It's Coming Home - The quest for English dominance

[danjam26]

England may seem to be a simple save however my aims will be far from easy - I want to hold the Number One spot in the Test, ODI and T20i world rankings at the same time whilst also winning the Test Championship, World Cup, Champions Trophy and the T20 World Cup. In other words, the goal is for total English dominance of the cricketing world.

Judging by the starting ranking of 4th, the Test side needs the most work and to gain points in our quest for the Number One spot, we will have to regain lost points against:

• Australia (Away)
• India (Away)
• New Zealand (Home and Away)
• Pakistan (Home and Away)
• South Africa (Away)
• Windies (Away)
• Bangladesh (Away)
• Zimbabwe (Away)
• Ireland (Never Played)
• Afghanistan (Never Played)

In terms of ODIs, the current World Cup is showing the signs of the brilliance that have led to England becoming the World's leader. To push our credentials further and to solidify our position as World Number One, results will have to be reversed against:

• India (Away)
• South Africa (Away)
• Windies (Away)
• Afghanistan (Never Played)

Currently standing at 7th, the T20s will probably take longest due to the relative lack of matches and the lowliness of the ranking. To order to reverse recent fortune, England will have to rectify lost/drew series against:

• Australia (Away)
• India (Home and Away)
• Pakistan (Home)
• New Zealand (Away)
• South Africa (Away)
• Windies (Home)
• Bangladesh (Never Played)
• Ireland (Never Played)
• Zimbabwe (Never Played)
• Afghanistan (Never Played)

To gain more wins - and therefore get closer to our goal, England have various questions that need answering across the board. These include:

1. Who will be the Test spinner? - Personally, I am not convinced by Adil Rashid as England's Number One spinner. Though he may get a chance, the choice between Rashid, Moeen Ali, Jack Leach and others is one that will be a pivotal step in the pursuit for dominance; especially with results needed on the subcontinent.
2. Who will partner Alastair Cook as the Test Opener? - The disastrous situation at the top of the order since Andrew Strauss retired has been no secret. Gifted county players such as Mark Stoneman and Adam Lyth have tried and failed but Rory Burns has made a promising start to his test career. Will the incumbent retain his position or will Cook have partner number 17?
3. Can England maintain their One-Day form? - It's undeniable that in recent history, England have been nothing short of outstanding. In order to fulfil our goal, it will be essential to maintain this form.
4. Will we crumble? - In recent times, England sports teams generally have crumbled in times of pressure. In the 2017 Champions Trophy, England performed well to come through group unbeaten before stumbling to 211 all-out in an annihilation against Pakistan. Similarly in 2016, England lost in the T20 World Cup Final and even worse, in 2015 they failed to even qualify from the World Cup group-stage. To achieve total dominance of the cricketing world, I will have to address the seemingly English problem of crumbling in high pressure situations.

I intend on posting updates on every series. Within these posts will be analysis of squads, match summaries and what the result means in regards to our quest.

This will be my first ever Cricket Captain story - I hope you enjoy and any feedback will be appreciated!

[Dhruv]

U can try Dom Bess and Jack leach

[MateGaming]

Look forward to this!

[danjam26]

2019 SERIES #1 - ODI Tour of Ireland

Ireland Squad: W Porterfield (*), A Balbirnie, K O'Brien, J McCollum, P Stirling, L Tucker (+), G Wilson (+), M Adair, G Dockrell, J Little, B McCarthy, T Murtagh, B Rankin
England Squad: E Morgan (*), J Roy, J Vince, J Root, S Hain, J Bairstow (+), B Duckett (+), A Rashid, L Dawson, J Archer, S Curran, T Curran, L Plunkett

Though Ireland are not a team to be underestimated - especially with the explosive power of batters such as Paul Stirling and bowling prowess of Tim Murtagh and Boyd Rankin, the match does provide an opportunity to experiment in a few positions. This will be useful for when picking the 4 back ups in our World Cup squad and will provide those players with some invaluable ODI experience. After an impressive start to his domestic OD season (an average of 83.93), Ben Duckett is named and will be given the chance to open alongside Jonny Bairstow. Also named is Sam Hain who I see as a potential star of the future. He is included as a number 5 initially however, in the future, he could move to the top of England's ODI order. In terms of bowling, Liam Dawson is included at the expense of Moeen Ali. Ali will almost certainly return to the squad for the World Cup squad - as will other stars such as Jos Butler, Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes. Sam Curran is in the squad to add a bit of variation with his left-arm and Jofra Archer will have the chance to make his ODI debut after beginning his T20 season with 3 back-to-back 3fers.

ODI #1 - IRELAND vs ENGLAND (Dublin, 03/05/2019)

Ireland: Porterfield *, Stirling, Balbirnie, McCollum, Wilson +, O'Brien, McBrine, Dockrell, McCarthy, Murtagh, Rankin
England: Duckett, Bairstow +, Root, Vince, Morgan *, Hain, Dawson, S Curran, Rashid, Archer, T Curran

ENGLAND WIN by 3 Wickets:

Ireland - 240 All-Out (49 Overs): Balbirnie 81 & Dockrell 51, Archer 4-32 & S Curran 2-37
England - 241/7 (49.1 Overs): Duckett 73 & Bairstow 68, Dockrell 2-35 & McCarthy 2-54

After winning the toss, Englan decided to put Irelan in to bat - the weather was perfect and the pitch had little chance of degrading. My preference to chase was therefore an obvious choice. In the bowling department, we were impressive. As the above stats show, Archer led the way but was supported by a team of 4 who all contributed wickets for relatively few runs. Duckett and Bairstow opened nicely and set us a solid foundation for our chase, sharing a partnership of 139. However, Root fell for 2 and Vince fell for an lethargic. Along with Hain's 11, this could have been the start of disappointing freefall of wickets. However, Captain Morgan came in to save the day with a 40 and steered us home to a victory which reflected the dominance England held for the majority of the match,

ENGLAND WIN THE SERIES 1-0: The 1st ODI Ranking is retained and we stay on 34, 2 ahead of the South Africans in 2nd place. I hope this has been an enjoyable first update and our next series is at home to Pakistan in 1 T20 and 5 ODIs, see you then!

[DaveRobbo]

Nice start. Looking forward to following this!

[danjam26]

2019 SERIES #2 - T20 @ Home to Pakistan

England Squad: E Morgan *, D Malan, J Roy, J Root, A Hales, J Bairstow +, B Duckett, J Buttler +, L Dawson, B Stokes, S Curran, J Archer, J Denly, T Curran, M Wood
Pakistan Squad: S Ahmed *+, M Hafeez, H Sohail, I ul-Haq, A Ali, B Azam, F Zaman, A Ali, F Ashraf, S Malik, M Hasnain, J Khan, Y Shah, H Ali, S Afridi, M Amir

The visit of the current World Number Ones presents an opportunity to advance up the rankings. To tackle this challenge, the squad is largely the same as our Ireland ODI series squad, 7 players retain their spot. The squad also sees the return of Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes but Chris Woakes is ruled out through injury, all three were absent from the Ireland series. After impressive performances in the said Ireland game, Sam Curran (2-37 and a 3.70 economy), Jofra Archer (4-32 and an economy of 3.55) and Ben Duckett (73) are retained whereas Joe Denly comes in for James Vince. This is for two reasons: he offers an extra spin option (hence Moeen Ali's continued absence) and he will be batting down the order so, if an Ireland-esque collapse happened), hopefully I can bring Denly's average aggression in to steady the innings. Elsewhere, Alex Hales is also picked as for this series, I won't be taking his real life ban into consideration.

T20 #1 - ENGLAND vs PAKISTAN (North London, 05/05/2019)

England: J Roy, J Bairstow, J Root, B Duckett, E Morgan *, J Buttler +, B Stokes, L Dawson, J Archer, J Denly, M Wood
Pakistan: B Azam, F Zaman, H Sohail, I ul-Haq, S Malik, S Ahmed *+, M Hafeez, F Ashraf, M Amir, H Ali, S Afridi

PAKISTAN WIN BY 8 WICKETS

England - 119/9: Buttler 30 & Stokes 29, S Afridi 3-22 & M Amir 3-25
Pakistan - 122/2 (16.1 Overs): Zaman 71* & B Azam 26, B Stokes 1-23 & M Wood 1-40

One word sums up this game to a tee ... ATROCIOUS! After winning the toss, England decided to bat which, despite the sunny weather, was a disastrous decision as our top 5 scored a combined 45, 35 coming from Root and Duckett. Clearly our openers had a shocker and I'm not sure if it is because I went too aggressive too early. Regardless, my awful T20 record across every Cricket Captain continues - any advice would greatly be appreciated! Anyway, our only significant resistance to Pakistan's rampant bowling attack (led outstandingly by Afridi and Amir) came from Buttler, Stokes and Root who combined for 80 runs - 67% of our whole score! Our woes continued into Pakistan's innings, we simply conceded too many runs and didn't take enough wickets. If there are any positives to take out of this game, it is that our world ranking will not be affected and that things will only get better!

PAKISTAN WIN THE SERIES 1-0: As I said, our ranking remains at 7 in T20s and our next series is 5 ODIs against Pakistan when we will be looking to hold onto our world-leading 34. If anybody has any tips for playing T20s, they would be so, so helpful. See you next time!