C_C said:
BCL opening ?
He hasnt done that in over 10 years
your point is? viv richards hasnt played a game in over 15 years. we're not picking a team thats playing tomorrow incase you havent realised.
C_C said:
and opened in less than a fourth of his 220-odd ODI matches. Simply going by average blindly is naive - you have to take into consideration that BCL has played very little as an opener and that too, for the very early part of his career.
and if hes played very little as an opener does it automatically mean that hes useless at that spot? lara was very successful when he opened the batting with desmond haynes,and in that position he accomplished far more than hes ever done batting at 4. as far as him opening in less than a 4th of his 220 ODI matches, you do realise that hes only played 72 innings batting at 4(the position you have him down at), which isnt far off 51, and his record at 4 is very very ordinary?
C_C said:
And Bevan that high is not optimal usage of the talents at hand - Bevan's primary gift is rotating strike in the 30-40 over mark and score fluently while rotating the strike in the death overs.
no, bevans greatest skill was his ability to rotate the strike and score at close to a run a ball after the 15 over restrictions were done. as such the time youd want him to bat from would be overs 15-40. while bevan was also capable at the death, its glaringly obvious that he wasnt a slogger and therefore his effectiveness was considerably reduced whenever he was forced to bat down the order(while batting first). however i've always subscribed to the idea of having bevan bat at a flexible position, and i believe that when his team bats first youd want him to bat as close to over 15 as possible, and when the team bats 2nd youd want him to bat closer to over 30, because hes the person you want batting till the very end. in which case when the team bats 2nd, i wouldnt be against the idea of andy flower batting ahead of him.
C_C said:
And Razzaq really doesnt deserve a mention, not with Kapil Dev, Klusener, Cairns etc. around. The #7 spot in the ODIs for an alltime team is for a guy who can bowl excellently and score 20-25 runs in more than run a ball rate - Kapil fits the bill perfectly in that regard. That is a slot where bowling expertise trumps batting expertise by a bit and in terms of batting, the one with the higher strike rate ( as long as its not a significantly lower average) is the best one for the job.
klusener incase you havent noticed, is already in the squad. and razzaq is the designated number 6. the reason i have razzaq there is because i felt that at 6 i needed someone who could bat according to the situation, i.e play stop-start innings when they come in at the death, or play sensibly when the team is in trouble, and i havent seen anyone play better according to the situation at 6 than razzaq. further razzaq in his prime was quite a bowler, even if he wasnt one of the best around. i felt that 6 was too high a position for kapil, whos record with the bat is very very ordinary(other than against zimbabwe), and he wasnt really capable of playing according to the situation like razzaq was and would be play aggresively all the time. its a tough decision between cairns and razzaq though,but i think razzaq in his prime was a better bowler than cairns, while cairns is probably just as good with the bat.
