The Flex: What is it and how to bend it in your favour

The great innovation for the SuperCoach BBL season is the Flex and already this new rule change has got tongues wagging

Whether you love it or hate, it’s here to stay and it’s very likely a preview of what’s to come for other versions of SuperCoach as well.

What is the Flex?

The Flex is kind of like your 12th man in a Cricket team. Only that instead of just mixing the Powerade, they’re more of a super sub.

The Flex will bring about a change in team scoring this year where, as described by SuperCoach HQ, your total score each round will now come from your best 11 players.

Of the 12 players who score for your team each round (including up to 3 emergencies), your lowest or worst score will now drop out of your total. Which effectively means that you’re covered in case of one injury or one shocking performance in your team.

Importantly the Flex also helps us in case of rain impacted games too. SuperCoach BBL is all about forward planning and in case of a washout, the Flex would give you one player of coverage from your side.

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Three strategies to maximise the Flex position

1. Roll the dice on a streaky cheapie

Arguably the most popular approach for the flex will be taking the punt on a cheap top order batter – most likely on a double game week – knowing that a failure can be patched over by your flex player. In this instance you’re effectively reducing the risk of taking a cheaper/less credentialled ‘bat only’ player knowing that there’s coverage if you need it.

There’s examples of how you’d execute this available across the board from every team too – players without the pedigree, role and importantly price tag.

Guys like Tom Rogers from the Stars, Ashton Turner from the Scorchers or even Dan Hughes from the Sixers. All skillful players capable of going big on their day but generally lack consistency.

As breakevens come into play, this tactic will become super appealing too, knowing you can take the risk and still bank some price rises from players without having to take their score.

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2. Load up on bowlers

We all know SuperCoach BBL is dominated by the bowlers. The simplest way to play the flex rule is to chuck a reliable bowler into your flex position and let natural selection – i.e. the bowlers typically averaging more than the bat only players – sort itself out.

In this instance you’d be finding another four overs of consistent SuperCoach scoring to most likely replace a batting failure in your team.

This tactic could be paired with the one above or otherwise just considered as a more conservative depth play.

This doesn’t mean you have to necessarily cheap out in other positions which, as we build team value, should be the goal anyway.

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3. Kill off the wicket-keeper

This is pretty aggressive but potentially a unique way to exploit this rule in a manner which few will have the courage to try.

As described by Andrew Langley on this week’s podcast, the issue with the WKP spot has always been that no ‘keepers bowl overs.

This flies in the face of the traditional strategy of stacking your batting spots with those who bowl in favour of a higher ‘floor’ for your scorers.

If you were to simply fill your team with the cheapest available wicketkeepers selected for Round 1 – for example, Sam Harper or Harry Neilsen – you could leverage the funds you save in doing so to stack your other 11 starters with better players.

In theory you could be getting an extra bowler or allrounder up in your ‘keeper spot, which is pretty appealing. The risk of course is that by effectively conceding a poor score in one position, you’re not protecting yourself from other poor scores.

Things to note

There’s no ‘emergency’ for your Flex position.

This means firstly you cannot bench loop, but secondly that you should probably ensure your Flex position plays early in the round – or at least before the first match – so you’ve got the ability to shuffle the deck if you need to.

You can put the ‘VC’ or ‘C’ on a player in the Flex position. This is particularly interesting should you wish to run a VC loop without a bench loop – you could now effectively put a NPR with the C in your Flex spot and not have to worry about a bench score coming on field.

In conclusion

I don’t think we’ll truly know the best way to use the Flex until after the 9 round season, but I already love the new strategic toy we have to play with this season.

If there’s any other strategies you’re considering let us know in the comments.