Well, after beating Scotland by around a hundred runs last week, we pasted Dave Mohammed XI today. We made 302/4 and bowled them out for 179 in 40 overs, with Antoine taking 4-20 and Skalding 2-27. In tha batting stakes Rajesh chipped in with his 14th fifty in 42 matches (61), Cooper fell just short of a hundred on 94, and only Adu (16) and the out-of-form Beattie (3) failed. The outstanding MOTM performance though, came from the captain himself, with Wright making 84* and taking 4-16 including a treble-wicket final over. We're still second though, and much will hang on our return games against Ducks and Young Boys Burn (who lead the division).

Great results, and it really shows how we've improved as a team since last season. Last season, we lost to the Dave Mohammad XI, this year we pasted them. Excellent stuff! I reckon our top 5 is ideal at the moment and there'll be no need for any changes there for a while. Just need Beattie to hit some form.

We lost today to a very, very strong Owzat! side by 6 wickets. We made a good start and were about 200-4 before a total collapse instigated by their bowler Horwood (BT Rating 25K+, must be a superb/quality bowler) leaving us all out on 220. Only Adu (83) passed 50.

Restricting a side like that to under 221 was always going to be hard, and they made the target with 6 overs to spare, despite Antoine's 3-35.

With the side we have, I think we'd have coasted last year's league. However this year the league has to be one of the strongest Division IV leagues there is, and our young players are learning and Macey and Donnelly will eventually be replaced by Marsh and Murdoch this season - hopefully a good bowling all-rounder will be pulled to replace Midworth eventually, though he is proficient and bowling very economically which is great. Young Boys Burn look likely to win it - we will have to "Go for it" in our next game against them, and it's a fight between ourselves, Ducks and Owzat! to see who comes runner up. We are 4th right now with 20 points from 7 games, 8 points clear of Scotland in 5th, and have Ducks (who we beat earlier in the season, and Daniell may be off for England duty), Worlingworth (second bottom) and Oldham (bottom by a mile) in the next three games. I think we have a great chance of winning all three and keeping up our challenge in what is a very tough league.

So never mind, a disappointing defeat, but we're good enough to keep on challenging.

Just thought I'd write a little here as discussion of the team has dwindled of late. We lost to Ducks last week, but seeing their squad they are a very good side and possibly with a bit more experience than our guys. The league this eyar has been very tough - in my mind by far the toughest Division IV league I've seen, and we may well not promote this year. However, our squad is going the right way and if we don't promote this year then next year is definitely possible.

I was just thinking about young players and nets, we have a number of 19 year olds training, and I'd like to see most of them trained to 21 to maximise their potential. I think we definitely need to turn our attention back a little towards bowling, so I'd suggest a youth pull next time we have 35 ITS for a bowler (12 ITS bowling, 10 stamina, 10 consistency and 3 batting?). We also have the following players training now, with a couple of extra sports psychologists to improve concentration/consistency improvement times:

Adu (19) - Bat
Cooper (19) - Bat
Murdoch (17) - Bat
Murdoch - Fitness
Beattie (19) - Batting
Antoine (19) - Bowl
Antoine (19) - Fitness (until he reaches mediocre, then transfer this to Marsh)
Heskey (18) - Keeping
Heskey (18) - Batting
Marsh (17) - Bowling

Once Beattie reaches 20, I suggest we change the nets to:

Adu - Bat (up to 21)
Cooper - Bat (up to 21)
Murdoch - Bat
Murdoch - Bat (He is very, very promising and IMO merits an extra session ASAP)
Murdoch - Fitness
Antoine - Bowl (up to 21)
Heskey - Keeping
Marsh - Bowling
Marsh - Fitness
(New bowler - hopefully YP) - Bowling

The idea is that once these guys (the ones in the team and still training) reach 21, we'll have a really good team. After this, we can concentrate on a few players (3/4 maybe) who we can develop into "superstars" like many other teams have, with multiple nets. At present I think we are just over halfway through developing a good all-round team after the loss of our buttressing star Binnion. Once that is done we can look for those special players.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. What do you think Andy?

What do I think? Well....

Firstly, I don't think we're doing too bad. We're now fourth, but we're well ahead of fifth position. We've only lost to teams who are better than us. Ducks have a guy who averages 1,000 with the bat FFS!!

On certain areas, I think you're bang on. Adu, Cooper and Antoine should be trained up to 21. I'm a little disappointed that they haven't reached 'Superb' already.

I'm also quite disappointed by Beattie. He really seems to be struggling, and I'm not entirely sure why. Considering the investment we put into him, I think he's turned out fairly poor. Contrast him with Cooper in particular, and Rajesh as well, and he easily is the weakest of the 3. Wright seems to be coming good after a poor season last year.

As for the training, I really can't see any flaws in your logic. The guys to replace are Macey, Donnelly and Midworth (in that order). You never know, we might get lucky with the youth pull and get a real good-un!!

Apologies Andy - I wasn't suggesting the result against Ducks was poor, and we are indeed doing very well considering that we nearly relegated last season.

Beattie is an odd one - He has opened in the friendlies and got 3 hundreds this season, yet in the league where the teams are not much better than the standard we've had friendlies against, he averages 25 this year. At least he has Proficient batting and Respectable concentration, which means it has to be a form issue. He also has a fair few catches because of his fielding, so all that remains to go right is his batting in the middle order.

On another note, I was thinking that I was beginning to take over a bit as I got more involved witht he team, so any time you think I'm doing that just let me kow. After all, it's principally your team Andy - with an NZ twist this season!

We beat Worlingworth by 91 runs today, Cooper 92* and Skalding 4-42 were the stars.

Another thing - Adu passed 1000 runs for the season in only his 12th inning, at an average of 125.50 after making 87 yesterday. Great stuff.

Not surprisingly, we beat 100%-defeats Oldham today by 9 wickets, chasing down 126 in 19 overs. Cooper 54* and Adu 55* after earlier Skalding (3-13), Antoine (2-19) and Midworth (2-18) had done the damage.Well done guys.

We'll be ready to do an ITS youth pull soon, but our academy has dipped to strong. I suggest we improve it now given that we're building a nice bank balance.

Well, our title challeneg is all but mathematically over, desptie a committed effort we were outclassed by Young Boys Burn today, losing by 7 wickets with 9 overs to spare.

Andy, how do you think we should approach the rest of the season? Marsh and Murdoch haven't been setting the world alight in the friendlies but is it time to try them now? Should we wait until after the Scotland game? - they can still drag us into the relegation playoff spots, being 8 points behind with 12 to play for.

If Marsh doesn't look good enough, then hopefully the youth pull this week will give us a good bowler. I was thinking the following for ITS: 12 Bowling, 10 Stamina, 10 Consistency, 3 Batting. If we don't get a good bowler by the end of the season we may have to buy one, as Macey has had it and gets carted no mater what his orders are. The good news is that Beattie can't have a worse season next year, and really should be in the runs next year. Adu is now Superb and both Cooper and Antoine aren't far off. Hopefully we'll see some experience increases soon as our side is not very experienced at all.

Anyway, we have done well this season but came up against very strong promoted level 5 teams. Next year we should have a better chance of promotion, subject to the effect of the first class games.

Well, we made sure of not having to face a playoff by beating Scotland comprehensively, by 9 wickets. Bowled them out for 201, Antoine taking his second career five-fer at 5-22, and only losing Ridegammanagedera (24) as Adu (85*) and Cooper (79*) chased the runs down with 8 overs to spare. We're now 12 points clear of Scotland and 4 behind Owzat, who we need to beat in two weeks time to claim third place, as well as Dave Mohammed XI next week.