Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Welcome to the auction for the third All Year Fantasy Competition (AYFC 3). The ten teams are assembled with previous winners DurhamFootman and incumbent holder of the title Red Devil all present. DilligentDefence joins us this year as a new franchise.

The ten teams have submitted their silent bids and await the random draw.

As Bob Dylan once said 'The first ones know will later be last' and that is how the draw works. The team first out the hat will make the first choice for Round One but will make the last choice for Round Two. Meaning that the last drawn contributor will make two successive choices.

Let the draw commence.

The random order has been chosen thusly:

1. GG
2. Ian
3. Red Devil Junior
4. Dr Cricket
5. Durham
6. DilligentDefence
7. Arthur
8. The Professor
9. Alviro
10. Red Devil

Different approach for me this year. Will probably have to wait a fair while to see whether it works...

And so begins Round One:

GGAS released both his players so has two berths to fill and (obviously) gets his first choice pick in the form of Lewis Gregory. The Englishman is expected to make big strides in 2020 and many teams were interested in the Somerset man.

Next up is Ian. Kolpak players have always been popular in our list and his first selection - Kyle Abbott - will hope to be more of a Harmer mould than a Morkel in 2020.

RDJ's first round pick is another player expected to feature heavily in the County Championship this year as well as being 2019's most prolific runscorer - Marnus Labuschagne

Dr Cricket is the first player to complete his team for 2020. He has already retained the services of Ben Stokes and adds to that another big hitter in the form of Pakistan's limited overs captain Babar Azam.

MIB discarded two high profile players - Rohit Sharma and Jonny Bairstow - so will expect big things from his first choice pick - Tom Banton.

DFM retains the services of 1st place finisher in 2018 and second place finisher in 2019 Simon Harmer. He adds to that another Kolpak favourite Colin Ackermann to complete an all South African line up.

Much like RDJ, DD has opted for an Aussie for his first pick - Peter Handscomb is his inaugural pick.

Arthur is the third team to have retained a player from 2019 and keeps England Test Captain Joe Root for a second successive year. His one and only pick therefore goes to a player who featured in our list in 2018 but was avoided in 2019. He welcomes David Warner back for 2020 to complete his team.

The Professor is next up and picks the controversial figure of Martin Guptil. Guptil was not selected for the IPL or The Hundred next year but will be expected to be a big part of the T20 World Cup and will be something of a gun fire hire in a myriad of T20 and T10 leagues.

Alviro had a disappointing season last year finishing third from bottom but will hope that Keshav Maharaj's form for South Africa and Yorkshire will see him move up the table in 2020.

And finally comes Red Devil. It was a no brainer to keep Number One ranked Glenn Maxwell and he manages to strengthen his team even further through the selection of Indian captain Virat Kohli recently released from the now defunct SussexPob franchise. Kohli rounds off what will be a very strong team for the holding champions.

So ends Round One where, rather miraculously, everyone got their first choice selection.

Round Two begins with Alviro for first pick. He has missed out on Peter Handscomb so we go to his third choice selection of Travis Head.

The Professor gets his second choice and swoops for Shubman Gill - a discard from Dr Cricket's team of 2019.

DilligentDefence rounds off his all Australian line up withe the selection of ex-Australian captain and a man who finished second from bottom of our 2018 list - Steve Smith.

Another player who was in our 2018 list but gave 2019 a miss is selected by MenInBlue - Aaron Finch returns for a very T20 heavy year to round off a team of big hitters for MIB. He was initially interested in Marnus Labuschagne but he had already been swooped up by RDJ.

It is RDJ's second pick now and he goes for Afghanistan, Hyderabad and Kent's Mohammad Nabi.

Ian misses out on his second and third choices in the forms of Lewis Gregory and Virat Kohli - but as fourth choices go Rohit Sharma is not too shabby.

And last but not least Jason Holder rounds off our list by joining GGAS

The action starts on the 1st of January.

Full teams

Alviro
Travis Head
Keshav Maharaj

Arthur
Joe Root
David Warner

DD
Peter Handscomb
Steve Smith

DC
Babar Azam
Ben Stokes

DFM
Colin Ackermann
Simon Harmer

GGAS

Lewis Gregory
Jason Holder

Ian
Kyle Abbott
Rohit Sharma

MIB
Tom Banton
Aaron Finch

TheProfessor
Shubmann Gill
Martin Guptil

RD
Virat Kohli
Glenn Maxwell

RDJ
Marnus Labuschagne
Mohammad Nabi

Happy enough

Good luck everyone...

Ah... here we are

thanks Prof.

if I had picked CA last year as I intended to do before inexplicably being seduced to the dark side when compiling my 5 man list, I would have won for the second year running

my only worry now is that both seem to have cut back on their SA domestic stuff, so we'll have to see how it goes

Thanks Prof.

I think Jason Holder is a good pick.

Red has won though.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Red has won though.

... maybe a bit early for that!

Good luck all

I changed the thread name as well

Thanks.....never was any good at maths

Great work Professor

Quite content with landing both players from my top 3 choices. Pinning my hopes on Maharaj playing for Yorkshire in later summer for the selection to pay off.

quick, clean auction too.

like a well oiled machine

Martin Guptill gets first points of year with 83* for Auckland