1970-1990 v 1990-2010

[Muloghonto]

And here is where we have to disagree. The mark of a truly great player is that they can dominate everywhere and anywhere against any and all bowlers. An atg side is called an all-time-great side for a reason, its composed of the greatest players of all time. Now not all factors are the same, so we make as informed assumptions as we are able to make based on the range of data available to us in order to attempt to compare players between generations, teams and conditions as accurately as possible. As soon as you play horses for courses, you are no longer picking the greatest players, you are picking the best players in x conditions. Greatest =/= best which is a fallacy that many a person has fallen for. What makes players great (among other aspects) is that they can perform in all conditions, its why Michael Clarke is one of the greatest players of the modern era while David Hussey has been unable to gain his baggy green. Likewise the great WI and Australian sides are rated as two of the best ever because they won consistently everywhere, or at the very least performed very highly. The #1 Ranked Indian and English sides of recent times, not so much. When you're making an ATG side, you're pretending its a real team, the core of the team should remain the same no matter what conditions you play in, because it wouldn't be a great team unless it could compete in a variety of conditions. Now if you were just subbing out a couple of players based on the conditions i would be completely fine with it, because thats what teams do, but the wholesale changes in the teams you propose, lol whut?

Yes,but such truely great players dont exist in reality, outside of maybe 2-3 players in history fo the game. If you think Ponting is greater than Dravid across all conditions, that is simply not true. Heck, Lara is not greater than Dravid across all conditions either, even though he is considered greter than Dravid as a batsman. Those are the realities of breaking down the player-pool.

I do realize your point of the greatest player and the best player, but the greatest XI, in reality, is the best XI. This is because, what really matters is winning and that is better accomplished by playing horses for the courses from a pool of 15-20 players than a static XI because, reality is, the best players for a given condition would win you matches for that particular condition more than the greatest players over all conditions would. In reality, cricket XIs can stay static for a long time and they usually do because, cricket is a hard sport and even amongst the extremely good pros, the competence to play all types of bowling and deliveries and shots is not universal. Obviously, ability to play all types of bowling exceptionally well is the primary condition over mastery of pitch conditions. But such considerations dont exist in the greatest/best talent pool across a generation or two, worldwide.
So, IMO, horses for the courses, is the best idea.

 

[Muloghonto]

What's so funny is that you're putting Dhoni in as a keeper first and foremost then batting him at 6 and following him with 5 bowlers, none of whom are particularly good with the bat. 4 out all out springs to mind.

Dhoni is an awesome keeper to spinners and incase you didn't notice, my XI has 3 spinners. One of whom, Dhoni is one of only two competent keeper to keep to and is by far, the 2nd most deadliest spinner in the subcontinental conditions ( Kumble). Yes, he is not mr 'i jump a mile to catch a 90mph bullet ' guy ala Mark boucher. No problems, such acrobatics are not required in India. You need sharp reflexes, solid crouch-technique and good eye. All of which Dhoni is exceptional at.

For his batting, as i said, he is no mug in the subcontinent and i can think of relying on Dhoni vs whomever is bowling if its in the subcontinent over some much more accomplished overall batsmen- Ponting springs to mind.
So he plays as a specialist keeper and specialist top six bat.
Akram is no mug with the bat either, yes, it does weaken the batting depth, but the 90s team is unlikely to be found at lower than 250/5 in more occasions than not IMO, so it does not matter. ( FYI, i see these contests being in the 275-350/375 vicinity across 4 innings, not more or less on the average).

The other option is to weaken the bowling a bit by making Kallis swap in for Akram and demoting Dhoni for #7 or simply adopting the 'may not win but will not be the most aggressive bowling side' by using a 2+2 format for the subcontinent (bowlers), dropping Warne and going in with Murali-Kumble.

 

[Muloghonto]

Fairly bizarre grouping, seeing as though the conditions are not particularly similar. I'm also Interested in seeing why you'd think Gibbs could handle these conditions better than the Indian trio (particularly Chandra who you picked for the Eng vs NZ).

Well, i am the sort of guy who believes in having a pool of 15-20 players and picking/chosing the best XI after pitch inspection, if i am spoilt for choices ( like i am with this ATG exercise).
The groupings, well they are rough, i will admit, but the conditions in OZ, IMO are closest resembled by conditions in WI, historically atleast, till the early/mid 2000s.

IMO, i think Gibbs is the best suited bowler to bowl on the 'unfriendly pitches' of WI/oZ such as Barbados, Perth, Jamaica, etc. (evern though Chandra or Prasanna could be the better option, Bedi too, over their pro-spin pitches, like Trinidad or Sydney). This is because, Gibbs was a bowler of very good control, a standard off-break that spun a bit and a quicker straight one, with very good bounce. Chandra was not a big turner of the ball or one of prodigal bounce (Gibbs was and IMO still is the spinner with the most amount of bounce I've seen) and that IMO restricts him from being effecive on those pitches.

 

[viriya]

Stats are rather meaningless in this instant. The 70s for example, was a much much better era for playing spin than the 90s, with only one weak team against spin: New Zealand.
Chandra & prasanna along with Bedi and Venkat do have worse stats than they deserve, because they literally had no one better than a Hansie Cronje or Virat Kohli to open the bowling for them and often took to bowling inside the first 5 overs- which needless to say, deflates stats a bit for spinners. Not to mention, the 70s era of 'block 10 balls and hit the only loose ball for a scoring shot' does make the spinners' strike rates balloon up.

The 90s-2000s had probably the best spin playing team in India, with the best batting line-up of all time in Australia. Sure, there was NZ, WI and ZIM that were relatively weak, but even if you remove those teams in the stats I'm sure Murali/Warne would be ahead of any 70s-80s spinner.

In Murali's case, he had to start bowling within 15 overs of a Test match on the first day countless times. Vaas was good but not really a threat. At least for the Indian spin quartet they could bowl in tandem and create consistent pressure.

Bowling economy rates (since you're claiming their strike rates are higher because people batted defensively then):
Murali: 2.48 with 55.0 sr
Warne: 2.65 with 57.5 sr
Chandra 2.71 with 66.0 sr
Prasanna 2.40 with 75.9 sr
Bedi 2.14 with 80.3 sr

Aside from Bedi, the economy rates are pretty much in-line - suggesting that Murali and Warne were much more lethal spinners again.

 

[NUFAN]

Well, i am the sort of guy who believes in having a pool of 15-20 players and picking/chosing the best XI after pitch inspection, if i am spoilt for choices ( like i am with this ATG exercise).
The groupings, well they are rough, i will admit, but the conditions in OZ, IMO are closest resembled by conditions in WI, historically atleast, till the early/mid 2000s.

IMO, i think Gibbs is the best suited bowler to bowl on the 'unfriendly pitches' of WI/oZ such as Barbados, Perth, Jamaica, etc. (evern though Chandra or Prasanna could be the better option, Bedi too, over their pro-spin pitches, like Trinidad or Sydney). This is because, Gibbs was a bowler of very good control, a standard off-break that spun a bit and a quicker straight one, with very good bounce. Chandra was not a big turner of the ball or one of prodigal bounce (Gibbs was and IMO still is the spinner with the most amount of bounce I've seen) and that IMO restricts him from being effecive on those pitches.

Thanks for the response. Was Gibbs close to making your XI in the sub-continent? Being able to extract bounce and have very good control seems quite ideal for those conditions too. I've just had a quick look at his record in India and Pakistan and its very good.

 

[Muloghonto]

The 90s-2000s had probably the best spin playing team in India, with the best batting line-up of all time in Australia. Sure, there was NZ, WI and ZIM that were relatively weak, but even if you remove those teams in the stats I'm sure Murali/Warne would be ahead of any 70s-80s spinner.

In Murali's case, he had to start bowling within 15 overs of a Test match on the first day countless times. Vaas was good but not really a threat. At least for the Indian spin quartet they could bowl in tandem and create consistent pressure.

Bowling economy rates (since you're claiming their strike rates are higher because people batted defensively then):
Murali: 2.48 with 55.0 sr
Warne: 2.65 with 57.5 sr
Chandra 2.71 with 66.0 sr
Prasanna 2.40 with 75.9 sr
Bedi 2.14 with 80.3 sr

Aside from Bedi, the economy rates are pretty much in-line - suggesting that Murali and Warne were much more lethal spinners again.

Again, as i said, its not so much about strike rates and economy rates. Simply looking at the numbers is not good enough, Plus, i really do think that there was greater competence in the 70s/80s overall for playing spinners than there were in the 90s, with the indians and the aussies notwithstanding. Its more a matter of competency through the ages, IMO, India, Pakistan& West Indies in the 70s & early 80s were very close to the aussies of 2000s, if not definitely better.

And no, creating pressure in an era where no one is taking risks early on for a spinner is simply not an option. yes, murali started often in the 15th over mark, but rarely did he ever start in the first 12 overs either. for chandra, bedi and prasanna, it was commonplace and those 5-6 overs do make a world of difference, for at that stage, most spinners, even atg ones would do well to bowl 5-1-15-0 type in the overs 5 through 15. that does pile up significantly over the span of a career.
murali had far more competent pace bowlers than india had in the 60s and 70s, when the cupboard was literally as deep as Angelo matthews the bowler is india's best fast bowler. vaas, malinga, kulasekara, zoysa- they would've all walked in to the indian side of 70s prior to kapil...

 

[Muloghonto]

Thanks for the response. Was Gibbs close to making your XI in the sub-continent? Being able to extract bounce and have very good control seems quite ideal for those conditions too. I've just had a quick look at his record in India and Pakistan and its very good.

yes, but he does figure behind the trio of bedi, prasanna and chandra. chandra was the kumble of his time, which suits subcontinent the best IMO, unless you are a freak like murali who can spin it a mile both ways.
prasanna was a more complete package: he did get decent turn, had a straight one, amazing control and above all, the best flighter of the ball i've ever seen. and TBH, prasanna was a wasted talent that most do not realize. even back in the day, prasanna was easily good enough to play 90-100 tests and be the world record holder for wickets. he finished a good 100 wickets short than what was the norm for that era but that is despite missing 6 years or so of test cricket in his prime to finish his degree and then being picked and dropped at whim in his latter years, as the selectors sometimes preferred Venkat over Prasanna.

Bedi too, IMO is better suited to the subcontinent than Gibbs but IMO Bedi was the most versatile of them all, with not as great a master of a particular condition as these spinners but overall the most complete and consistent one across all surfaces.

Of that era, I'd rank the spinners/slow bowlers as such:

1. Prasanna
2. Chandra
3. Bedi
4. Gibbs
5. Underwood
6. Rajinder Goel
7. Abdul Qadir
--
...

 

[smash84]

70-90

Greenidge
Gavaskar
V.Richards
G.Chappell
Miandad
Border
Knott
Imran
Hadlee
Marshall
Lillee/Holding/Garner

Anyone thinking this team would be easily beaten is insane. Underwood could replace a quick if needed

Yep just added Holding and Garner and this team is pretty awesome for all conditions. Screw the spinners