From The Pavilion

Setting your bowler orders during a match can be among the most exciting, interesting, competitive and just downright enjoyable things you'll do on FTP. It can also be the most confusing, frustrating, monotonous and just generally tiresome tasks. This thread collects a little bit of general advice, aimed at helping you set reasonable orders with a few notes and tips added along the way. Obviously there's no "perfect" way to set your orders, but following some of these guidelines will help get you started and get you some fairly solid bowling orders to use. Once you get a feeling for how well your side is working, you can adapt and modify your orders and learn when and how certain changes should be made.

As a final introduction note: Keep in mind that every team is different and at the end of the day each team will have a different contingent of bowlers - so no one can ever tell you 100% how best to bowl your players. Only you can learn what you feel is best for your side by playing over and over.

Enjoy!


ps. This post stemmed from the success of the "Pitch Selection" thread. If you like these kind of posts, let me know and I'll endeavour to create more little simple reference guides.

Pitch Selection - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=30107

This should all be fairly self-explanatory. We try start with the most simple stuff, and work our way down to some more intricate points. Obviously as you get more practise, you'll learn when and how to deviate from this general advice as your side may work differently overall.
If you have any questions, drop them in here. Obviously I enjoy talking about this kind of thing in detail, so myself (and many others) would be happy to share more opinions and ideas in here.

Really good post, some good tips there

Talking SOD.
A number of managers add bowling spells and really mix it up . That sometimes becomes complicated and can take time in working out especially if the pitch surface keeps changing.
Personally I stick with the 5 spells and usually have my weakest bowlers finishing at the end on "D".
Some say that is wrong as you need good bowlers bowling at the death , well I want my good bowlers taking wks during the main part of the innings , putting pressure on the batting side.
Obviously try not to overbowl a player before or after the break as they do get tired, use the break to recover fatigue.
NEW ball bowlers , obviously use them at the begining and give them a spell of 6 , possibly bwl the remaining 4 at the end on "D" , or you could add a spell just after the break and give them 2 overs and the final 2 at the end.
Similar with OLD ball bowlers but in reverse. 6 or even 7 at the end of the innings.