Story Neil Fortino - Spinning my way to glory (Stellar Fightback v Glos.)

[hedger_14]

Great update mate. Unfortunate that you couldn't get into the first team for the County Championship but the chances should come.

 

[6ry4nj]

When the ECB declared that there would be a large-scale player auction ahead of this season, Northants looked upon it with relish because they had a frail squad that they could make a fresh start on.

"They found themselves some large-scale sponsorship and bought in the heavy artillery. Porterfield, Kervezee, Klokker, Dawson, Hildreth, Finn, Woakes and Shahzad have all represented their country at some level or another, and it looked like this year could be the year for the Steelbacks. What they didn't count upon were the mutiny of the fans who saw their beloved county turn the back on its stalwart players, and that of the players themselves. With so many ego-conscious characters in the dressing room, how can you possibly hope to gel as a team?

"With no supporters and no silverware, the sponsors are fleeing and the county is running on fumes.

The Teams
Gloucestershire: Robert Key, Mark Pettini, Tim Ambrose, Ian Blackwell, Chrs Nash, Tony McGrath, Tim Bresnan, Frank Bramble, James Anderson, Muttiah Muralitharan, Imran Arif
Northants: William Porterfield, Nick Compton, Alexei Kervezee, James Hildreth, Neil Dexter, Freddie Klokker, David Wainwright, Liam Dawson, Chris Woakes, Ajmal Shahzad, Steven Finn

The thing I don't understand is: Why would you drop every last one of your squad and replace them from outside? And why would Gloucestershire do the same thing as well? Is this the northern hemisphere chapter of the IPL (and even they hang on to more players)?

Is it just that you wanted all your favourite players in your team? I could understand that - that's fair enough. I guess I'm feeling some of the same disillusionment Northants' in-story fans (ex-fans?) are feeling...

I don't wish to criticize one-sidedly. It's a well-written story and it would be extremely previous to complain about the plot. I will be reading it regardless of any misgivings I might have. But I would be really grateful of some rationale for the wholesale rearrangement of the players - especially Sales, Peters, Rob White and Niall O'Brien.

Apart from anything else, how did you get the game to let you do it?

 

[hedger_14]

I'll have a stab at this and say you're using ICC 09? The only reason being that there was a save for it that allowed you to create your own squad again and it was with Northants.

 

[Dragon Fire]

Ding ding! Very good spot. I only get a new game every other year, and I was browsing the downloads and it looked pretty good. I kept losing with a decent squad, so I decided to make a story out of trying to turn it around.

This one: http://www.planetcricket.org/forums...09-county-championship-big-auction-70562.html

 

[6ry4nj]

Ding ding! Very good spot. I only get a new game every other year, and I was browsing the downloads and it looked pretty good. I kept losing with a decent squad, so I decided to make a story out of trying to turn it around.

This one: http://www.planetcricket.org/forums...09-county-championship-big-auction-70562.html

Thanks for that. So...did you make Northants the strongest spinning squad in the country on purpose?

And I suppose this means I'm not an Essex fan here. Who do RTD and Gra Napier play for in this universe?

 

[Aditya]

Excellent update mate. I quite like the way you add a real life pic at the end of the update, which looks really good. The writing as usual is excellent. Great work mate.

 

[Dragon Fire]

Stellar Northants Recover Brilliantly

With the pitch looking hard flat and resolutely solid, the Northamptonshire bowlers would have to bowl very well to remove the Gloucestershire batsmen, but that was what they did, taking the last seven Gloucestershire wickets to turn the backroom struggles into a sideshow for the cricket and not the other way around. The day started very well indeed, with Liam Dawson claiming the vital wicket of Ambrose in his first over of the day. Straight away, Klokker brought back his two fastest bowlers to try to rough up the new batsman. Again, it worked. Steve Finn claimed David Nash, but the duo went wicketless for the rest of their spells.

Midway through the morning session, Klokker reintroduced Woakes and Dawson, his two standout bowlers from the previous evening. Woakes ripped the heart out of the Gloucestershire middle order, removing Tony McGrath (clean bowled) and Ian Blackwell (caught at slip). Gloucester were five wickets down going into lunch, and it got worse when it was announced that Mark Pettini was out for the rest of the season with two broken ribs.

After lunch, David Wainwright was reintroduced to the attack after a few overs of non-threatening tweakers had brought him no reward. He bowled quite well, but the tail played his wicket to wicket bowling like headless chickens and he happily collected the reward. Suddenly, Gloucester had been skittled just eighty-three runs ahead of Northants. In an interview between innings, Klokker said, "The boys got together this morning and cleared the air. We decided to let our cricket do the talking and not to let personal issues get in the way of our performance. I think we've done that today, and now the batsmen have something to work with lets hope they can carry the momentum with them and hit the ground running."

They did exactly that. Porterfield and Compton played more sensibly than at any point previously in the season. They saw out the seventeen overs until tea chancelessly, accumulating fifty or so runs in the process. The slow run rate was understandable - with two and a half days remaining, why rush? In amongst the blocking and prodding, there were some lovely shots; James Anderson was punished every time he pitched the ball up. This forced his length back and made him much less threatening. This pattern of play continued after tea as well - the two openers never really dominated, but their resistance was all the more threatening for it. There were a couple of optimistic LBW shouts against Compton and he also hit a cover-drive just short of the fielder, but the partnership remained unbeaten at stumps.

Northamptonshire CCC - 192 ao
---------------------.---- and 135/0
Nick Compton - 69* (143)
William Porterfield - 63* (158)

Gloucestershire CCC - 275 ao
Ian Blackwell - 78 (141)
Tim Ambrose - 58 (88)
David Wainwright - 4/27 (8)
Chris Woakes - 2/53 (19)

IAN BLACKWELL BATTED WELL BUT TRIGGERED A COLLAPSE

 

[Dragon Fire]

By the way, I haven't stopped this story, I'm just juggling other stuff, like leagues and graphic requests. It will be updated soon though

 

[hedger_14]

No problem, take your time. Never easy to keep up with a quick pace you set early on. Just update when you feel like so you don't get to the point where you feel like updating is a boring job rather than being fun like it should.

 

[Prithvi]

No problem, take your time. Never easy to keep up with a quick pace you set early on. Just update when you feel like so you don't get to the point where you feel like updating is a boring job rather than being fun like it should.

+1. I'm not updating that "Charity Cricket" cause the basic thing- C07 is troubling and I'm completely disappointed! I've back ups, like PCCS, but my mind isn't grabbing interest in it as the basic plan what I thought has failed!