wpdavid
Hall of Fame Member
Ironic that they made such a meal of winning both games. England would have won the first one if they'd help their catches.
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Best XI's ever put out in a test match by each country?
- Thread starter mr_mister
- Start date
After the 1920-1 tour of Aus, Rhodes only played in 5 more Tests; the Oval Test in 1926 and the WI tour of 1929-30 (alongside a young Les Ames and Bill Voce, but few other big names). The 1926 Oval Test was thus the only one to feature Rhodes, Tate and Larwood, and neither Hammond nor Ames had made their Test debut by then.
The bodyline team of Sutcliffe-Jardine-Hammond-Paynter-Leyland-Wyatt-Ames-Allen-Verity-Larwood-Voce was pretty strong. The 1953 Oval team I suggested in another thread as a team with no weak links.
Slifer
International Captain
The above is what comes to mind when inching of the best oz team of recent times. If there ever was a game with Fleming in place of Lee, that would probably be better.
TheJediBrah
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Yep that was the side for most of the summer starting here:
1st Test, New Zealand tour of Australia at Brisbane, Nov 8-12 2001 | Match Summary | ESPNCricinfo
comparing that to 2006/07 Ashes side basically comes down to Waugh/Waugh/Gillespie v Hussey/Clarke/Clark, which is a tough choice. At their peak you'd be leaning toward the former, but I'm not sure the Waugh bro's were performing that well that season (Mark defo wasn't), whereas in the 2006/07 Ashes Hussey & Clarke were in top form.
Martyn was a better player in 2001/02 than 2006/07 though so there is also that to consider.
jimmy101
Cricketer Of The Year
Don't really have time for a thorough hunt through old scorecards from the time, but if there was a Pakistan team from circa 1990 that fielded a lineup such as this it might come close to their best XI.
Saeed Anwar
Shoaib Mohammad
Ijaz Ahmed
Javed Miandad
Salim Malik
Imran Khan*
Wasim Akram
Moin Khan+
Abdul Qadir
Mushtaq Ahmed
Waqar Younis
With players like Aaqib Javed, Asif Mujtaba & Rameez Raja on the outer. Clearly Imran was getting on a bit by this time, but he'd still be more than capable of playing the support role to the Wasim/Waqar show.
EDIT: Possibly 1992 might even be better, with the emergence of Inzi & Aamer Sohail, however you'd lose Qadir by that time.
Saeed Anwar
Shoaib Mohammad
Ijaz Ahmed
Javed Miandad
Salim Malik
Imran Khan*
Wasim Akram
Moin Khan+
Abdul Qadir
Mushtaq Ahmed
Waqar Younis
With players like Aaqib Javed, Asif Mujtaba & Rameez Raja on the outer. Clearly Imran was getting on a bit by this time, but he'd still be more than capable of playing the support role to the Wasim/Waqar show.
EDIT: Possibly 1992 might even be better, with the emergence of Inzi & Aamer Sohail, however you'd lose Qadir by that time.
Last edited:
morgieb
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Ian Johnson, not Bill.
quincywagstaff
International Debutant
For Australia, the 1948 side and various early to mid 2000s lineups are standouts, but it’s easy to forget how good their 1990s sides were. This was their lineup in the 1995 Boxing Day Test v Sri Lanka:
M J Slater
M A Taylor*
D C Boon
M E Waugh
S R Waugh
R T Ponting
I A Healy†
P R Reiffel
S K Warne
C J McDermott
G D McGrath
Reiffel would be considered the weakest player in that lineup and yet it’s forgotten how good his Test record was; averaged 26 with bat and ball.
M J Slater
M A Taylor*
D C Boon
M E Waugh
S R Waugh
R T Ponting
I A Healy†
P R Reiffel
S K Warne
C J McDermott
G D McGrath
Reiffel would be considered the weakest player in that lineup and yet it’s forgotten how good his Test record was; averaged 26 with bat and ball.
TheJediBrah
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Paul Reiffel > Jimmy Anderson, confirmed
jimmy101
Cricketer Of The Year
Dunno. Slats or Boony might be the weak link there, Pistol was still freakishly good then.
Slifer
International Captain
I believe there was a test series and a test in Pakistan in 1990 where the following bowlers were on display:
WI
Ambrose
Bishop
Marshall
Walsh
Vs
PAK
Akram
Waqar
Imran
Mustaq
Qadir
Mustaq only played in first test and imran hardly bowled. But imo that series had the greatest collection of bowlers ever!!!
TheJediBrah
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jimmy101
Cricketer Of The Year
That'd be hard to beat, that's for sure. A few other combined teams to rival that might be Aus vs Eng circa 54/55, and/or Aus vs RSA circa 97/98.
jimmy101
Cricketer Of The Year
For once my Victorian bias didn't come into that one.
jimmy101
Cricketer Of The Year
IIRC the Aus selectors were trying to phase Boony out of the team by then. Boony scored a century in early '96 that was dubbed by the media as "the century the selectors didn't want to see."
Tubs may have been not as good as Boony with the bat, but he was after all captain of the team and vital in the slips.
jimmy101
Cricketer Of The Year
Depends how promiscuous each of them are I suppose.
quincywagstaff
International Debutant
Re: Boon, his peak period was from 1991 to 1993 where he was Australia’s best bat and one of the best in the world.
But he dropped away rapidly in 1995 – averaged 22 in 12 Tests despite scoring a ton in that Boxing Day Test and his spot had been in doubt leading up to that match. He was to retire at the end of that summer.
In anycase, I wasn’t posting that team based on their form at the time, moreso on their overall careers and quality.
But he dropped away rapidly in 1995 – averaged 22 in 12 Tests despite scoring a ton in that Boxing Day Test and his spot had been in doubt leading up to that match. He was to retire at the end of that summer.
In anycase, I wasn’t posting that team based on their form at the time, moreso on their overall careers and quality.