Season goals, thoughts

Tomorrow we have our final pre-season friendly against DazBurg's Greatness at the Dragon's Lair. The groundsmen preparing a slow pitch, as manager verdi wanna see his squad's performance on that wicket. Weather is expected to be humid, probably we will see a close, low scoring game with bowler's dominance.
After a bit of scouting it's obvious that the opponent has a balanced team, with equally strong batting and bowling. It won't be easy to get a result. Manager verdi wants to see how some of our bowler's performance on slow (especially the 2 fast bowlers) and also to put the batting line up under a test. 2 Fast, 2 Medium and 1 Finger Spinner will take part in our bowling attack, 3 of them are All-Rounders, so batting lineup should have enoygh depth.  It's not an ideal combination for slow pitch, but it's time for a test :)
Next Tuesday the new season finally starts with an away game against Young Gunnerz.Last season we had one win and one loss against this strong side, who has got even stronger by singing a high rating player. I will write a more detailed pre-match analysis on Monday.

Pre-Season is the time for setting up our goals for the next 14 weeks. It's going to be an interesting run, strength of the divisions seems to turn in our favour a bit. At least i hope so, let's see our goals for season 14:
One Day 3.1: Last season's miraculous survival (securing division membership in the last game, by better NRR) should be something we can build on. The div looks a bit weaker this year, with the two newcomers from 4th. Big guns like Boo Kroo, Mujahedine and the demoted Farmers Union Iced Coffee CC looks well out of reach. Lahore Kings 11 and Ujpest Devils looks a bit stronger and more experienced too, but against Khan Warriors and Surray we have a good chance to win. Plan is to play our strongest 11 against the weaker sides (Khan,Surray and Ujpest), and giving chance to gain experience to our less skilled players. This should give the much needed rest to our star players. Hard to predict the final results, I can see Boo Kroo as the favourite for the title. Mujahedine should be their closest rival. Our aim is to avoid relegation, I feel we can reach as high as 5th.
T20 3.3: Our t20 performance last year was pretty decent, finished 4th, and we wasn't too far from 2nd. Mujahedine dominated whole season, but luckily this year the demoted team is computer controlled, so one less rival. YOUNG GUNNERZ and Beiram's 11 will be our hardest opponents, I think Swing Kings CC and Team Furry are a bit weaker than us. We will play our strongest team in all the games except against the bots, where younger players get their share of t20 cricket. I can't predict the winner here, althought YOUNG GUNNERZ seems even stronger than last season. So 1st YOUNG GUNNERZ, while us being 2nd. Bots to go down.
Youth 2.2: We lost the core of the team, since they got promoted to senior squad. Now it's time for Pediya Androo again to bring glory to the club! Our pre-season warm up match finished with a good victory. Squad looks good enough to compete for the title. It's hard to tell really, seems like all the teams lost important players. I really can't make any tips here, we wish to finish in Top 3. If Androo plays good :)

So that's for the stuff on the pitch, now let's see the finances. With this season's decreased wages (our costy players left the team) and increase sponsorship we should be able to save a decent amount of cash by the end of season. I plan to get around $500,000 extra. No planned expenses, probably one or two more players will be added to the squad, if we can find team for a reasonable price. Still a lot of money left on the account, so that's shouldn't be a problem. Target is one more prospective batsman and a bowler.