Fantasy tips for the second-innings chase, in three short reads.
Reading notes for the chase: when to keep your captain, when to read the bowler rotation, and three small tips that survive a wet outfield.
The chase reads differently from the first innings.
A chase settles by partnerships and target pressure, not by who got the fastest fifty. The tips below assume you have already locked a side; they read a chase you can still adjust.
Chases are settled in two windows. The powerplay is for the batting side to read the field and the bowler rotation; the middle overs are where the asking rate is decided. The tip that is most often wrong is treating the chase like a first innings: the same batter looks slower in a chase because the field has spread and the dot-ball pressure is higher.
Read the bowler rotation in the first six overs. If the captain is saving a strike bowler for the 16th over instead of the 14th, the asking rate is going to climb between the 12th and the 15th. That is the window where a pinch-hitter or a promoted all-rounder is most useful on a fantasy side, and the window where most captain switches look smart in hindsight.
Read the outfield. A wet outfield rewards placement over power, and a slow outfield pulls the strike rate down by a full run per over on a slow track. Both readings change which batter in your side is the safer captain choice and which is the right vice-captain.
When to keep your captain, and when to switch.
A captain switch is paid for in points lost on the original pick. Three small checks before you switch.
Keep your captain if the batter is on strike at the fall of the first wicket and the asking rate is below the target. Switch only if the asking rate has climbed above the projected rate by more than half a run per over through the eighth over, and the original captain is not on strike in the next over.
Vice-captains earn half points, so the choice of vice-captain is the second decision of the night, not the third. Pick the vice-captain from the same match if the original captain is on the wrong side of the rotation, and from a different match only if the original match has been badly rain-affected.
Rain, the Duckworth–Lewis reading, and when to stop adjusting.
Reading notes for the cut-off, the par score, and when the desk stops trying to be clever.
A cut-off between the 6th and the 12th over almost always pushes the chase to a fresh target. If the par score at the cut-off is below the original target, the chasing side is usually ahead; if it is above, the bowling side is usually ahead. The fantasy reading is simple: in the first case, the bowlers in your side earn more, and in the second, the batters earn more.
Stop adjusting at the start of the 16th over. By that point the rotation is set, the bowlers are set, and the fielding captain has made the obvious changes. The fantasy desk stops trying to out-think the field at that point and just reads what is on the scorecard.