With Christmas out the way and 2016 firmly ushered in, we can finally start thinking about the truly important thing in life: cricket.
Rummaging through the cupboards we piece together our whites, pads and trusty willow – elegantly stroking an imaginary ball to all parts of the hallway in the process.
And if the prospect of once again hitting a blistering cover drive for four or nipping another one between bat and pad isn’t enough, there’s a reason to be even more excited for the 2016 cricket season: Fantasy Club Cricket.
Fantasy Club Cricket is a fantastic fund-raising tool (more about that below) that lets you pick and manage a team of heroes from your club’s players. Your players will score your team points based on their weekly performances so now you’ve got even more of an excuse to get back to the bar and rifle through the scorebooks!
Fantasy Club Cricket is fully integrated with Play-Cricket, the official cricket statistics database for club cricket, powered by the ECB. This means that it’s super simple to import your clubs players when setting up your league and your club’s players’ points are updated automatically each week*.
All you have to worry about is offloading that batsman that scored you another duck or bringing in that superstar third team seamer that’s taking the league by storm!
How does it work?
Fantasy club cricket has been designed to be easy to use across any device and couldn’t be simpler to set up:
- Once your club has signed up you’ll be given your own private URL that you use to set up your league. You simply share this with club members and they can enter their team.
- You have a set amount of money to spend on your team of 6 that cannot be exceeded.
- You must pick 2 batsmen, 2 bowlers, 1 all-rounder and a keeper
- If you choose the 11 players per team upgrade (see below) you’ll pick 4 batters, 4 bowlers, 2 all-rounders and 1 keeper
- Each week the players in your team score points based on their performance in real life; scoring runs, taking wickets, catches, stumpings, run outs and maidens are all worth points.
- Each team selects a captain each week who will score double points.
- Each team can make one free transfer each week (additional transfers are permitted but cost 10 points).
How can it help me raise funds for my club?
Fantasy Club Cricket is the most complete and feature-filled fantasy club cricket experience on the market and not only makes the season more interesting, it’s also a brilliant way to raise money if the club’s coffers are looking a little light.
For example, let’s say you have 25 people interested in entering a team into your league. If you charge each person £10 to enter, and provide a £50 prize for the winner you’ve got over £175 for the club after the Fantasy Club cricket fee.
Who can use it?
Absolutely anyone. You don’t even have to be affiliated with Play-Cricket (although you probably are!)
How much does it cost?
The standard Fantasy Club Cricket experience is just £14.99 per season but there are a number of add-ons and upgrades that can be purchased to enhance the experience if you choose.
The Play-Cricket integration that allows for automatic points updates is an additional £8.99 and increasing your team sizes to 11 players versus the standard 6 is an additional £5.99 totalling £29.97. However if you choose both upgrades you’ll receive a bundle discount and pay just £24.99 for the season.
To sign up or find out more head over to www.fantasyclubcricket.co.uk.
Here’s to a successful 2016 cricket season for you, your cricket club and your Fantasy Club Cricket team.
