Real time draft- voting poll

[Monk]

Real time draft run last night. Please select the three strongest teams and vote for them in the poll.

PARTICIPANTS SHOULD VOTE- BUT PLEASE VOTE FOR THREE TEAMS OTHER THAN YOUR OWN

Rules

* Each team must contain one player from each of the following countries:
- Australia
- NZ OR Sri Lanka
- SA
- WI
- England
- Pakistan
- India

* Any player who has played at least one test can be selected.

* Bradman can be chosen, but the player choosing him forfeits his/her choice in the next round (just to make it fun!)

* Each player has only 5 minutes to select a player after the player before him/her has selected.



Spikey
01. Alastair Cook *
02. Victor Trumper
03. Rahul Dravid
04. Sir Clyde Walcott
05. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
06. Keith Miller
07. Alan Knott +
08. Chris Cairns
09. Vernon Philander
10. Waqar Younis
11. Clarrie Grimmett

AndyZaltzHair
01. Stewie Dempster
02. Herbert Sutcliffe
03. Donald Bradman*
04. Javed Miandad
05. Stan McCabe
06. Vijay Hazare
07. John Waite+
08. Mike Procter
09. Jim Laker
10. Michael Holding
11. Allan Donald

Cabinet
01. Len Hutton
02. Hanif Mohammad
03. Ken Barrington
04. Wally Hammond
05. Frank Worrell*
06. Dudley Nourse
07. Farokh Engineer +
08. Richard Hadlee
09. Shane Warne
10. Dale Steyn
11. Glenn McGrath

Coronis
01. Jack Hobbs
02. Sunil Gavaskar*
03. Younis Khan
04. Graeme Pollock
05. Neil Harvey
06. Garry Sobers
07. Les Ames+
08. Kapil Dev
09. Ray Lindwall
10. Shane Bond
11. Derek Underwood

8ankitj
01. Vijay Merchant
02. Gordon Greenidge
03. Ricky Ponting
04. Jacques Kallis
05. Rohan Kanhai
06. Allan Border
07. Andy Flower +
08. Imran Khan *
09. Fred Trueman
10. Muttiah Muralitharan
11. Courtney Walsh

Watson
01. Bruce Mitchell
02. Matthew Hayden
03. George Headley
04. Greg Chappell *
05. Sachin Tendulkar
06. Martin Crowe
07. Ian Botham
08. Malcolm Marshall
09. Hedley Verity
10. Wasim Bari +
11. Joel Garner

Johnners
01. Barry Richards
02. Bob Simpson*
03. Everton Weekes
04. Inzamam ul Haq
05. Mohammad Azharuddin
06. Tony Greig
07. Adam Gilchrist +
08. Richie Benaud
09. Alan Davidson
10. Jack Cowie
11. Sydney Barnes

Mighty Mariner
01. Grame Smith
02. Denis Compton
03. Kumar Sangakkara
04. BrianLara
05. Steve Waugh
06.Clive Lloyd *
07. Wasim Akram
08. Godfrey Evans +
09. Anil Kumble
10. Frank Tyson
11. James Anderson

Monk
01. Geoff Boycott
02. Arthur Morris
03. Viv Richards *
04. Mohammed Yousuf
05. Bill Ponsford
06. Mahela Jayawardene
07. Shaun Pollock
08. Syed Kirmani +
09. Dennis Lillee
10. Curtly Ambrose
11. Bill O'Reilly

[L Trumper]

1. Cabinet
2. Coronis
3. Andy

[Monk]

Cabinet, Coronis and AZH for mine.

Spikey and Watson close to AZH imo, but the Bradman factor is telling.

[8ankitj]

Cabinet, Watson and AZH

Cabinet has the best team far and away.

[watson]

Watson's XI

Bowling
1. Marshall and Garner is the most potent and devastating new ball partnership in the history of modern cricket! Their Strike Rate together (44.77) is better than Holding + Roberts, Lillee + Thomson, Lindwall + Miller, or Ambrose + Walsh.

2. Hedley Verity dismissed Don Bradman no less tha 8 times. If Marshall and Garner don't claim Bradman's wicket then it is most likely that Verity will.

3. Ian Botham is one of cricket's greatest swing bowlers. Prior to 1983 he was one of the best of all time, and therefore compliments the pace and aggession of Marshall and Garner perfectly.

4. The leg spin of Bruce Mitchell, and nagging medium pace bowling of Greg Chappell are an ample back-up to the front-line four.


Batting
1. Bruce Mitchell and Matthew Hayden form an aggressive right-left opening combination. Both openers are among the greatest batsman of their era.

2. The middle order is superb. No one could possibly doubt that Headley-G.Chappell-Tendulkar-Crowe-Botham is a reliable and rock-solid combination with G.Chappell being an absolute stand-out against fast bowling and Tendulkar the master of spin.


Wicket-keeping
Wasim Bari is probably Pakistan's best ever wicket-keeper and one of the main reasons for Imran Khan's success.


Fielding
Mitchell, Greg Chappell, Botham, and Hayden form a brilliant slips cordon who boost the potency of Marshall and Garner to a higher level.


Leadership
Greg Chappell was a shrewd and intelligent captain who was rated very highly by Mike Brearley when they opposed eachother. Yet another strength for an incredibly strong team - even if I say so myself.

[Howe_zat]

Cabinet, AZH, Monk

I don't know how you let Cabinet get away with that.

[Cabinet96]

Went with AZH, Ankitj and Watson

[Monk]

Just a note on my team, Kirmani keeping to O'Reilly would be something to enjoy!

Really enjoy the look of my bowling attack- Lillee, Ambrose, Pollock and O'Reilly. Rate that pretty highly. Three of them are super aggressive (and economical) and Pollock can play the role of "building pressure", taking wickets without leaking runs. The other stand out bowling attacks imo are...


Cabinet- Hadlee, McGrath, Steyn & Warne (plus Hammond).

Watson- Marshall, Garner, Botham & Verity.

Coronis also has a versatile and mixed attack with Lindwall, Bond, Dev, Underwood & Sobers.

Spikey's attack pretty potent as well (Miller, Waqar, Philander, Cairns & Grimmett)

Johnners has an interesting, all-round team. The batting right down to Davo at #9 is pretty formidable, and his bowling attack has a lot of variety. Maybe just lacks someone really quick.

[watson]

Anti's attack is superb;

04. Jacques Kallis
08. Imran Khan *
09. Fred Trueman
10. Muttiah Muralitharan
11. Courtney Walsh

However, it's weakened by the mediocre keeping abilities of Andy Flower. On the plus side Ponting and Border are bound to take some good catches in slips which does tend to even things out a little bit.

[Johnners]

Yeh not sure how we allowed Cabinet to pick Hadlee, McGrath & Warne with his first 3 picks.

Quite pleased with my team, bats deep, plenty of bowling options, glaring omission though is a bowler like Waqar/Donald/Steyn (had originally intended to pick 1 of them in round 3/4 - not sure why I changed my mind now).

[watson]

I'm stunned that no one picked Andy Roberts.

Benaud and Botham reckon he is the greatest West Indian quick of all time.

[Cabinet96]

I was almost going to pick Roberts as my 4th bowler, but decided to go with Steyn to make sure I got a South African.

[Monk]

Originally Posted by Johnners

Yeh not sure how we allowed Cabinet to pick Hadlee, McGrath & Warne with his first 3 picks.

I think people were aware of the fact that they would HAVE to pick players from NZ/SL and India and Pakistan (where there is a more limited talent pool than Eng/Aus/SA and WIs), so early on they were making sure they picked the a-graders from the teams that haven't played as many tests.

He did well getting Hadlee first, who imo is NZ's only true ATG, then enjoyed the spoils of picking up McGrath and Warne. Well played Cabinet!

[morgieb]

Originally Posted by Monk

I think people were aware of the fact that they would HAVE to pick players from NZ/SL and India and Pakistan (where there is a more limited talent pool than Eng/Aus/SA and WIs), so early on they were making sure they picked the a-graders from the teams that haven't played as many tests.

He did well getting Hadlee first, who imo is NZ's only true ATG, then enjoyed the spoils of picking up McGrath and Warne. Well played Cabinet!

Yeah that was my initial strategy, still that attack is outstanding.

[watson]

With the benefit of hindsight Monk I don't think that delaying a pick by 1 round was a big enough penalty for selecting Don Bradman because in R3 there are still a ton of 'Gold Tier' players. Especially as Andy got to go first in R3.

Having said that, Andy's team is nearly unbeatable with or without Bradman, and I probably would have voted for it anyway.