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Is Rohit Sharma the second best ODI opener of all time?

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Agreed. Gilchrist as an ODI bat is severely over-rated on CW. At least I haven't seen too much of Jaya's name mentioned other than on this thread.
A guy who gets two half centuries and a century in three world cup finals is overrated?

Look over the list of openers asked sort by strike rate. He's the only one in the top 20 or so other than Sehwag to feature who hasn't played in recent years when batting has gotten much easier. His strike rate odd great, his average is good and he's an ATG keeper even without his batting.

If you can't see why Gilchrist is rated highly you didn't watch ODI cricket from 1998-2007.
 

Burner

International Regular
A guy who gets two half centuries and a century in three world cup finals is overrated?

Look over the list of openers asked sort by strike rate. He's the only one in the top 20 or so other than Sehwag to feature who hasn't played in recent years when batting has gotten much easier. His strike rate odd great, his average is good and he's an ATG keeper even without his batting.

If you can't see why Gilchrist is rated highly you didn't watch ODI cricket from 1998-2007.
Yeah, there's no one better than Gilchrist if you just take the WC finals into the consideration. In truth he was a very inconsistent player who basically had to be carried by his team into the finals. He averages just his career average of 36 even in the WC. I mean don't get me wrong, he's a very great player at the top but we're talking about an ATG team here. I mean if you just wanted an inconsistent aggressor with most emphasis on SR at the top, you might as well have Sehwag in your team. He has a 7 run SR advantage over Gilchrist with a less than a run average deficit.

Personally for me they just don't cut it in an ATG team.
 

Anil

Hall of Fame Member
A guy who gets two half centuries and a century in three world cup finals is overrated?
an important question that no one asks is how he performed (with the bat) in the runup to the finals...performing in world cup finals doesn't automatically make you an all-time great...and he was able to bat with that kind of abandon precisely because it was never very consequential when he failed...there were better batsmen around him to pick up the slack and carry on and still win the game for australia...and during that era, they rarely if ever lost a must-win game...
 
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Anil

Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, there's no one better than Gilchrist if you just take the WC finals into the consideration. In truth he was a very inconsistent player who basically had to be carried by his team into the finals. He averages just his career average of 36 even in the WC. I mean don't get me wrong, he's a very great player at the top but we're talking about an ATG team here. I mean if you just wanted an inconsistent aggressor with most emphasis on SR at the top, you might as well have Sehwag in your team. He has a 7 run SR advantage over Gilchrist with a less than a run average deficit.

Personally for me they just don't cut it in an ATG team.
i think glichrist would not be out of place as a keeper and a lower middle order batsman in an all-time xi, it's just the insistence over here to have him open that doesn't make any sense to me...
 

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