Dhoni over Gilchrist in ODIs for me, but not by much.
For the fifth bowler I will perhaps make do with part-timers. Strangely, quality all-rounders have been a rarity in ODIs compared to tests. So no obvious choice comes to mind. Pollock or may be Imran may have to be picked as the all-rounder.
Imran for an ODI XI? The only way he could walk in is probably as a captain. Not a great ODI player overall.
You might as well make an argument for Kallis. A supremely better batsman compared to Flintoff and not too shoddy with the ball either (at least initially).
Surely there can be better players to be found in an All Time XI than Klusener???? He never an extraordinary bowler and his batting other than the 1999 world cup wasn't that of a world class batsman either. Kallis seems like a much better choice. In fact even Imran seems a better bet than Klusener.
Well he obviously didn't bowl the final over of the match (Vaas generally covered that) but he often bowled in the last few and was fairly economical considering he's a spinner. We didn't have too many fast bowlers who gave much support to Vaas so he had to do the job now and then. His 10 overs were spread about the match and used as much as possible by the captains over the years. The only time they were hesitant to bowl him was in the powerplays and even then it was primarily because he didn't like to bowl at that time.
That is what I thought too. That Murali used to be somewhat hesitant in bowling when fielding restrictions were in place. Even during the first 15 overs (that might also be because the ball is hard at that time and not very conducive to spin). In the matches that I saw of Murali he usually bowled in between the 15-45 over period. Usually not around in the final 5 overs. Which reminds me that Vaas used to be pretty decent in those final overs.
Well I wanted a pure hitter at number 7 who can also take up a fair share of bowling. Not too many names around who can do that sort of job.
Yeah good shout that. There was a time when Vaas was considered one of the best death bowlers going around.
Only 98. Took 148 wickets at 18.84, with economy 3.09. Three 5w hauls.
Wasim was pretty awesome too, needless to say. But no, not really. In spite of the fact that batting was a lot less aggressive when Garner played, he took wickets almost exactly as often as Wasim did- every 36 balls- and, of course, conceded quite considerably less runs. He actually averaged 16 in List A games, with an E/R of 2.9. To go with his test average of 20 and FC average of 18. This was a bowler who pretty much never bowled a bad spell. Wasim was arguably more exciting and obviously had a few more tricks up his sleeve but I don't think he (nor anyone else) can match Garner for consistency. Which is what you want in an ODI bowler, really.
His ER is probably also a reflection of the times that he played in isn't it???? The runs per over had gone up massively post 95. Averaging less than 4 an over for the nineties and early 2000s is a big big achievement when first 15 over hitting became the norm (after SL 96 triumph).
makes sense.
So how is he better then a player with 300 odd ODIs....( i don't remember the exact number of ODIs Akram played...) and more then 500 wickets...?
