Two-time SuperCoach BBL winner Andrew Langley’s five tips for success

Andrew Langley has gone where no KFC SuperCoach has gone before — winning the past two SuperCoach BBL titles and finishing top-100 four years running. He lists his five keys to success.

As the season draws closer, I am starting to get excited about the thought of attempting an unlikely BBL SuperCoach threepeat.

While I am still in disbelief that I defended my title last year, it was my fourth season running where I have managed to finish the season ranked inside the top 100.

We certainly need some things to go our way to win SuperCoach, however, our approach to the season can put us in a position to minimise our reliance on the amount of luck required.

Anyone who can keep themselves disciplined enough to plan and stick to the basics can put themselves in contention to win this season’s competition.

This is what I believe are the five steps to BBL SuperCoach success.

1. PLAY THE FIXTURE

The greatest gift that we get in KFC SuperCoach BBL each year is the fixture and I always prioritise studying it before I look at any players that I may want in my team.

Each round this year we have teams who play one, two or three games whilst other teams might have a bye.

I like to have a rough idea of how many players I want from each team for each round as I find that this helps me prioritise when to target getting certain players in, and then out, of my team.

Ideally, we want to have the best players each round from the teams who play more than one game because they will be getting the opportunity to be scoring twice for our teams.

Studying the fixture can help us plan to rotate these topscoring players through our team when we need them.

Anddrew Langley, the two-time SuperCoach BBL winner.

This strategy can be difficult for some coaches to accept, because they want to be able to hold onto the best players, however, that can be detrimental to being able to afford to bring some of the best players in when we need them for their double game rounds.

Having three trades per round means that we can turn over our entire eleven on field scoring players in four rounds, or even as few as two rounds depending on who we have on our benches.

Therefore, we need to prioritise the fixture given the flexibility that the number of trades we get provides.

While there are advantages to be gained by having players playing multiple matches in a round, the advantage of having players on a bye in our team can sometimes get overlooked.

Bye players can be handy for looping a good emergency score on field or taking a good vice captain score as a captain.

Taking advantage of these small opportunities can improve our ranks and it is important to consider the byes when planning out the season.

We also need to plan so that we don’t put ourselves in a position where we have too many players on a bye in a round and therefore fall short of being able to field a full team.

Finally, the other thing to consider when planning around the fixture is to make sure that we do not have too many players playing in one match.

We can sometimes get caught out when we have a lot of players from two teams and they play each other in the same match.

My theory is that the more players that we have in any given match means the more chance that we will have players who are likely to score poorly given the limited number of total points available in each match.

2. IDENTIFY A PLAYER’S ROLE

The nature of scoring in KFC Superoach means that the more involvement that a player is likely to have in a match, the higher that their score is likely to be.

Therefore, I will prioritise any players who have a good chance to score points when their team is both batting and fielding.

For batters, those who bat top-three score similarly for batting points, closely followed by those who bat at four, then scores drop away on average with each batting position below that.

For bowlers, those who bowl four overs score the most fielding points on average and scores drop away slightly to those bowling three overs.

Daniel Sams is a player SuperCoaches love. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Largely because Sams has so many scoring avenues. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Due to the economy rate bonus not kicking in until three overs are bowled, there is a significant drop to those who bowl two overs or less in each game, but they score more fielding points on average than players who don’t bowl.

Wicketkeepers benefit most from general fielding points that are given for catches and runouts, though some agile fielders who field in key positions are not far behind them.

Therefore, I will always prioritise any player who bats top four and bowls at least three overs as they get the most chance to score.

If weighing up a single role player (BAT or BWL) I will usually favour a bowler over a batter because more points on average seem to go to the team fielding over the team batting, and batters can be very volatile with their scoring.

3. INCREASE YOUR TEAM VALUE — FAST

SuperCoach BBL is no different to the other KFC SuperCoach games.

The quicker that we can increase our overall team value, the quicker that we will have freedom to select whoever we want in our teams.

Coaches who increase team value sooner will not have to compromise on team selection as much as coaches who take a little bit longer to build team value, so they will be able to target more high scoring players to bring into their team.

Breakevens are a very important consideration when making trade decisions in the early rounds.

Not only can they be used to target the players with low breakevens into our teams (making money faster) but they can be used to prioritise which players with high breakevens we want to trade out before they lose value.

However, we need to be careful that we don’t become so focused on breakevens that it makes us forget our initial plan of playing the fixture and picking players based on their roles.

4. STAY FLEXIBLE AND KEEP YOUR OPTIONS OPEN

As each round unfolds, we need to position ourselves to stay as flexible as possible.

The volatile nature of scoring in this game means that we can make decisions based on how a round is unfolding, and I think that maintaining flexibility during a round is more important than just locking our decisions in and having the best players available in our team.

Information is power and keeping our options open helps us to weigh up decisions based on how the players we have, or the popular players we don’t have, are performing in the early games of the round.

The more that we can delay decision making and not lock our teams in too early each round, the greater our chances for success are over those who had to lock in their trades and team structure earlier.

When choosing between two players, I will often select the player that lets me make my final decision later in the round unless there is a clear difference between them, such as their role or upcoming fixtures.

This can be helpful when trying to decide what might be a good emergency or vice captain score to lock in because I can wait to see how other teams are going before deciding.

It can also help with deciding if I want to trade in a more reliable scoring player over a more volatile scoring player based on how my team is sitting in comparison to others.

Getting just a few points advantage here and there can be what makes the difference in the end.

The trade update function is a very handy tool in the SuperCoach game, so don’t forget to consider it to ensure flexibility when planning out a round.

Panicking after a bad round of SuperCoach can do more harm than good. Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

5. DON’T PANIC

The most important thing in KFC SuperCoach is to not panic, stay focused and enjoy the ride.

The volatile nature of scoring in the game means that players with good roles can still score poorly in a round and players with poor scoring roles can occasionally jag a big score.

Similarly with the fixture, there will be players who play one game in a round scoring more than players who played two games.

We can’t change what has already happened, and we can’t allow ourselves to get so frustrated by these anomalies that it takes us away from making sensible decisions in future rounds.

There will always be high and low spikes, but at the end of the day it is a game of averages.

Any coach who can keep focused on their plan and follow these steps, should be able to enjoy having a competitive KFC SuperCoach season.

Originally published as Two-time SuperCoach BBL winner Andrew Langley’s five tips for success