**Official** 'My Current World XI' Thread

[Woodster]

Cook
Jaffer
Kallis
Pietersen
Chanderpaul
Sangakkara
Flintoff
Pollock
Bond
Muralitharan
Asif

You cannot knock the quality in this side, however, I also think Tendulkar should be in there, probably for the unfortunate Chanderpaul. Also, even for all his indiscretions, for the sake of a one-off game would have Shoaib in there.

 

[Flem274*]

Given that teams are better than the collection of individuals, may be better to just use the Australian team and may be fix the one or two holes that exist. E.g. Spinner slot (Murali or Kumble for MacGill/Hogg/etc) and may be the batting all rounder (Kallis for Symonds) . Very little to be gained from replacing Jacques with Cook/Smith, Hussey with Sangakkarra or Lee with Steyn or Johnson with Zaheer regardless of what paper rankings say.

So it would be 9 Australians (or 8 or 10) plus a couple of free agents vs some other national XI, and unless played on a spinning track - result would be little different than Australia vs that national team.

Lets have a look:

Hayden
Cook
Ponting
Pietersen
Hussey
Kallis
Gilchrist
Lee
Bond
Clark
Murali

6 Aussies, two poms, one yarpie, one kiwi, one sri lankan.

 

[jeevan]

Cook
Jaffer
Kallis
Pietersen
Chanderpaul
Sangakkara
Flintoff
Pollock
Bond
Muralitharan
Asif

Flintoff in on reputation rather than on current form or team needs (with Kallis & Pollock the all rounder base is covered as is the bowling support for Bond & Asif). Can either play a specialist batsman (several candidates), or a batsman who can bowl spin (Tendulkar will be particularly suitable, more than Jayasurya) or a spinner who can bat a bit (Vettori or Kumble).

Also given that Sangakarra bats at 3, and Kallis prefers 4 (even when 3 is Amla) and Pietersen is a hard hitter, 3,4,5 could be Sanga, Kallis, Pietersen. Cahnderpaul at 6 makes a good shepherd, he's had more practice than anyone else.

 

[jeevan]

Lets have a look:

Hayden
Cook
Ponting
Pietersen
Hussey
Kallis
Gilchrist
Lee
Bond
Clark
Murali

6 Aussies, two poms, one yarpie, one kiwi, one sri lankan.

Good point swapping Johnson for Bond.

Had agreed above with Murali for MacGill, Kallis for Symonds.

Cook replacing Jacques and Pietersen replacing Michael Clarke are marginal improvements IMHO. Not to say that Cook & Pietersen are anything less than stellar, but their Australian counterparts are almost as good too. (Jacques despite his relative inexperience).

 

[NUFAN]

Stuff Cook and Jaffer. I've gone for the tactic of the 7 best batsmen. My two openers have batted against the new ball enough.

Australia would find it very difficult to get 20 wickets against this lot. I doubt Australia would win, but a draw could happen.

1 Chanderpaul
2 Dravid
3 Kallis
4 Tendulkar
5 Pietersen
6 Yousuf
7 Sangakarra
8 Hoggard
9 Bond
10 Asif
11 Muralitharan

 

[andruid]

Given that teams are better than the collection of individuals, may be better to just use the Australian team and may be fix the one or two holes that exist. E.g. Spinner slot (Murali or Kumble for MacGill/Hogg/etc) and may be the batting all rounder (Kallis for Symonds) . Very little to be gained from replacing Jacques with Cook/Smith, Hussey with Sangakkarra or Lee with Steyn or Johnson with Zaheer regardless of what paper rankings say.

So it would be 9 Australians (or 8 or 10) plus a couple of free agents vs some other national XI, and unless played on a spinning track - result would be little different than Australia vs that national team.

Really,
My XI looks something like this

1.Hayden
2.Jaffer
3.Kallis
4.Hussey
5.Tendulkar
6.Gilchrist+
7.Vettori
8.Vaas
9.Lee
10.Steyn
11.Muralitharan

 

[Fiery]

Good point swapping Johnson for Bond.

Who's Johnson?

 

[Flem274*]

Who's Johnson?

Remeber the left arm aussie bloke we destroyed in the Chappel Hadlee? Thats him. Very good test bowler but way waaay too early to put him in world XI's. Same with Jacques.

 

[TheLad]

Lets not have a repeat of this debacle again. The players in the world XI ha little interest in playing and it hardly caught the attention of cricket fans in Australia either.

While the concept is interesting the reality is it does not work, keep cricket to the nations, there the players play with pride and for a cause.

 

[archie mac]

I am still waiting for them to strip the last one of its Test status

 

[Johnners]

Remeber the left arm aussie bloke we destroyed in the Chappel Hadlee? Thats him. Very good test bowler but way waaay too early to put him in world XI's. Same with Jaques.

No C, see, Jaq(there is no C here)ues.

 

[Matt79]

what clapo said re Jaques ffs. Ja(c)ques is the Pieterse(o)n of 2007 really.

I thought it was going to be every 4 years? And after the last one, I don't think there's much appetite to have it more regularly than that. Schedules make it a pain in the back side, and it would require significantly more time (the tour itself) to produce decent matches - so while Australia is still number one, I doubt they'll want to repeat the experience of having a team fly in for a week, and get smacked.

 

[Fiery]

Remeber the left arm aussie bloke we destroyed in the Chappel Hadlee? Thats him. Very good test bowler but way waaay too early to put him in world XI's. Same with Jacques.

you missed my point Flem

 

[Flem274*]

you missed my point Flem

Its hard to tell whether you were joking or being serious.

 

[Fiery]

Its hard to tell whether you were joking or being serious.

Hate having to use those smiley's the whole time tbh

 

[Athlai]

Hate having to use those smiley's the whole time tbh

 

[Somerset]

Any reason everyone is picking Jaffer after one top innings? :S

 

[andruid]

Any reason everyone is picking Jaffer after one top innings? :S

Cos he's really talented..and...and he's got a double century just recently...and he is in a rich vein of form and stufff

 

[SJS]

Cos he's really talented..and...and he's got a double century just recently...and he is in a rich vein of form and stufff

He came back to the Indian team in June 2006. Since then he has scored more runs than any other batsman in the test side, has scored five centuries with Dravid and Dravid next with two centuries and has the two double centuries in this period, the only double centuries by India.

I am surprised that you can only think of the last test when you think of him.

Goes to show how much of a disadvantage it is not to be in the limited overs side from point of view of visibility and recall value amongst fans .

 

[Pup Clarke]

Any reason everyone is picking Jaffer after one top innings? :S

Cos there's a dearth of quality openers when you take away Australia.