Your countries first 3 xis of your era

[Tom Flint]

Pick your countries first 3 xis from the year you was born until today. 5 bowling options req and the player only has to have played international cricket in your lifetime even if his best years were prior to that.
1989 -
Cook
Gooch
Gower
Root
Kp
Stewart +
Stokes
Freddie
Botham
Swann
Anderson

Atherton
Strauss
Trott
Vaughan
Bell
Thorpe
Prior
Archer
Gough
Broad
Panesar

Trescothick
Butcher
Hussein
Smith
Hick
Buttler
Ali
Bresnan
Hoggard
Jones
Harmison

No doubt I've forgotten some obvious ones.

 

[a massive zebra]

Botham is probably the best cricketer to have debuted for England since WWII, but if you are judging players based on what they have achieved since 1989 I dont think he should be anywhere near these teams. By that time he was a liability at the international level and very much living off past glories. I would drop him and promote Gough or Broad to the first XI.

Also it is much too soon to pick Archer for these teams. Yes he has great potential, but he has had one good year at home and done nothing away.

You also seem to have an aversion to picking 90s bowlers (Gough excepted). England were a poor side in the late 90s but their troubles were a result of poor team unity, inconsistent selection, underperforming batsmen and lack of batting depth. Their attack was actually pretty decent at this time, with the likes of Fraser, Caddick and Cork to support Gough, all four of whom took over 100 test wickets at under 30. If we want our spinners to take wickets rather than score runs, Tufnell is another player worth considering.

Jack Russell was a much better keeper than any of those you selected, and should certainly be above Buttler in the pecking order given the latter has never really cracked Test or even first class batting.

I cannot see any credible reason for picking Hick over Collingwood (other than batting talent).

 

[trundler]

Pakistan haven't produced many decent all rounder or openers in the last 18 years. With a little bit of cheating this is what I get:

Azhar
Anwar
Younis
Yousuf
Inzimam
Hafeez
Latif+
Akram
Waqar
Shoaib
Saqlain

 

[Flem274*]

richardson
wright
williamson
crowe (c)
taylor
watling (wk)
cairns
vettori
bond
wagner
boult

latham
young
jones
fleming (c)
astle
mccullum (wk)
oram
nash
southee
o'brien
ajaz

vincent
mcintosh
sinclair (c)
styris
nicholls
mcmillan
de grandhomme
parore (wk)
somerville
doull
martin

 

[Bahnz]

Matt Horne definitely deserves a spot in the 3rd XI ahead of Tim MacIntosh and Vincent imo. Doull would also definitely be ahead of O'Brien who (if I'm being honest) would struggle to even make the 3rd XI. Also no way the 3rd XI could get by with a 3 mean seam attack with Colin at first change.

 

[Tom Flint]

Botham is probably the best cricketer to have debuted for England since WWII, but if you are judging players based on what they have achieved since 1989 I dont think he should be anywhere near these teams. By that time he was a liability at the international level and very much living off past glories. I would drop him and promote Gough or Broad to the first XI.

Also it is much too soon to pick Archer for these teams. Yes he has great potential, but he has had one good year at home and done nothing away.

You also seem to have an aversion to picking 90s bowlers (Gough excepted). England were a poor side in the late 90s but their troubles were a result of poor team unity, inconsistent selection, underperforming batsmen and lack of batting depth. Their attack was actually pretty decent at this time, with the likes of Fraser, Caddick and Cork to support Gough, all four of whom took over 100 test wickets at under 30. If we want our spinners to take wickets rather than score runs, Tufnell is another player worth considering.

Jack Russell was a much better keeper than any of those you selected, and should certainly be above Buttler in the pecking order given the latter has never really cracked Test or even first class batting.

I cannot see any credible reason for picking Hick over Collingwood (other than batting talent).

Caddick I wanted to put in the 3rd xi but only ahead of hoggard or Bresnan. But I chose those 2 as I didn't want too long a tail

 

[Athlai]

I started caring about cricket around 2005ish (I did love Crowe as a kid but in a looser NZ sporting hero rather than cricket fan way).

The Good
Latham
McCullum
Williamson
Taylor
Fleming
Watling (+)
Oram
Vettori
Southee
Boult
Bond

The Bad
Blundell (+) - fight me
Raval
Ryder
Nicholls
Astle
Mitchell
Colin de Grandhomme
Mills
Somerville
Wagner
Martin

The Ugly
Vincent
McIntosh
Hamish Marshall
Brownlie
Guptill
Anderson
Ronchi (+)
Franklin
Bracewell
O'Brien
Patel

*NZ Keepers in this era (05-20) Watling, Baz, Kruger van Wyk, Young, Blundell, Ronchi, Hopkins ----- yikes

 

[stephen]

Hayden
Langer
Ponting
Smith
S Waugh
Border (c)
Gilchrist+
Warne
Johnson
McDermott
McGrath

Taylor (c)
Slater
Jones
Martyn
Clarke
Hussey
Healy+
Cummins
Starc
Hazlewood
MacGill

Warner
Watson
Khawaja
Boon
M Waugh
Lehmann (c)
Haddin+
Lee
Gillespie
Kasprowicz
Lyon

I'm probably forgetting someone in there who deserves to be picked.

 

[trundler]

Katich Vs Watson?

 

[Flem274*]

Matt Horne definitely deserves a spot in the 3rd XI ahead of Tim MacIntosh and Vincent imo. Doull would also definitely be ahead of O'Brien who (if I'm being honest) would struggle to even make the 3rd XI. Also no way the 3rd XI could get by with a 3 mean seam attack with Colin at first change.

i forgot horne and i agree.

disagree entirely on o'brien. barring his first couple of tests he was a good 28-32 averaging bowler, and much more reliable in all conditions than doull. southee and nash open for the seconds.

3rd xi was tricky to balance. styris at #3 feels a bit high (despite his century there) but dropping macka or nicholls for tuffey feels harsh. i went with relying on cdg bowling h4x.

 

[Flem274*]

*NZ Keepers in this era (05-20) Watling, Baz, Kruger van Wyk, Young, Blundell, Ronchi, Hopkins ----- yikes

haha, i felt the opposite doing mine. nz in my lifetime and even before that have usually been blessed with world class glovemen. it's only recently they've been more than cameo merchants with the bat, but wadsworth through to watling have usually taken their catches.

 

[Athlai]

haha, i felt the opposite doing mine. nz in my lifetime and even before that have usually been blessed with world class glovemen. it's only recently they've been more than cameo merchants with the bat, but wadsworth through to watling have usually taken their catches.

Well there are 3 good options in there, but I just used 2 of them as openers so it ended up pretty yuck. I was tempted to just throw in Parore anyway

 

[Flem274*]

Well there are 3 good options in there, but I just used 2 of them as openers so it ended up pretty yuck. I was tempted to just throw in Parore anyway

also how did you miss seeing styris and mcmillan play?

i forgot jesse for my sides. he pops into the 3rds somewhere.

 

[Athlai]

also how did you miss seeing styris and mcmillan play?

i forgot jesse for my sides. he pops into the 3rds somewhere.

Styris had about 6 qualifying Tests that he wasn't too hot in and McMillan about 1. They had pretty excellent ODI years at that time but didn't get the opportunity to translate that to Tests really.

 

[trundler]

Taufeeq Umar
Salman Butt
Misbah
Babar
Shafiq
Malik
Sarfraz+
Yasir
Amir
Abbas
Asif

That's pretty mediocre

 

[trundler]

Hayden
Langer
Ponting
Smith
S Waugh
Border (c)
Gilchrist+
Warne
Johnson
McDermott
McGrath

Taylor (c)
Slater
Jones
Martyn
Clarke
Hussey
Healy+
Cummins
Starc
Hazlewood
MacGill

Warner
Watson
Khawaja
Boon
M Waugh
Lehmann (c)
Haddin+
Lee
Gillespie
Kasprowicz
Lyon

I'm probably forgetting someone in there who deserves to be picked.

You left out Reid too

 

[stephen]

You left out Reid too

I did. Reid over Kasper.

 

[stephen]

Katich Vs Watson?

Watson was a better overall package I think.

 

[morgieb]

Hayden
Warner
Ponting
Smith
S Waugh
Clarke
Gilchrist
Johnson
Cummins
Warne
McGrath

Slater
Taylor
Boon
M Waugh
Martyn
Hussey
Healy
Starc
Harris
Hazlewood
MacGill

Langer
Katich
Khawaja
Lehmann
Labuschagne
Watson
Haddin
Lee
Gillespie
McDermott
Lyon

A few of these questionable given I have no memories of them actually playing.

 

[Saint Kopite]

Keeping the theme of at least having 5 genuine bowlers. Post 1990.

India First XI:-

01. Virender Sehwag.
02. Ravi Shastri. (5)
03. Rahul Dravid.
04. Sachin Tendulkar.
05. Virat Kohli.
06. VVS Laxman.
07. MS Dhoni. (c) (+)
08. Kapil Dev. (1)
09. Anil Kumble. (4)
10. Zaheer Khan. (3)
11. Javagal Srinath. (2)

India Second XI:-

01. Navjot Singh Sidhu.
02. Gautam Gambhir.
03. Chesteswar Pujara.
04. Mohammad Azharuddin.
05. Sourav Ganguly. (c)
06. Wriddhiman Saha. (+)
07. Ravichandran Ashwin. (4)
08. Irfan Pathan. (2)
09. Harbhajan Singh. (5)
10. Ishant Sharma. (1)
11. Jasprit Bumrah. (3)


India Third XI:-

01. Murali Vijay.
02. Shikhar Dhawan
03. Dilip Vengsarkar.
04. Ajinkya Rahane.
05. Rohit Sharma. (c)
06. Rishabh Pant. (+)
07. Manoj Prabhakar. (3)
08. Ravindra Jadeja. (5)
09. Bhuvneshwar Kumar. (1)
10. Mohammed Shami. (2)
11. Pragyan Ojha. (4)