What Is Better: A Team With Great Chemistry or A Team With Great Players?

[Turbinator]

These days, there aren't many teams with great chemistry, however, there are many teams with several great players.

A team with great chemistry is a team that sticks together during thick and thin, good times and bad times. It's a team that plays together, wins together, and looses together. It's a team that works well together, on and off the field. It's a team that copes with both failiure and success, TOGETHER.

While a team with great players is a team with the Sachins, the Pontings, the Laras, the Imrans, the Devs, the Warnes....etc etc, you get the point. It's a team which, no doubt, are tigers on paper.

But now lies a question which I so deeply seek the answer of, what is better?

As far as my opinion goes, my uncle once said, "Take a pack of thick sticks and spread them apart and try breaking them together at once." I tried and eventually I succeeded, then he asked me to take a pack of thin sticks and pack them tightly together and try breaking them. To my surprise, I failed.

But what do you guys think is what I want to know!

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Is this a serious question?

A team is always better than a superstar XI. Just look at the SuperSeries for evidence... or the England football team.

[Pratters]

I will quote Matthew Engel from Wisden 2006:

The guiding myth of cricket is that it is a team game. The ethos is always that the individual must subordinate himself to the collective: celebrate a victory even if he has contributed nothing and faces the chop, or pretend that his own century is meaningless if it failed to secure the team's objective. That applies on the village green just as it does in a Test match.

But this misrepresents cricket's appeal, both to the player and the spectator. It's a game of character and personality - individuals operating within the team framework, like wheels within wheels.

If you look at great teams from the past, they did have many great players in them. So, the individual is important. However, it is equally vital that the sum of the parts is greater than the individuals and often separates a wannabe great team from a great one. For instance, look at Pakistan in the early 90s. With the line up they had, they could have easily challenged Australia had it been just to individual greatness making a great team.

I would put it this way - individual greatness is a basic requisite while the team playing as a unit is crucial. So both are vital ingredients in making up of a great team.

[Turbinator]

Originally Posted by Mr Mxyzptlk

Is this a serious question?

A team is always better than a superstar XI. Just look at the SuperSeries for evidence... or the England football team.

But the Australian cricket team did have several great players, while the superstar XI had barely any chemistry.

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Originally Posted by Turbinator

But the Australian cricket team did have several great players, while the superstar XI had barely any chemistry.

The Australian team was a team of players who had been playing together for a while. It wasn't just great players. It was a team with good chemistry that contained some great players.

The World XI was purely a team of a great players. No chemistry.

[Turbinator]

Originally Posted by Mr Mxyzptlk

The Australian team was a team of players who had been playing together for a while. It wasn't just great players. It was a team with good chemistry that contained some great players.

The World XI was purely a team of a great players. No chemistry.

Exactly my point, this shows you haven't fully understood what I am trying to ask here.

I asking what is better, a team with great chemistry (and very limited number of superstars) or a team with great players (and very limited chemistry). In this case the Aussies has both great players and chemistry vs. a team with ONLY great players.

[Dravid]

I agree with Liam, despite the skills of the Australian players, they also have great chemistry from playing together for so long. The super series was the perfect example cause easily the World XI was the better team if you look at skills, but they still lost because they had no chemistry

[open365]

It's too hypothetical a question to answer.

I agree with Michael Atherton, team spirit/chemistry is an illusion caused by winning.

Using the super series is a bit of a rubish example seeing as the players weren't playing for a country, they lacked pride and they lacked motivation, they didn't lose because they lacked chemistry.

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Originally Posted by Turbinator

Exactly my point, this shows you haven't fully understood what I am trying to ask here.

I asking what is better, a team with great chemistry (and very limited number of superstars) or a team with great players (and very limited chemistry). In this case the Aussies has both great players and chemistry vs. a team with ONLY great players.

Umm... I answered that question in my first post. Must I clarify further?

A team is always better than a superstar XI.

^ An exact quote from my first post...

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Originally Posted by open365

Using the super series is a bit of a rubish example seeing as the players weren't playing for a country, they lacked pride and they lacked motivation, they didn't lose because they lacked chemistry.

It doesn't matter why they lost on that occasion. The fact is that they were never going to be very successful because it was blatantly obvious that there was no chemistry. Just look at the way the batting styles of players clashed and the running between the wickets. It showed blatantly how important chemistry is to the basic functioning of a team.

[open365]

Originally Posted by Mr Mxyzptlk

It doesn't matter why they lost on that occasion. The fact is that they were never going to be very successful because it was blatantly obvious that there was no chemistry. Just look at the way the batting styles of players clashed and the running between the wickets. It showed blatantly how important chemistry is to the basic functioning of a team.

The batting styles of the players clashed? that makes no sense, a persons batting style is almost all self contained and isolated from thr rest of the side.

and running between the wickets is just nonsense, by that logic debutants would get ran out all the time

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Originally Posted by open365

The batting styles of the players clashed? that makes no sense, a persons batting style is almost all self contained and isolated from thr rest of the side.

It makes perfect sense. The key to partnerships is that players play to complement each other. The way the world XI played was totally lacking that.

Originally Posted by open365

and running between the wickets is just nonsense, by that logic debutants would get ran out all the time

Yes, nonsense. That's why certain opening partnerships (Gayle and Hinds for example) run between the wickets so much better than others, right? It has nothing to do with chemistry though...

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Simply because something is more likely to happen doesn't mean it will happen.

[open365]

Originally Posted by Mr Mxyzptlk

It makes perfect sense. The key to partnerships is that players play to complement each other. The way the world XI played was totally lacking that.


Yes, nonsense. That's why certain opening partnerships (Gayle and Hinds for example) run between the wickets so much better than others, right? It has nothing to do with chemistry though...

no, the key to partnerships is having to high class players which give the illusion that they bat well together so commentators have something to talk about.

If Gayle and Hinds are so great, why aren't they opening together?Because it makes barely any difference

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Originally Posted by open365

If Gayle and Hinds are so great, why aren't they opening together?Because it makes barely any difference

Hinds and Gayle have a very good record opening together. The reason they aren't opening together is because Daren Ganga has batted better than Hinds lately and deserves his place in the team more.

I believe you pick your best players and try to develop chemistry and synergy within a team. However, to argue that such synergy is not vital to a successful team is utter rubbish.

And to argue that "if Hinds and Gayle are such a good opening partnership, why aren't they opening" is even more rubbish, because Hinds and Gayle are a proven effective partnership. They've played together for Jamaica and it shows. The stats don't say it alone. Anyone with eyes can see it too.