A bit of history...

OK, to start my ICC 2011 career, I'm going to be England coach. I've just (as in literally this morning) been amidst a fairly epic ICC2010 career as England boss, in which I have only lost one test series in six years. Not bad going. It's going to be tough to rip myself away from such a great side, but to be honest, a lot of my best players (Swann, Pietersen, Anderson etc) are well over 35 and will need replacing soon. So to avoid the transitional phase that the Australian team are going through in real life* (*real life? how boring...) I'm simply moving onto a newer game. Sorry chaps.

In honour of that side though (who, in their final series against world number two South Africa beat them 3-2 after winning a tense fifth test decider), here's the England test class of 2016, the final team from my ICC2010 game.

Alastair Cook (captain)
Craig Kieswetter
Ian Bell
Eoin Morgan
Kevin Pietersen
Nathan Moore*
Matt Prior
Stuart Broad
Lawrence Pointer*
Graeme Swann
Jimmy Anderson

(* regen players)

A pretty decent side I'm sure you'll admit. Unlucky to miss out that series were James Taylor who'd played 50-odd tests and 70-odd ODIs, and a regen batsman called Steve Webster who burst onto the scene with three centuries in his first three tests to win the 2013 Ashes almost single handed, but fell away massively afterwards with some pretty ordinary form.


So there's my tribute to my team; but as I embark on my new ICC2011 game, I will do well to remember the first rule of the International Cricket Captain series - don't judge players on past glories. Just because a player had success in an earlier version of the game won't make him a world-beater this time around, and vice versa. So while I'll have to put the form of the class of '10 out of my mind, the boys of '11 will have a lot to live up to...

Here's the scorecard from my final test on ICC2010 - a heavy win for England over South Africa