Welcome to The Scott Muller Cup VI

Welcome to the Official website of The Scott Muller Cup VI - a "Friendly" tournament for players in the online cricket management game Battrick.

This tournament is designed specifically for those players who aren't regular 1st XI players - all those who basically "can't bowl, can't throw".

The tournament will start on Sunday April 12 and will run for eight weeks. There will 42 teams participating, in three separate divisions, organised into 7 groups. The format will be round robin with finals/playoffs in the last three weeks - every team will get a game every week right through to the end.

Good luck to all of the participating teams!

Rules and Organisation

As this is a Friendly Cup, we really don't want to get bogged down with lots of rules and regulations - everyone joined in voluntarily, so hopefully we can all work together to make it all work.

If you have any questions or problems at any time, please let me know - our experience from previous seasons shows that we can find workarounds for most problems as long as we know what's happening.

Here are a few things that we all need to know to make things run smoothly:

Team Selection
When you select your team each week, you will need to make sure of two things:

• When you add up the BTRs of your 11 selected players, the total must be less than the team total BTR limit for your division. (50,000 or less for the 50K division, 75,000 or less for the 75K division, 100,000 or less for the 100K division).

• None of your selected 11 players may have a BTR of over the individual BTR limit for your division. (10,000 for the 50K division, 15,000 for the 75K division, 20,000 for the 100K division).

Your team will probably grow stronger as the season progresses, so you need to check that your players remain eligible to play each week. Also, with the adjustments made to Form in recent seasons, a player's BTR can change significantly (both up and down) from week-to-week, so you will really need to keep an eye on this every week. (Note: BTRs are updated just once a week, at your Training Update each Monday).

Strict penalties will be enforced for breaches of the BTR caps - see below for details.

Please Note: As training now occurs on Saturdays rather than Mondays, BTRs will be measured from the training update the week before each match.

Challenges
It is up to both teams to arrange your match each week. One team must challenge, the other must accept. It doesn't matter who does what, as long as it gets done.

The deadline for arranging your game will be 0:00 Friday BT Time. This may seem a little early, but it allows everyone a fair chance to set appropriate orders or to arrange another friendly game if necessary. Penalties will apply for not meeting this deadline - see below.

It might be a good idea to add a post in the Cup thread on the Friendlies sledging board when you issue or accept a challenge, as sometimes these can be easily missed.

As challenges are accepted, I will try to update this on the match schedule for that week.

A few things to remember:

• International Friendlies cannot be arranged before Tuesday.
• If you have not played International Friendlies before, then be aware that they are played in the timezone of the home team.
• Check the draw carefully each week. Make sure you know who you are playing and whether you are at home or away. (See next two points)
• Do not accept challenges made from teams outside the Cup. Check the draw!
• If you accept a challenge at the wrong ground, then nothing can be done about it.

Remember - good communication is the key - so try to contact the other manager if there are problems and please also keep me informed.

Home Games
In the published schedule, the nominated home team is the team listed first. However, in past seasons some teams elected to play at the nominated away team's ground to take advantage of larger grounds and/or higher morale. This is perfectly acceptable, provided both teams agree - if both teams do not agree, then the match should be played as listed. If both teams agree to change the venue then you may decide to allow the original home team to nominate the type of pitch for the match. (Note: this is simply a suggestion - it will not be enforced).

Results and Ladders
I will keep track of the results and produce a ladder after each round. Points awarded will be the same as in BT OD games - (4 pts for a win, 2 pts for a tie and 0 pts for a loss) - except that penalty points will also apply - see below.

Playoffs
At the end of the 5 rounds of home and away games, there will be three rounds of playoffs. The draw for these games, including allocation of home ground, will be done after Round 5 and after each week of the playoffs. Please check the draw carefully and remember that you will have a game every week right up to May 31- you do not get knocked out at any stage.

Tie Breakers
In the event of teams finishing equal on points at the end of Round 5, the first tie-breaker will be the head-to-head results between those teams. If this does not separate the teams, then Net Run Rate (NRR) will be used.

In the event of a tie in a playoff match, the team that finished higher in the preliminary rounds shall be declared the winner. However, this will not apply if the Final ends in a tie - both teams will be declared joint winners.

Penalties
Penalty points were introduced in previous seasons to overcome problems that occurred in the past. The imposition of penalty points seemed to fix the problems and most players considered the penalties to be both fair and appropriate. At the end of the day, the aim is for this to be a Friendly competition so hopefully everyone will do the right thing, so that we don't have to impose any penalties at all.

The two main areas for penalties are:

• Breaching the BTR caps. It is your responsibility to check your team each week to make sure you stay under the cap. Each week your BTR totals will be publicly posted on the results page. As the BTR limits are the heart and soul of this Cup, then any breach of the BTR limits will result in loss of game. In addition, penalty points will also be deducted for breaching this rule as follows: a deduction of 1 pt will be made for the first offence, 2 pts for a second offence and so on.

• Failing to accept a challenge on time. If you are challenged and fail to accept by the deadline then your opponent will be entitled to claim a win by walkover. Penalty points will also be deducted for breaching this rule. A deduction of 1 pt will be made for the first offence, 2 pts for a second offence and so on. These penalty points can be avoided by informing me in advance if you are unable to play (eg going away on holidays etc).

Remember - if everyone does the right thing then the penalties become irrelevant.

SMC Team Checker Tool
Many managers find the following spreadsheet tool to be useful for checking and selecting their team each week. The latest version(s) can always be found here:

http://www.wombatnet.com/tools/smcTeamCheckerV204.xls

This version has no macros and should work in both Excel and OpenOffice (on both PC and Mac) and should handle input from all browsers. It can be used across all three divisions - 50K, 75K or 100K.

Anything Else?
Please let me know if I have forgotten anything or if I have made any mistakes.

Otherwise, have a great Cup!