h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just to help those few who don't know a lot about cricket, I thought I'd post a couple of pointers here.

If you look at the player lists, I've provided a few statistics from last season's games to help you see who did well last year and who didn't. There are two columns of batting averages and two of bowling averages.

The batting averages show firstly how many runs the player scored last year, then an average - the average is how many runs the batsman scored divided by the number of times he got out. Mark Ramprakash did extremely well last year; if you look at his averages, he scored 2,211 at an average of 105.28, and it's quite likely that someone scoring this many runs at such a high average will score quite a few points for you this year. In fact, any batsman who scored over 1,000 runs last year will probably be a very good choice.

The bowling averages are a little different. They show how many wickets the bowler took, followed by the bowling 'average'. This is the total number of runs the bowler conceded divided by the number of wickets he took. In general, a lower average means a better bowler. In Fantasy Krikkit, you get points for wickets taken. Mushtaq Ahmed took 102 at an average of 19.91, and his wickets would give you a huge points tally.

A batsman that scores over 1,000 runs or a bowler who takes more than 40 wickets can be considered excellent buys, so try to bid fairly high for these guys.

Unfortunately, there aren't enough of these top performers to go around. You might want to look at batsmen who score a few less runs but bowl occasionally; there are plenty of these about. Players like Somerset's Keith Parsons, Kent's Darren Stephens and Lancashire's Kyle Hogg are decent performers with bat and ball; not famous or spectacular, but they'll keep the points rolling in.

Hope this helps

Rich, that really helps me! Will try and get my bids in in the next couple of days.

Oh, and it's probably worth mentioning that there's a very good reason why Counties go to all the trouble of signing overseas players. They are usually proven international players (eg Shane Warne, Andre Nel) or nearly so (Cameron White, Phil Jacques) and are considered safe bets in terms of performing well. If you don't sign your two Overseas players, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Glad it helps, Magwitch!

Humph. I think you're giving the inexperienced an unfair advantage here.

I don't give Phantasy Phootball bidding tips, do I? Apart from the glaringly obvious 'don't buy Phil Neville' one.

B

Well, seeing as I went to several hours' trouble to put the batting and bowling averages on there, it made sense to explain them to the uninitiated. The difference with football is that most people have heard of the Premiership's top players and have a vague idea how good they are.

My bidding advice basically boils down to this:

Buy batsmen who can score runs.
Buy bowlers who can take wickets.
Oh, and try to get a couple that can do both.
Finally, some of the South Africans and Aussies playing for the Counties are actually quite good.

That's barely advice, let alone an unfair advantage

Ah, my hero Skanks

*idly polishes shining armour*