Hero11

Set them last

The order on this site is fixed. Pick a match you can still read: who plays, the ground, the start, the lock, the spots, the recent roles, the pitch line if it is shown, and the news about rest and doubt. Then build the playing 11 across the role tabs the screen offers, WK, BAT, AR, and BOWL, and stay inside the counters. Only when that eleven can be saved do you mark a captain and a vice-captain. Then you join.

Last means last. If you name a captain while the BAT tab is still half empty, every later pick is bent toward that person. You keep a bowler you do not need because he is in the captain’s side. You drop a keeper who bats in a useful slot because the credit line, if the screen is showing one, was already spent on the star. If that screen is showing a spending line, the eleven has to come in under the line. A combination the contest rejects will not save, and handing someone a title does not make that combination legal.

Last also means after the playing XI, whenever the lock allows the wait. The real selection sheet is the moment “how sure” stops being a feeling. A name in the XI can wear a title. A name still marked doubtful should not. If your room locks before that sheet exists, you are choosing under doubt. That is tolerable only for players who are not the subject of the doubt. It is a poor moment to be brave with a famous batter the reports will not confirm.

Certainty over fame

Choose the captain for the job they will actually do in this match, and for the chance they take the field. A batter who opens and is named in the XI is a different proposition from a batter who is famous and listed as doubtful. The second of those is a weak captain. If the player does not bat, the title has nobody to attach to. You will not get the overs or the balls back after the lock by explaining that the player used to be automatic.

Role is concrete. Who faces the new ball. Who bats if two early wickets fall. Who bowls in the powerplay. Who bowls at the death. Who bowls the middle overs if the surface note, when the app shows one, points at seam or at a ground that has been easy for batting. The match page keeps an example of that kind of sentence. Your match may show something else or nothing. The captain should be a player whose job is alive on the information you have, not a player whose job was alive in a highlight.

Certainty has a plain test. Is the player in the announced XI? If the XI is not out, is the player free of a resting or doubtful tag, and still holding the role you are trusting? “In the squad” is weaker than “in the XI”. “Bowled in the nets”, “looked good in the warm-up”, and “the fans want this” are not tests this page will treat as news. A player who sat out the last two matches has no recent role until the sheet says otherwise. Do not repair that gap with fame.

One viral inning is the wrong kind of certainty. A hundred last week on a flat pitch does not mean the same batter will face thirty balls on a slower ground, and it does not mean a doubtful player is now certain. Recent role across several matches is calmer evidence than a clip. If your sentence of justification is only “everyone knows this name”, you do not have a captain yet. You have a poster.

The vice-captain is a hedge

The vice-captain is the hedge if the captain has a quiet day, not a second celebrity. A quiet day is normal. Openers get a duck. Death bowlers go for runs. A spinner is held back because the surface did not turn. The hedge is the player who can still have a substantial day when that happens. It is not the player who would look good on the same advertisement.

Match the hedge to the hole. If the captain is a top-order batter, a quiet day is often an early wicket. Another top-order batter from the same fragile top three can fail in the same over. A vice-captain who bowls, or who bats in the middle order with a clear slot, covers a different failure. If the captain is a quick bowler and the pitch is kind to batting, the hedge should be someone who faces balls, not a second quick who suffers the same spell. If both titles are two versions of the same bet, you do not have a hedge. You have a louder bet.

The vice-captain still has to play. A hedge who is doubtful is not a hedge. It is a second way to end the night with a title on the bench. Apply the same certainty test you applied to the captain, and apply it second, not instead. Do not “save” the famous doubtful name by making that player vice-captain. The softer title is not a waiting room for bad news.

Both names are taken from the eleven you already built. Do not reach outside the eleven because a star you left out suddenly feels necessary. If that star belongs in the side, rebuild the eleven first, under the counters, and then set the titles again. The title is not a back door past a role tab you skipped.

When an all-rounder is a sound captain

An all-rounder can be a sound captain when both bat and bowl are live and the player is actually playing. Both skills have to be real in this match. Batting in the top six or the upper middle order is a live batting job. Bowling a proper spell, not two forgot-about-it overs, is a live bowling job. If the real side has stopped giving the player the ball, you are captaining a batter who happens to sit on the AR tab. That can still be right, but then say “batter” and judge the batting slot. Do not pay the title for overs that are not coming.

Actually playing means in the side that takes the field, not “might appear if someone is injured” and not “might be the substitute if this competition uses one”. If the contest you are joining explains how a substitute is treated, read that note on the contest. Do not assume a substitute counts, and do not assume one does not. Until you have read it, captain a player who starts. A famous all-rounder who is doubtful fails the same test as a famous batter who is doubtful. The extra skill does not cancel the absence.

An all-rounder is sometimes a good hedge as vice-captain rather than as captain. If your captain is a specialist batter, an all-rounder who bowls a full spell covers the quiet batting day with overs. If your captain is already that all-rounder, do not make the vice-captain a second all-rounder who bowls in the same phase and bats in the same slot. Spread the jobs. The eleven page asked you to cover phases. The titles should not undo that by crowning two copies of one phase.

Changing them before the lock

Editing a player, the captain, or the vice-captain before the lock updates the entry. It does not, by itself, drop you from the room. You remain in that contest. The eleven saved at lock is the one that counts. Changing your mind is normal. Do it on the entry you already have. Do not assume you were removed, and do not join a second time without looking at what the room allows.

How many teams you may submit is printed on the room. This page will not invent the number. An edit is an update to the entry you are changing. A separate eleven, with its own names, is a new submission and counts only if that room still has room under its own number. If you wanted two different bets, build the second one on purpose. Do not create it by accident while trying to fix the first.

The useful edits before lock are specific. The playing XI drops one of your players: replace that player, then look again at the titles. If the dropped player was captain, the title has to move to someone who is in the XI and who still has a live role. If a bowler you trusted is not bowling, take the title off even if the player still bats at eight. If the pitch line you finally see disagrees with the captain’s skill, and the room is still open, change the title. None of these edits remove you. All of them are impossible once the lock has passed. That is why the lock was a first-step check, not a surprise.

Check spots only if you are trying to join something new. An edit does not require a free seat you already hold. A brand-new room does. A card with zero seats left has not called the cricket off. If the room you are in is still open, stay there and edit. If it has locked, it is no longer an editing problem.

What you do not do after the lock

After the lock, edits stop. You do not swap a player. You do not move the captain. You do not move the vice-captain. You do not get a grace minute because the television has not started. The contest clock is the one you accepted when you joined. If the announced XI later drops your player, the entry stands. The replacement who walks out is not in your eleven unless that replacement was already there.

Do not ask chat to rewind a lock. The contact page is the list of facts that make a reply possible. “Please put my captain back” after the timer has ended is not one of those notes. If a different room on the same match is still unlocked and still has spots, that room is a new decision with its own lock. Joining it does not edit the locked entry. Leaving the locked entry in place is correct. It stands.

Do not invent a new multiplier after lock either, and do not hunt this page for one. The contest you entered shows its own title rules. Read them before you join, while you can still change who wears the title. After the lock, reading them only tells you what you already chose. The FAQ keeps the short answers: the two titles are not the same job, an edit before lock does not drop you, a dropped player is replaceable only while you are unlocked, and the captain is never the first name you pick.