Rest of the World XIs to play Australia

[marc71178]

Of course Pollock has been better than Cairns but then again Pollock has never been plagued by vast amount of injuries that Cairns has had.

If Cairns had stayed injury free, could he have been better than Pollock? we'll never know now.

Maybe a better batsman, but nowhere near as good a bowler.

I guess it all depends on the needs of the team, but of the 2, Cairns is IMO more a Kallis than a Pollock.

 

[Tim]

Lets not forget that Cairns had that crippling back injury in 1989 during the NZ tour of Australia.

At that stage he was bowling very quickly..and because of that injury he had to cut his pace down considerably.

But anyway, we'll never really know how good he could have been.

 

[marc71178]

I doubt he would have been as good a bowler as Pollock though, since Pollock is one of the top 2 or 3 bowlers of the last decade and more.

He is however a better batsman.

 

[Top_Cat]

However im sure that a couple of years ago Corey, that you would have said the same things about Flintoff that you are saying about Oram.

I feel Oram is getting to the point where he's either going to make or break himself as an all-rounder.

Can't disagree there. If he wants to be an allrounder, he'd better act like it soon or accept he's not going to get there with the bat and work on his bowling.

It's just sad to see that NZ have (in my opinion) a great deal of potential in the bowling department and instead, wants to turn these guys into allrounders. It seems that being a specialist is a liability in NZ because even guys like Styris and McMillain are picked on the basis that they can 'bowl a few overs'. I notice that as soon as Craig McMillain's bowling started its decline, people were calling for his head! Geez, you don't drop a guy like McMillain without VERY good reason and his bowling is NOT a good reason!!

 

[Tim]

I think the selectors ended up dropping McMillan because they stuffed him around too much in the World Cup by constantly moving him up & down the batting order.

I have complained time & time again about the current NZ selectors that they need to start picking specialist players rather than all these players who can offer a bit of everything.
I personally think NZ has the talent, but we're not executing it in the right way.

 

[gibbsnsmith]

I have personally considered New Zealand underrated and when used propery i feel they maybe be ableto challenge Australia [ that being said the same could be said for England, SA, WI and IND]

 

[Tim]

NZ are establishing a good talent base because players are now realising that they can make good money playing cricket which will also keep them in the game longer, rather than having to walk away because they were being crippled financially.

I still feel though that until NZ gets the idea that we need specialist players then we'll never be more than a promising team.

 

[Bazza]

On paper the only area that Cairns outdoes Pollock is ODI batting, so it's 3-1. I would say they are both useful batsmen, and Cairns is a useful bowler but Pollock is world class. I guess you could compare Cairns to Pollock in batting and Kallis in bowling.

Now if that was the other way round, Cairns or whoever, imagine how good that player would be.

Actually I just spent a bit of time looking at some of the great allrounders and some current players (Botham, Hadlee, Imran, Kapil, Sobers, Miller, Pollock, Kallis, Cairns).

On paper, Sobers (58/34) by Marc's definition was probably not a true allrounder, yet he is considered the greatest.

That foursome from the 80s, Imran is streets ahead in terms of stats.

But overall Miller stands out the most, with Imran and Pollock probably his closest rivals.

I am basing this purely on batting v bowling and the basic idea that an allrounder should score more runs per innings than he concedes per wicket.

Sobers actually has the greatest difference between batting average and bowling average, but that's because he averaged like 58 with the bat! So really Sobers was a great batsmen, one of the best, who bowled some useful part-time stuff.

To find all these guys I looked under test allrounders, where everyone with 1000 runs and 100 wickets is listed. Bizarrely this list therfore includes the likes of Ambrose (bat ave 12), Waqar (10), Vaas and Srinath, as well as guys who would be flattered if described as all rounders (Hooper, Wasim, etc).

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Last check Carl Hooper is the only player to have scored 1000+ runs, taken 100+ wickets and 100+ catches in both forms of the game.

 

[Craig]

Sobers actually has the greatest difference between batting average and bowling average, but that's because he averaged like 58 with the bat! So really Sobers was a great batsmen, one of the best, who bowled some useful part-time stuff.

Yet at times he took the new ball for the West Indies and often bowled unchanged through a whole innings. He did this in Australia and they were 8-ball overs too.