clicked on the link.

Funny stuff as usual Zorax. You over-think ICC imo . All this nonsense about shuffling the line up too much and rotating the strike. Just click the damn buttons! Also I lol'd at the last line.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Oh what do you know!

April 23 : Derbyshire vs. Essex - County Championship Division 2

My third game of the season, and our second in the County Championship. We are off to a good start, can we sustain it?

Taking a look at the pitch, and it seems like Derby have gone for the defensive option by picking a pitch that is an absolute road. It might spin a bit on days 4 and 5, but apart from that, there is nothing. The weather forecast a few overcast sessions, but it's mostly sunny, so this could be a high scoring draw.

As a result, I tried to pick a team with a few more bowling options. David returns to the side -having him in the field is better than having him around in the dressing room- and Pettini is dropped to accommodate Middlebrook. Leaves us with 4 seamers, 2 spinners, and Grant if needed. Bopara remains at number 3, Cook and Gallian re-united as an opening pair.

Lineup: Cook, Gallian, Bopara, Flower (*), ten Doeschate, Middlebrook, Foster (+), Napier, Tudor, Masters, Kaneria

Grant strode out for the toss, called heads, and won. We shall be having a bat.
​

 

[Kiko_97]

Zorax, I clicked the link, you are a legend at making stories but ESSEX SUCK!

 

[ZoraxDoom]

The First Session

Boy, it felt ages till Cook and Gallian finally made it to the middle. 7 days, 8 hours and 32 minutes to be precise. But they were finally there, Dean with the new ball in hand, and Gallian on strike. Dean ran in, Gallian tapped his bat, and...

Is that you Sachin?

Four first ball! That's the second time this season, out of three games. I think it's becoming a trend. Anyhow, Lungley and Dean served up a tasty buffet of full and wide deliveries, which my two vice-skippers tucked into gleefully like the fat gluttonous run machines they are. Within 3.4 overs we had raced to 20 for no loss, 26 for no loss after 5.

Dean watches on as Gallin puts his rubbish away.

Completely impervious to my paranoia about jinxes, Ravi decided to pull off his gloves, lean back, and say "We're off to a bloody fine start, aren't we?" Well, you can guess what happened next.

Thanks, Ravi.

I was just about to turn and lambast Ravi for jinxing Jason, but he was already making his way to the middle, looking confident and eager to silence his critics. Or maybe he just thought of a funny joke he heard earlier. Meh.

Together, Ravi and Cook them began to build a fine, boundary studded partnership. Cook was easing himself into form, driving the ball all over, while Ravi punched and clubbed the ball about for his runs. Together they kept scoring at a fair pace without giving even half a chance to the bowlers. Fantastic stuff.

92/1, we were going fine. But that's when Ravi tried to play one shot too many, and popped a simple leaning edge back to Wagg. Awful, awful shot. Needless wicket. Really disappointing from a number 3. Grant the new man in. I was hoping he wouldn't be needed to bat in the first session.

And you know, this wicket on it's own doesn't seem so bad. What made it worse was what followed. 3 balls later, Cook gets a jaffa. 93/3.

They don't get plumber than that unless they are fixing your kitchen sink.

RTD strode to the middle while Wagg had his tail in the air. Sorry, that was a pun that just had to be done. 3 wickets down with like 45 minutes to go in the session, I told RTD to play it smart. So what does he do? This:

FC average of 50 my aching foot. And I thought Bopara's shot was bad. 95/4, James Middlebrook in, and we had officially taken any momentum we had, gift wrapped it, bought a card, signed it and presented it to Derbyshire saying 'With Love, Essex'. Bah. I couldn't stand to watch anymore, and headed off to prepare a massive rant to use on the batsmen in the session break. I came back to fin James and Grant had survived the session, taking us to 131 in the process.

Not a good first session. I was aiming for 400+ on this pitch, but with these two and only Foster, Napier and Tudor to come, this seems highly unlikely. I'd consider it an achievement now if we make it to the end of the day and score over 300 from here.

Now if you excuse me, I've gotta give Ravi, Jason and RTD an earful...
​

 

[Jaztheman]

Ha good update there Zorax, but I get the impression your players don't listen to you...

 

[Kiko_97]

This is why you shouldn't be playing as essex .
Great work Zorax.:doh