World's best batting line up

[Pratters]

A lot of people say Australia has the best line up and Indians say India has the best middle order. But come to think of it, the Australians are ageing and I dont see Clarke or the rest as good as the Waughs. The thing is, when I see the South African line up, they bat deep right into Boucher at nuber 8 with an average of 30. Gilly bats at number 7 but I still feel south Africa has a good under rated batting line up. Which line up do you think is the best. I have to still say Australia is the ebst though South Africa is catching up.

[Rich2001]

I think even without Waugh Australia's batting is scary.

I mean Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Lehmann, Katich, Gilly is just depressing for a bowler, you get the top 5 out and you still have a batsman that can score a double 100 @ 7... And the bowlers aren't terible batsman either Lee and Gillespie anyway.

India have a very very strong line up to with Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Laxman. But IMO it just stops, if they fail they lose kinda thing, Patel is handy for a few but I don;t see a 100 anytime soon, AA is hardly relible for more than a handful of runs (God help me now )and the tail can't bat.

[Pratters]

India's bigger problem has been the openers. We have Sehwag and Chopra settling right now but you can never say when they will falter. The tail has been a worry too and so India cant really be the ebst batting line up although it can score the most on a given day coz of the talent of 3-6. India is the best in the 3-6.

Australia no question is the ebst in the batting but South Africa is highly underrated. Some one coming up at number 8 with 30 does compensate for Gilly at 7 to an extent but Gilchrist, the best all time keeper batsman does indeed give the Aussies a deadly balance.

[krkode]

I agree with Rich. Really, once you get through those 4-5, you've got India. The bowlers can hardly bat (AA is good at select times) and the wicket keeper is also somewhat stilted at the moment.

Australia, on the other hand, as has been said, is top notch. A nightmare for any bowler. That said, the team is quite old, and personally I only reckon Ponting and Hayden as *really* good batsmen. The rest are more or less like Kirsten, Ganguly, etc. That's formidable in and of itself, though.

I agree that SA too has a really good lineup, but it just isn't to the calibre of the Aussies or the Indians, IMO.

[Pratters]

South African batsmen are highly underrated in my opinion. There are good youngsters like Rudolph and Smith in the lineup, not to mention the McKenzies n the Gibbs. A lot of people tend to NOT think south africa as great coz of their averages. Kirsten has a test average of 45 but a first class average of 48. Thats a differential of only 3. It is because the batting in South Africa is not easy as compared to what it is in Australia.

I would like to compare the batting averages of the players in the matches played in away countries.

India has had a much more worrying factor about the openers although the tail has troubled them too. Finally the Openers r doing ok now.

The whole point is South Africa is very under rated on their line up. I have been a fan of Cronje but I believe the team under Smith now has a much better line up than in the last 5-7 years since Brian McMillan was dropped from the team.

[Tom Halsey]

But McKenzie is a weak link in the SA line up, with an average of 34. Australia have no weak links.

[Pratters]

Australia is the strongest right now.. no question about that. Sorry, I meant Kallis. A line up of Smith,Gibbs,Kallis,Rudolph,Kirsten,Pollock n Boucher is strong. And South Africa is not known to produce great batsmen apart from the rare Graeme Pollock. The strenght is in the depth which Australia will lack even more in 1 to two years.

You need 5 bowlers to take 20 wickets unless you have Gillespie,Lee,McGrath and Warne. Such a combo is not going to last long and they are looking weak against India already(the bowling). If they require to play 5 bowlers, (and I dont see watson as a huge batting or bolwing allrounder), I doubt Australia can have a great line up of batsmen upto 7.

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

I'm not quite sure Rudolph is up to it yet. He's certainly talented, but hasn't had any consistency to his game. I would prefer van Jaarsveld at this point in time.

That said, we'll see how he goes after his hundred today.

[Langeveldt]

This is the strongest SA batting lineup I have seen.. they are very classy, and very under rated.. I feel that Australia and India just pip them though..

[Hero_Don]

I would have to say that the Indian batting line-up is the best with Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar but there lower order is the worst i've ever seen.

[Rik]

Originally posted by halsey
But McKenzie is a weak link in the SA line up, with an average of 34. Australia have no weak links.

He's played Warne more comfortably than I've seen anyone play him, barring any Indian batsmen. He had a bit of a slump when they attempted to turn him into an opener after a good start to his Test career (The Ramprakash Opening Effect), but he's getting it together now.

[Richard]

They actually tried that in his first Test-series, in Sri Lanka. How stupid it's possible to be I don't know, but that takes the prevurvbial biscuit. Middle-order players as openers just doesn't work often enough to merit trying it.
I've been really disappointed in McKenzie since Trent Bridge, until yesterday. He'd always been there or thereabouts, the only time he ever got a run was from the summer (winter for us) of 2000\01 to 2001\02. Then he had an in\out period, then got back in halfway through the England series, had a great game on a terrible wicket, and if he'd scored runs on the easy deck at The Oval I'm sure he'd have been secure and his average pushing 40.
Let us hope it goes up from now on.

[Richard]

IMO these are the best batting-line-ups I've ever seen:
Kirsten
Gibbs
Kallis
Cullinan
Cronje
Rhodes
Boucher
Klusener
Pollock
Donald
Adams
and:
Blewett (Hayden's inadequecies were still being exposed in those days)
Slater
Langer
M. Waugh
S. Waugh
Ponting
Gilchrist
The line-ups of today are slightly inferior to them and there is one that outstrips them:
Das
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Laxman
Ganguly
Mongia
Of course this has never played together, though some of it has.
Anyway, the best I've ever seen in an ODI and surely the best ever has to be:
Ganguly
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Laxman
Yuvraj Singh
Kaif
Agarkar
Kumble
Srinath
Unbeatable. And for a period they went around looking like they could beat any total you set them.

[marc71178]

Originally posted by Richard
(Hayden's inadequecies were still being exposed in those days)

Inadequecies - funny how you keep mentioning them in a player rated as one of the best by most people, but fail to acknowledge a certain South African's no matter how many times people get him.

[Richard]

Yes, I've already discussed that - I think people are wrong to rate Hayden so highly, I think his flaws are far bigger than Smith's, even if he has been dismissed caught behind square 4 times out of 4 this series.
If people made as big a deal out of Hayden's flaws as people do out of Smith's instead of heaping praise on him RLAC, maybe bowlers would exploit them more.