The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[kyear2]

So for the West Indies I can open with Weekes because he can't find a place in the middle order. He was an opener, if he makes the team he should open. There has to be some rules, other wise in makes a mockery of the exercise.
Also from a strategic perspective having Sutcliffe and Hutton batting together is not what any team wants after loosing their first wicket. Your number three batsman is your best (or second best) batsman who can adapt to any circumstace and attack when required and is a specialist batting position.
Additionally Sutcliffe averaged more than Hobbs and Hutton and still not seen as better than either, it's because he was a very slow scorer and Hobbs had the ability to make anyone who opened with him better. Hutton and Hobbs were true number one openers, while Sutcliffe was a number two, a great number two, but he was a number two.

 

[Dan]

And run with four bowlers in an all-time eleven? No thanks. The threat of Cairns compared to someone like Vettori as a bowler is far greater even when you factor in the lack of variety.

Playing Devil's Advocate here, but with seamers like Cowie and Bond operating in sharp bursts, Vettori could potentially be useful - even if he doesn't take wickets - by stemming the flow of runs up the other end. That then eases the pressure on John R Reid (assuming it is R, not F), as he doesn't have to act as the sole spinner.

You definitely need one of Vettori/Cairns or another bowler who can bat though; Reid is a good fifth bowler, but definitely not an ATG XI quality fourth.

 

[Days of Grace]

Reid was a spinner???

 

[Dan]

Reid was a spinner???

Cricinfo has him listed as a medium pacer and off spinner. I'm likely to be completely incorrect.

 

[Jager]

But can you understand Sunil not making an Indian all time XI? Surely an oversight from the bomb.

I'm going to post my all time xis in a few days.

****, a ridiculous oversight from me. Merchant dropped for Gavaskar then of course. Even worse than me forgetting about Viv...

Jager, Jardine's in your side but not captain. An oversight I assume?

On the whole, though, lovely sides. You overrate specialist keeping skills as ever (Dujon over Walcott not worth the ~25 runs an inning in batting, for example) though.

Yeah I put Jardine in afterwards and forgot to move the *! of course mate, nothing more important than taking every chance you can behind the stumps

 

[Jager]

Allan Davidson is flatly not as good a bowler as Mcgrath, no argument to be made here, Lindwall I could live with, not Davidson.
Hutton never batted at three and was an opener, so you can't have your cake and eat it too, if you want Hutton to play (as I do), he has to open. You can't just slide in people where they didn't play to make selection easier. Jardine was not good enough to make a middle order short list, far less make the team, but there seems to be a push here suddenly for him. No justification though.
Fazal was a great bowler, he wasn't better than Waqar, and this is without bringing up his peak, where he probably had the highest peak of any fast bowler ever.
To leave out Viv for Worrell is hilarious and if you want to put Worrell in, then let him open (a position he actually played and scored an un beaten hundred) with Greenidge instead of Fredricks (questionable over Hunte in the first place). Cannot have a AT WI XI without IVA Richards.
No problem with Merchant playing, but the opener I would drop for him (and almost did) would be Sehwag.
Just my take.

Why is Davidson being in such a joke? He's the most underrated bowler going around IMO. The man was an outstanding bowler, one of the best fields ever too.

Will edit Viv in now, although I don't like Sir Frank opening at all.

Sure Waqar was an all-time great, but does Pakistan really need three reverse-swinging bowlers? Imran for me is the best of them and Wasim brings the left-arm number eight batsman role, so Fazal is there because he's only marginally below Waqar and gives the team far superior variety.

 

[Spooony]

B Richards
L Hutton
D Bradman
G Pollock
V. Richards
G Sobers
A. Knott
S. Warne
D Lillee
G. McGrath
M Muralitharan

 

[kyear2]

****, a ridiculous oversight from me. Merchant dropped for Gavaskar then of course. Even worse than me forgetting about Viv...




Yeah I put Jardine in afterwards and forgot to move the *! of course mate, nothing more important than taking every chance you can behind the stumps

Dujon was actually poor to spinners.

 

[kyear2]

Why is Davidson being in such a joke? He's the most underrated bowler going around IMO. The man was an outstanding bowler, one of the best fields ever too.

Will edit Viv in now, although I don't like Sir Frank opening at all.

Sure Waqar was an all-time great, but does Pakistan really need three reverse-swinging bowlers? Imran for me is the best of them and Wasim brings the left-arm number eight batsman role, so Fazal is there because he's only marginally below Waqar and gives the team far superior variety.

Davidson was not a joke, he was a great fast bowler, choosing him above Mcgrath (at worse a top 10 bowler) is. Davidson was outstanding, Mcgrath was simply one of the Greatest Ever and a player we voted to our 1st All Time XI.

You don't like Sir Frank opening, but you have no problem batting Hutton at three, a specialised position he never played, never mind that him and Sutcliffe in the same team strategically weakens it. As I said before playing Hutton and three and forcing three openers into the team is the same as opening with Everton Weekes because he couldn't find a place in the middle order. It's intellectually dishonest.

So basically you acknowledge that Waqar was the better bolwer, but for the sake of variety you are playing Mahmood. Nevermind that fact that Wasim and Waqar perfectly complemented each other Waqar was a better new ball opening bowler than any of them.

 

[Jager]

Davidson was not a joke, he was a great fast bowler, choosing him above Mcgrath (at worse a top 10 bowler) is. Davidson was outstanding, Mcgrath was simply one of the Greatest Ever and a player we voted to our 1st All Time XI.

You don't like Sir Frank opening, but you have no problem batting Hutton at three, a specialised position he never played, never mind that him and Sutcliffe in the same team strategically weakens it. As I said before playing Hutton and three and forcing three openers into the team is the same as opening with Everton Weekes because he couldn't find a place in the middle order. It's intellectually dishonest.

So basically you acknowledge that Waqar was the better bolwer, but for the sake of variety you are playing Mahmood. Nevermind that fact that Wasim and Waqar perfectly complemented each other Waqar was a better new ball opening bowler than any of them.

I think the team that was decided upon was that great to be honest. No Barry Richards...

Intellectually dishonest ... Hutton played himself at five in his England dream team IIRC - watson to back me up here - great batsmen are great batsmen. Batting him at 3 keeps him close to opening and maintains what is clearly the greatest opening partnership ever to play the game.

I think the difference between Fazal and Waqar is minimal and although Waqar is perhaps my favourite modern-day bowler, I prefer the former for variety. Making these teams isn't just about piling eleven superstars together unlike some seem to believe.

 

[Jager]

Dujon was actually poor to spinners.

Dujon was the only wicketkeeper I came to a compromise on, because a WI XI is always heavily based around pace bowling. I wanted someone with experience to the modern WI giants.

 

[kyear2]

I think the team that was decided upon was that great to be honest. No Barry Richards...

Intellectually dishonest ... Hutton played himself at five in his England dream team IIRC - watson to back me up here - great batsmen are great batsmen. Batting him at 3 keeps him close to opening and maintains what is clearly the greatest opening partnership ever to play the game.

I think the difference between Fazal and Waqar is minimal and although Waqar is perhaps my favourite modern-day bowler, I prefer the former for variety. Making these teams isn't just about piling eleven superstars together unlike some seem to believe.

Although I belive that talent wise Barry Richards was probably the most talented opening
batsman, to over look what Hutton accomplished, especially beating Bradman's record with him standing at cover and O'Reilly coming at him from beginning to end, and the war injury he sustained only to then have to contend with Lindwall and Miller and Ramadin and Valentine, is hard to do.

England gains nothing with Hutton and Sutcliffe in the same team, as they are the same type of player with Hutton being clearly his superior. Hutton is not an ideal number three, whose job is take command of the innings. As for Sutcliffe, Hobbs made everyone he batted with better and even though Sutcliffe averaged more than both, is still not seen as their equal and was clearly the number two opener (like Haynes and Langer) while Hutton and Hobbs were clear number ones.As I said before, playing Hutton at three is akin to opening with Weekes for the W.I and just as a you so elegantly put it piling eleven superstars together.

I stick to my teams selected, as a mixture of reasearch and listening to persons on the forum (some what of a consensus) especially ones from the countries they are referring to, rather than trying to be different or unique for the sake of it.

 

[kyear2]

Australia All Time XI

Bobby Simpson
Arthur Morris
Don Bradman
Greg Chappell
Alan Border
Keith Miller
Adam Gilchrist
Shane Warne
Bill O’Reilly
Dennis Lillee
Glen Mcgrath

West Indies XI

Gordon Greenidge
Conrad Hunte
George Headley
Brian Lara
Viv Richards
Garry Sobers
Clyde Walcott
Malcolm Marshall
Curtly Ambrose
Michael Holding
Lance Gibbs

South Africa All Time XI

Barry Richards
Graeme Smith
Jacques Kallis
Graeme Pollock
Dudley Nourse
Aubrey Faulkner
Shaun Pollock
Mike Procter
Jon Waite
Hugh Tayfield
Allan Donald

England All Time XI

Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton
Wally Hammond
Ken Barrington
Denis Compton
Ian Botham
Alan Knott
Harold Larwood
Jim Laker
Fred Trueman
Sydney Barnes

Pakistan All Time XI

Saeed Anwar
Hanif Mohammad
Zaheer Abbas
Javed Miandad
Inzaman Ul-Haq
Mohammad Yousuf
Imran Khan
Wasim Bari
Wasim Akram
Abdul Qadir
Waqar Younis

India All Time XI

Sunil Gavaskar
Virender Sehwag
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Vijay Hazare
Vinoo Mankad
Farokh Engineer
Kapil Dev
Anil Kumble
Erapalli Prasanna
Mohammad Nissar

Sri Lanka All Time XI

Marvan Atapattu
Sanath Jayasuriya
Kumar Sangakkara
Aravinda De Silva
Mahela Jayawardene
Arjuna Ranatunga
Prasanna Jayawardene
Chaminda Vaas
Rumesh Ratnayake
Ashantha de Mel
Muttiah Muralitharan

New Zealand All Time XI

Glenn Turner
Stewie Dempster
Bert Sutcliffe
Martin Crowe
Martin Donnelly
John Reid
Richard Hadlee
Daniel Vettori
Ian Smith
Shane Bond
Jack Cowie

Best of The Rest XI

Herbert Sutcliffe
Vijay Merchant
Ricky Ponting
Everton Weekes
Neil Harvey
Frank Worrell
Les Ames
Ray Lindwall
Hedley Verity
Joel Garner
Dale Steyn

Lot of time and research using consensus views to assemble these teams. Let me know of proposed changes.

Captains decided on

Australia: Sir Don Bradman
West Indies: George Headley
South Africa: Graeme Smith
England: Sir Len Hutton
Pakistan: Imran Khan
India: Kapil Dev
New Zealand: Martin Crowe
Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara ?
ROW: Frank Worrell

 

[smash84]

why are kapil and Hadlee leading NZ and India respectively?

Also kyear2 stop spewing venom against Davo. Heck as far as taking wickets is concerned Davo took them cheaper and was a significantly better batsman and fielder than McGrath. Overall utility wise Davo > McG. Davo haters can suck it

 

[kyear2]

Not spewing hate, I said he was a GREAT bolwer, Mcgrath was just better. How is that spewing hate.

As far as India was concerned, when ever I think of Sunny as captain I seem to recall when he was dismissed againts Australia and trying to take his opening partner with him as he went off.
As usual every thing is up for discussion. Thats just my initial opinion.

 

[smash84]

Let me dig up some useful threads for you to realize how useful Davo really was

 

[Flametree]

Questions for KYear...

So was it "intellectually dishonest" of the Australian selectors in the 90s to pick David Boon at 3? or the English selectors when they picked Vaughan or Butcher to play and not open....

(Given the bowling line-ups these alltime sides will be facing in the mythical contest we're considering, I think having a 3rd opener to come in at 3 is a pretty sensible strategy myself...)

If you can't play Hutton and Sutcliffe together because you don't want them at the crease at the same time, does this mean you didn't pick Dravid in your all-time Indian xi because you wouldn't want him batting with Gavaskar? (later edit... oh I see you did?)

If players can only be picked to play in their best positions, does this mean I can only pick one of Bradman, Ponting and Harvey in an all-time Aussie xi, since they all batted at 3?

And re the McGrath/Davidson discussion, who's this "we" who picked McGrath in an all-time xi?

Bowlers I consider better than McGrath :
Marshall, Lillee, Trueman, Ambrose (plus Barnes though I'm a bit confused still if they perform similar roles)

Bowlers as good as McGrath who offer more to the whole team due to batting/fielding/variety :
Procter, Miller, Lindwall, Davidson, Hadlee, Imran, Wasim

He was a great, but he's nowhere near my all time xi. And I happily pick Davidson ahead of McGrath in an all-time Australian side, for the left-arm variety and the batting.

 

[Flametree]

Oh, and I see you picked Zaheer at number 3 for Pakistan. Average in that position 39.

I think I'd trust Hutton at 3 for England over Zaheer at 3 for Pakistan....

 

[smash84]

Questions for KYear...

So was it "intellectually dishonest" of the Australian selectors in the 90s to pick David Boon at 3? or the English selectors when they picked Vaughan or Butcher to play and not open....

(Given the bowling line-ups these alltime sides will be facing in the mythical contest we're considering, I think having a 3rd opener to come in at 3 is a pretty sensible strategy myself...)

If you can't play Hutton and Sutcliffe together because you don't want them at the crease at the same time, does this mean you didn't pick Dravid in your all-time Indian xi because you wouldn't want him batting with Gavaskar? (later edit... oh I see you did?)

If players can only be picked to play in their best positions, does this mean I can only pick one of Bradman, Ponting and Harvey in an all-time Aussie xi, since they all batted at 3?

And re the McGrath/Davidson discussion, who's this "we" who picked McGrath in an all-time xi?

Bowlers I consider better than McGrath :
Marshall, Lillee, Trueman, Ambrose (plus Barnes though I'm a bit confused still if they perform similar roles)

Bowlers as good as McGrath who offer more to the whole team due to batting/fielding/variety :
Procter, Miller, Lindwall, Davidson, Hadlee, Imran, Wasim

He was a great, but he's nowhere near my all time xi. And I happily pick Davidson ahead of McGrath in an all-time Australian side, for the left-arm variety and the batting.

:

 

[Jager]

Questions for KYear...

So was it "intellectually dishonest" of the Australian selectors in the 90s to pick David Boon at 3? or the English selectors when they picked Vaughan or Butcher to play and not open....

(Given the bowling line-ups these alltime sides will be facing in the mythical contest we're considering, I think having a 3rd opener to come in at 3 is a pretty sensible strategy myself...)

If you can't play Hutton and Sutcliffe together because you don't want them at the crease at the same time, does this mean you didn't pick Dravid in your all-time Indian xi because you wouldn't want him batting with Gavaskar? (later edit... oh I see you did?)

If players can only be picked to play in their best positions, does this mean I can only pick one of Bradman, Ponting and Harvey in an all-time Aussie xi, since they all batted at 3?

And re the McGrath/Davidson discussion, who's this "we" who picked McGrath in an all-time xi?

Bowlers I consider better than McGrath :
Marshall, Lillee, Trueman, Ambrose (plus Barnes though I'm a bit confused still if they perform similar roles)

Bowlers as good as McGrath who offer more to the whole team due to batting/fielding/variety :
Procter, Miller, Lindwall, Davidson, Hadlee, Imran, Wasim

He was a great, but he's nowhere near my all time xi. And I happily pick Davidson ahead of McGrath in an all-time Australian side, for the left-arm variety and the batting.

So many great points there.

Also kyear I don't understand how you classify Hobbs as a greater runscorer than Sutcliffe when the latter averages more and had a better conversion rate of fifties to hundreds as well.