[retired_lyriclemelodee]

No8 - tell me what team your coaching and I will have a go at helping.

On another note...

I might be wrong but I was thinking quite a few people might have started coaching the England team - like myself. Just wondered how people were lining up their teams.

Have pretty much sticked to RL for the Test Arena:

Strauss
Cook (c)
Tressy
KP
Bell
Flintoff
Prior (wk)
Jones
Hoggard
Harmison
Panesar

But have tried to be more radical in the ODI's - not much point picking those who won't be around in 2011...

Tressy
Cook
Trott
KP
Bell
Flintoff
Prior
Plunkett
Tremlett
Anderson
Panesar

Just wondered how this compared with other people's teams? Could maybe do with another all-rounded in the ODI team, but Bresnan and Bopara have been poor so far.

[retired_k_20_p]

I would try and help but my download still isn't working

[retired_pupka]

I also do particularly badly as England because I can't bring myself to pick the existing players.

Last game I had a bowling attack including Stuart Broad (who is for some reason very bad, sort it out researchers ), Graham Onions and my spinner was Adil Rashid.

My batting line-up included Hildreth - he was woefully out of place and averaged 21 against West Indies but I was so desperate for him to do well I kept him in for the one dayers, before eventually losing patience.

Oh and James Foster is always the keeper in my England teams.

[retired_pupka]

No8 - my biggest hint would be to make sure you have a couple of decent spinners/slow bowlers in one dayers. They can soak up the runs. Also use your powerplays carefully (in ODIs) - if you've got some unsettled batsman in they quite often still try and blaze the ball all round the park and a side can quite easily slump from a good position to a dodgy one in the powerplay period.

I don't do a great deal of tinkering with field placings - only real changes are quite sensibly that if there is an established batsman and a weaker one at the crease, I'll go for the weak one and defend against the decent one.

With batting I'll always be overly cautious as with the higher run rates in first class matches nowadays you never really run out of time to force a positive result.

As ever with signing players - make sure your overseas ones are very good and aren't going to be away on international duty.

[retired_pupka]

I've decided to simulate the England vs West Indies test series whilst I'm working on the patch. Only with a slight twist - I'll be picking my team from eligible players based upon their ranking in the PCA's most valuable player list (MVP - http://www.thepca.co.uk/rankings.html).

So for the Test series against West Indies my squad will be (going by LVCC rankings):

1. Joseph Sayers
2. Marcus Trescothick
3. James Hildreth
4. Scott Newman
5. Chris Adams (cpt)
6. Joseph Denly
7. Jonathon Batty (wk)
8. Adil Rashid
9. Andrew Caddick
10. Charles Shreck
11. Kabir Ali

England won the 3 match series 2-1

1st Test, Lord's Cricket Ground, London, England
England 1st Innings 526
- Batty 121, Newman 95, Adams 95
- Gayle 3/64
West Indies 1st Innings 247
- Ramdin 127, Chanderpaul 37, Gayle 26
- Caddick 5/85, Ali 3/45, Rashid 1/34
England 2nd Innings 140/2 dec
- Sayers 54, Hildreth 52, Trescothick 28
- Mohammed 2/31
West Indies 2nd Innings 334
- Gayle 132
- Shreck 5/90, Caddick 4/117, Ali 1/60
England won by 85 runs

2nd Test, Headingley, Leeds, England
England 1st Innings 348
- Newman 128, Trescothick 77
- Collymore 4/70, Best 3/75, Gayle 1/33
West Indies 1st Innings 267
- Ramdin 69, Sarwan 43, Hinds 35
- Shreck 5/73, Rashid 3/62, Caddick 2/55
England 2nd Innings 185
- Sayers 45, Batty 39, Trescothick 36
- Best 4/43, Mohammed 3/23, Gayle 1/0
West Indies 2nd Innings 267/7
- Gayle 64
- Rashid 3/53, Caddick 2/73, Ali 1/70
West Indies won by 3 wickets

3rd Test, Old Trafford, Manchester, England
England 1st Innings 391
- Adams 141, Batty 65, Trescothick 40
- Edwards 3/86, Best 3/117
West Indies 1st Innings 225
- Sarwan 79, Best 40, Chanderpaul 38
- Ali 5/59, Shreck 2/35, Rashid 2/60
England 2nd Innings 267
- Newman 101, Trescothick 40
- Best 3/61, Gayle 2/16, Collymore 2/62
West Indies 2nd Innings 179
- Sarwan 47, Deonarine 40, Gayle 24
- Rashid 5/22, Caddick 3/61, Shreck 1/48
England won by 254 runs

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">England Batting Averages Player Mat Inn NO Runs HS Ave SR 100s 50s SA Newman 3 5 0 361 128 72.20 53.32 2 1 JN Batty 3 5 1 268 121* 67.00 55.95 1 1 CJ Adams 3 5 0 264 141 52.80 77.88 1 1 JJ Sayers 3 6 1 208 54* 41.60 51.61 0 2 K Ali 3 5 4 41 14* 41.00 60.29 0 0 ME Trescothick 3 6 0 242 77 40.33 67.41 0 1 A Rashid 3 5 0 139 40 27.80 51.87 0 0 JC Hildreth 3 6 0 122 52 20.33 63.54 0 1 CE Shreck 3 5 0 64 22 12.80 36.99 0 0 JL Denly 3 5 0 54 43 10.80 50.94 0 0 AR Caddick 3 5 0 34 11 6.80 32.69 0 0</pre>

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">England Bowling Averages Player Overs Wickets Best Ave SR Econ 5wi 10wm A Rashid 82.4 14 5/22 21.29 35.43 3.6 1 0 CE Shreck 108.3 15 5/90 26.67 43.40 3.7 2 0 AR Caddick 132.1 17 5/85 27.06 46.65 3.5 1 0 K Ali 95.4 11 5/59 32.64 52.18 3.8 1 0 CJ Adams 1.0 0 0/0 0.00 0.00 2.0 0 0</pre>

[retired_momma_0307]

Sorry to be impatient. But recently i found that in 5 day matches, defensive mentality seems to equal lots of runs whilst batting, and i just leave bowling normal all the time and go more defensive for the sloggier batsman and aggressive for the tailenders. I'm England and my team is:

Trescothick
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Mascarenhas ( made him a little better as i like his name)
Flintoff
Foster
Giles
Sidebottom ( made him better)
Hoggard
Jones

[retired_lyriclemelodee]

Panesar and Prior for Giles and Foster would be an improvement imo.

[retired_momma_0307]

Originally posted by Didier:
Panesar and Prior for Giles and Foster would be an improvement imo.

Prior is a good batsman but he is a crap keeper on the game. His rating is only good as a keeper, so i thought im choosing a keeper not a batsman, and catches win matches, so read is in.

I had panesar in but he was in terrible form. Had -2 with the ball in form and went 3 successive games for hants without taking a wicket. And gilo is in good nick, taking wickets and he kept us in a game with a superb 91. So thats why i had Giles in.

TBH, i don't think it is selection that is the problem. It's how i set their mentality or how i set their bowling aggression. I just don't know what to do. That's what i want you to help me with.

How do you post big totals with regards to your batting mentality? How do you get wickets? Do you make your own fields and set the right line and lengths??

[retired_michiganguy44]

so is the patch out yet then? if so where do we get it from?

[retired_momma_0307]

Any tips on batting aggression and where to bowl if a bowler has good movement, and where to bowl if he's just a good bowler, ie. everything in the 80's.