Worlds greatest team

[Zinzan]

de Silva was no fluke. He tore apart Wasim, Waqar, Ambrose and Donald at their best. I find no reason why he cannot do it to Hadlee.

Would depend on the track for mine, if it was greenish with a touch of seam De Silva could struggle against Sir Dick, if it was a flat pitch in Colombo, then I'd rate De Silva to do well.

 

[Migara]

AWTA.
Not sure I agree with cricinfo about SL's best team, mind you.

Yes. Somachanda de SIlva was a joke during his test career (he was better when he was young). Warnaweera was much better and much deadlier.

My all time XI is, Jayasuriya, Atapattu, Sanga, de Silva, Jayawardane, Ranatunga (c), Tillekaratne (wk), Ravi Ratnayake, Vaas, Rumesh Ratnayake and Murali.

Ravi and Rumesh are useful all rounders. If they had fitness of current players wold have done better than Vaas. When fit and firing looked much more intimidating than Vaas. You rarely find fast bowlers breaking noses of West Indians of 70s and 80s.

 

[Migara]

How'd de Silva go against McGrath out of interest?

Didn't face much to him. Majority of it was when he was out of form in 95 Aussie tour. The subsequent test tours either McGrath or de Silva was injured.

Only fast bowlers who were putting de Silva in trouble was Pollock and Doull. I can think that happened because Pollock is a bloody good bowler. But Doull's case, I have no explanations. de Silva had been hammering Watsons, Morrisons etc in earlier tours, and it's not the type of bowling as well.

 

[nick-o]

australia
west indies
england
south africa
pakistan
india
srilanka
new zealand
zimbabwe
bangladesh

does it sound right?

It's so hard to compare across such a long time span, with teams that played vastly different numbers of matches and against vastly different varieties of opponents.

However, I think England probably shade West Indies over the full course of history -- it's close, but whether you use overall winning percentage (matches won vs matches played) or win/loss percentage (matches won vs matches lost), England are slightly ahead. For sure, they don't have a period of total dominance that stands out like the great West Indies team, but partly that is because at the times when they were the best team in the world, the sport was less global and less frequent, so the achievements appear less spectacular.

India and Sri Lanka is maybe too close to call; a lot depends on the point at which you decide they each qualified as "test class" -- but even using a definition that favors India (by discounting the early years when India couldn't buy a win), Sri Lanka have a better winning percentage. India's win/loss percentage, however, is significantly better. [But that is due to a strange anomaly, that fewer matches involving Sri Lanka end in draws when compared to everyone else, and that more matches involving India end in draws than everyone else, which maybe inflates the proportion of losses for Sri Lanka and deflates it for India.]

So I think I'd say:

australia
england
west indies
south africa
pakistan
india / sri lanka
new zealand
zimbabwe
bangladesh

[obviously, tests only]

 

[Zinzan]

Only fast bowlers who were putting de Silva in trouble was Pollock and Doull. I can think that happened because Pollock is a bloody good bowler. But Doull's case, I have no explanations. de Silva had been hammering Watsons, Morrisons etc in earlier tours, and it's not the type of bowling as well.

Could be because given the right conditions, he (Doull) was one of the best exponents of swing-bowling at that period i.e the 7/65 against a strong Indian lineup in 98/99

 

[Migara]

Could be because given the right conditions, he (Doull) was one of the best exponents of swing-bowling at that period i.e the 7/65 against a strong Indian lineup in 98/99

Still I am in dark on this matter. De Silva has played Wasim and Waqar when the the ball is boomeranging as conventional or reverse swing, and some times taken both of them to the cleaners. It may be more due to seam with lack of pace more than the swing.

 

[Xuhaib]

Still I am in dark on this matter. De Silva has played Wasim and Waqar when the the ball is boomeranging as conventional or reverse swing, and some times taken both of them to the cleaners. It may be more due to seam with lack of pace more than the swing.

I don't remeber a single good test innings from Arvinda against Waz and Waqar.Would prefer it to be before 99.

 

[Migara]

I don't remeber a single good test innings from Arvinda against Waz and Waqar.Would prefer it to be before 99.

Short memories. 95 runs in the morning session. Wasim preferentially decided not to bowl to de Silva on rampage. Waqar was taken to the cleaners.

Pakistan in Sri Lanka Test Series - 1st Test

If you though that was a fluke performance here are more.

Against Imran and Wasim: 122, 105

Against Wasim and Waqar: 112

Unfortunately, Wasim and Waqar did not bowl to him in his golden years 1996 - 98 period. He would have scored more centuries for sure.

 

[Xuhaib]

Short memories. 95 runs in the morning session. Wasim preferentially decided not to bowl to de Silva on rampage. Waqar was taken to the cleaners.

Pakistan in Sri Lanka Test Series - 1st Test

Played.

 

[satyam]

I don't remeber a single good test innings from Arvinda against Waz and Waqar.Would prefer it to be before 99.

Are you joking. Aravinda desilva was one of the most destructive batsman on his day. And he was one of the few players from Subcontinent who played pull and hook very well.

This is my favourite video of desilva.

YouTube - Aravinda De Silva | This is Cricket

To me here is the rankings of SL batsman( Both odi as well as test)

1. Sangakara
2. Desilva
3. Jayasuriya
4. Jayawardene

 

[Hurricane]

Aravinda was money.

 

[chasingthedon]

There is a site which rates cricket sides across ages with a very interesting rating system. Faaip knows about the site. I can't remember it.

Strongest ever would be Windies IMO.

Were you thinking of my article at howstat.com, Pratters?

http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Articles/Retro_ICC_Rankings_rev2.pdf

 

[NZTailender]

Alltime Xi vs. Alltime XI I'd back ours most of the time. Our top order > theres, their middle order = ours, our seam attack >>>>>> theres, there Murali >>>>> ours.

Yeah but what about a best XI ever fielded? SL would have us there, I think.

 

[Jarquis]

Yeah, Tendulkar's patch of form from 2105-2108 really capped it off.

Loved it.

 

[WindieWeathers]

Yeah you're right, it does raise an interesting question - Australia v WI is a case in point too. Over all of cricket history Australia have been far more consistently successful and outstanding than WI have, but when WI were dominant they were so ridiculously good that many would claim that their all time XI is better than Australia's and thus they deserve the all time number 1 ranking. I suppose it depends on where you put your weighting and I'm not really sure what the answer would be.

Absolutely SPOT ON!! , our best ever side >>>>>> everyone else's that just cannot be denied, also doesn't WI hold the record for the most consective series without defeat (29 in total) too? yep we sure did dominate back then!! .

 

[Zinzan]

Absolutely SPOT ON!! , our best ever side >>>>>> everyone .

Not so sure about the '>>>>>>' making it out to be a non-contest.

Lets put it to the test, you really think they'd be that much difference between the below two sides;

Australian XI

Ponsford
Hayden
Bradman
G Chappell
Ponting
Border/S Waugh
Gilchrist (wk)
Miller
Warne
Lillee
McGrath

12th Man; Davidson

West Indies XI

Walcott
Weekes
Headley
Lara
Richards
Sobers
Dujon (wk)
Marshall
Ambrose
Holding
Garner

12th Man; Walsh

Damn close thing for mine, obviously this is based on my top XI, but don't think I'm too far off

 

[bagapath]

i wud get the teams fixed to my satisfaction before starting the argument, if you dont mind zinzan12

trumper
hayden
bradman
g.chappell
ponting
miller
gilchrist(wk)
warne
lillee
oreilly
mcgrath

vs

greenidge
haynes
headley
richards
lara
sobers
dujon (wk)
marshall
holding
gibbs
ambrose

i think australia will win a 5 test series 3-2. don's presence will make any aussie all time xi the best in the world, not that they dont have two of the greatest fast bowlers and two of the greatest spinners to bowl out the oppisiton with support from a top notch fast bowling all rounder. the wk-batsman is capable of winning test match sessions on his own too.

 

[Zinzan]

i wud get the teams fixed to my satisfaction before starting the argument, if you dont mind zinzan12

Not at all, I like your side, just feel Weekes & Walcott were better than Greenidge & Haynes despite not be openers.

trumper
hayden
bradman
g.chappell
ponting
miller
gilchrist(wk)
warne
lillee
oreilly
mcgrath

vs

greenidge
haynes
headley
richards
lara
sobers
dujon (wk)
marshall
holding
gibbs
ambrose

i think australia will win a 5 test series 3-2. don's presence will make any aussie all time xi the best in the world, not that they dont have two of the greatest fast bowlers and two of the greatest spinners to bowl out the oppisiton with support from a top notch fast bowling all rounder. the wk-batsman is capable of winning test match sessions on his own too.

Sounds like a logical enough assumption that

 

[WindieWeathers]

Not so sure about the '>>>>>>' making it out to be a non-contest.

Lets put it to the test, you really think they'd be that much difference between the below two sides;

Australian XI

Ponsford
Hayden
Bradman
G Chappell
Ponting
Border/S Waugh
Gilchrist (wk)
Miller
Warne
Lillee
McGrath

12th Man; Davidson

West Indies XI

Walcott
Weekes
Headley
Lara
Richards
Sobers
Dujon (wk)
Marshall
Ambrose
Holding
Garner

12th Man; Walsh

Damn close thing for mine, obviously this is based on my top XI, but don't think I'm too far off

I might be biased but i still think WI takes it!!!, and if we're comparing the best sides in terms of generation like our 70's-80's side compared to the Aussies 90's side i would also say WI hold the advantage!!, but i guess it's all about opinions at the end of the day, could a prime Chanderpaul get into that side? maybe!!, there's a few names that could be added i think, even Courtney Walsh too.

 

[Zinzan]

I might be biased but i still think WI takes it!!!, and if we're comparing the best sides in terms of generation like our 70's-80's side compared to the Aussies 90's side i would also say WI hold the advantage!!, but i guess it's all about opinions at the end of the day, could a prime Chanderpaul get into that side? maybe!!, there's a few names that could be added i think, even Courtney Walsh too.

It's not unreasonable in the slightest for you to be of the view that the Windies would take it out, but your '>>>>>' in your previous post suggested to me you felt it was a total 'slam-dunk' when it is in fact a very close thing regardless of which side of the fence you sit on.