The Classic Draft - Voting Thread

[Saint Kopite]

VOTE FOR THE TOP-3 TEAMS.

Teuton:-

01. Virender Sehwag
02. Matthew Hayden
03. George Headley
04. Everton Weekes
05. Jacques Kallis
06. Dave Houghton
07. Brendon McCullum
08. Mike Procter
09. Wasim Akram
10. Rangana Herath
11. Alec Bedser

trundler:-

01. Sunil Gavaskar
02. Stewie Dempster
03. Ken Barrington
04. Clive Lloyd*
05. Keith Miller 4
06. Ed Joyce
07. Prasanna Jayawardene+
08. Shane Warne 5
09. Fred Trueman 1
10. Dale Steyn 2
11. Fazal Mahmood 3

AndyZaltzHair:-

01. Graham Gooch
02. Tamim Iqbal
03. Greg Chappell
04. Martin Crowe
05. Aravinda De Silva
06. Frank Worrell
07. Les Ames
08. Kapil Dev
09. Ray Lindwall
10 Waqar Younis
11 Hugh Tayfield

Red Hill:-

01. Herb Sutcliffe
02. Graeme Smith
03. Viv Richards (5)
04. Peter May
05. Allan Border * (5)
06. Angelo Mathews (5)
07. Imran Khan (2)
08. Chris Cairns (3)
09. Tatenda Taibu +
10. Curtly Ambrose (1)
11. Clarrie Grimmett (4)

Milenko47:-

01. L Hutton* /
02. B Sutcliffe /
03. RG Pollock /
04. DPMD Jayawardene /
05. Mohammad Yousuf /
06. AC Gilchrist / +
07. GW Flower / o
08. PM Pollock o /
09. A Kumble o
10. WW Hall o
11. J Garner o

fredfertang:-

01. Barry Richards
02. Victor Trumper
03. Murray Goodwin
04. Virat Kohli
05. Stan McCabe
06. Kusal Perera
07. Farokh Engineer
08. Harold Larwood
09. Abdul Qadir
10. Trent Boult
11. Sydney Barnes

Michaelf7777777:-

01. WG Grace
02. Bruce Mitchell
03. Dudley Nourse
04. Javed Miandad
05. Andy Flower
06. Thilan Samaraweera
07. BJ Watling (+)
08. Richie Benaud (*)
09. Neil Wagner
10. Dennis Lillee
11. Brian Statham

Pothas:-

01. Geoffrey Boycott
02. Tillakaratne Dilshan
03. Brian Lara
04. Steve Smith
05. Inzamam-ul-Haq
06. Ben Stokes
07. Mushfiqur Rahim
08. Richard Hadlee
09. Vernon Philander
10. Bill O'Reilly
11. Allan Donald

honestbharani:-

01. Saeed Anwar
02. Bob Simpson © (7)
03. Marvan Atapattu (vc)
04. Ross Taylor
05. Gary Sobers (4)
06. Brendon Taylor (wk)
07. Aubrey Faulkner (6)
08. Alan Davidson (2)
09. Michael Holding (1)
10. Jim Laker (5)
11. Neil Adcock (3)

Saint Kopite:-

01. Jack Hobbs
02. Hanif Mohammad
03. Rahul Dravid
04. Wally Hammond © (5)
05. Steve Waugh (6)
06. AB De Villiers (+)
07. Mominul Haque
08. Shane Bond (2)
09. Muttiah Muralitharan (4)
10. Glenn McGrath (1)
11. Courtney Walsh (3)

stephen:-

01. Gordon Greenidge (7558 runs @ 44.7)
02. Bill Ponsford (2122 runs @ 48.2)
03. Kane Williamson (6476 runs @ 51.0)
04. Younis Khan (10099 runs @ 52.0)
05. Neil Harvey (6149 runs @ 49.4)
06. Kumar Sangakkara+ (12400 runs @ 57.4, 182 catches, 20 stumpings)
07. Tony Grieg (c) (3599 runs @ 40.4, 141 wickets @ 32.2)
08. Shaun Pollock (3781 runs @ 32.3, 421 wickets @ 23.1)
09. Heath Streak (1990 runs @ 22.4, 216 wickets @ 28.1)
10. Hedley Verity (669 runs @ 20.9, 144 wickets @ 24.4)
11. Andy Roberts (762 runs @ 14.9, 202 wickets @ 25.6)

Magrat Garlick:-

01. Glenn Turner
02. Sanath Jayasuriya
03. Ricky Ponting (*)
04. Sachin Tendulkar
05. Denis Compton
06. MS Dhoni (+)
07. Monty Noble
08. Ian Botham
09. Malcolm Marshall
10. Rashid Khan
11. Shoaib Akhtar

AndrewB:-

01. Vijay Merchant
02. Arthur Morris
03. Don Bradman*
04. Zaheer Abbas
05. Clyde Walcott+
06. Clive Rice
07. Shakib Al Hasan
08. Ravi Ashwin
09. Chaminda Vaas
10. Jack Cowie
11. Ian Bishop

 

[stephen]

Very solid draft. This was a tough draft and the quality of the sides is all in the same ball park. I've had to really go through and evaluate each team to decide which ones I thought were special.

I'm ignoring my own side which is of course the best and you should all vote for it.

Despite having one of the weakest number 7s in the competition, the rest of Milenko47's team is pure quality. My top side. Gilchrist batting one too high probably but that is a very minor quibble.

Michaelf is probably my second pick. Very consistently solid team. Really helped by the Flower pick. Great batting and a good bowling attack. Some batting sides might get on top of that bowling attack but it's certainly enough to take 20 wickets regularly.

Red Hill squeaks in as my third choice. Great batting (down to 9) somewhat makes up for the weaker third quick.

Pothas has a very strong bowling attack but is reliant on three batsmen to carry the side to an extent. Still, a very strong contender.

Hb has an excellent attack but is weakest in his numbers 3 and 4 batsmen (by the standards of this competition). That to me makes it very hard to win matches.

AndrewB has probably got enough of a side around Bradman to win more than it loses but I find it hard to vote for, no matter how good Bradman was.

Saint Kopite has a good side too but a couple of names let it down.

Magrat's side is excellent. Rashid Khan is so hard to rate though. Needs to play more against top 6 sides. I'd bat Noble ahead of Dhoni personally. I think era adjusted his batting was worth more than Dhoni's and his bowling wasn't quite as good as the average suggests.

HonestBharani I think focused too much on his (admittedly gun) bowling at the expense of having a solid middle order (at least by the standards of the drafted sides). A strong team no doubt but 3 and 4 are the two most important batting positions in a side and that's where hb's team is weakest.

I haven't mentioned everyone's side (half my response got swallowed) but if I haven't mentioned you it's because you have a very strong team. Everyone should be proud of their drafting in this one.

 

[Pothas]

I did think about getting another batsman rather than Stokes but thought he added more to the side overall. Think I have more than 3 bats to rely on, plus two of them are amongst the best ever.

Fred's teams are always the most fun.

 

[stephen]

I did think about getting another batsman rather than Stokes but thought he added more to the side overall. Think I have more than 3 bats to rely on, plus two of them are amongst the best ever.

Fred's teams are always the most fun.

Yeah Stokes is good. And your side is very good. I was largely nitpicking. Still, comparing your side to Michael's side (directly above yours) your batting is not quite as strong. Fwiw, you'd have had my 4th vote. It was very close.

Honestly you could vote for any side here. They're all excellent.

 

[stephen]

Oh wow, I just realised I made the same criticism of hb's side twice. Sorry mate

 

[trundler]

Mine doesn't even warrant a mention..

 

[stephen]

Mine doesn't even warrant a mention..

if I haven't mentioned you it's because you have a very strong team. Everyone should be proud of their drafting in this one.

I had no specific things to say about your side. It was solid and a contender.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Good sides all around.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah Stokes is good. And your side is very good. I was largely nitpicking. Still, comparing your side to Michael's side (directly above yours) your batting is not quite as strong. Fwiw, you'd have had my 4th vote. It was very close.

Honestly you could vote for any side here. They're all excellent.

Yeah I pretty much considered voting for every side.

Michael's team has the Grace. Always find him very hard to rate on this sort of thing, I mean he is probably the second greatest cricketer ever but I tend to avoid 19th century players in these things.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Red hill's batting is insane (most others have shoehorned a middle order batsman into an opener or have a notoriously unreliable indian wicketkeeper at six) and let's face it you wouldn't like to have to bat against Imran & Ambrose knowing Grimmett was ready for the old ball would you. A fair leader in the poll

 

[stephen]

Milenko47 and Teuton also have really strong batting.

I'd also like to argue in favour of my own batting. Two gun openers, the best ever Kiwi, Sri Lankan and Pakistani batsmen. A guy averaging 40 at 7, over 30 at 8 and over 20 at 9 and 10. Heck, my number 11 averages 15 with the bat.

What I don't have are superstars. Just guys who scored loads of runs over many years.

 

[ataraxia]

Red hill's batting is insane (most others have shoehorned a middle order batsman into an opener or have a notoriously unreliable indian wicketkeeper at six) and let's face it you wouldn't like to have to bat against Imran & Ambrose knowing Grimmett was ready for the old ball would you. A fair leader in the poll

Bert Sutcliffe - Performance Analysis by Batting Position - Test Cricket

"shoehorned"

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Bert Sutcliffe - Performance Analysis by Batting Position - Test Cricket

"shoehorned"

did not refer to you, but you should just have had the guts to open with grant flower and picked a better #4 than jayawardene

 

[honestbharani]

Oh wow, I just realised I made the same criticism of hb's side twice. Sorry mate

You also said my bowling attack was gun twice. So you are forgiven.

Yes, this is a tough draft. Have to revisit to vote sometime later, maybe in the weekend, got a few busy days of work coming up. But great teams by all for sure.

 

[stephen]

did not refer to you, but you should just have had the guts to open with grant flower and picked a better #4 than jayawardene

Jayawardene was the best player left.

This draft was as much about managing the minnow/NZ/SL/Pak weakness as it as about anything else. AZH and I managed it by picking those players first while hb and Saint Kopite and a few others left them till very late in the draft. It means that AZH and I have smoother teams where we aren't hiding players, but we don't have the superstars that the other sides have.

 

[ataraxia]

Jayawardene was the best player left.

This draft was as much about managing the minnow/NZ/SL/Pak weakness as it as about anything else. AZH and I managed it by picking those players first while hb and Saint Kopite and a few others left them till very late in the draft. It means that AZH and I have smoother teams where we aren't hiding players, but we don't have the superstars that the other sides have.

^

Jaya was my 2nd pick IIRC.

 

[stephen]

I meant he was the best Sri Lankan player left when you made your pick. Let's not forget he averaged nearly 50.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Jayawardene was the best player left.

This draft was as much about managing the minnow/NZ/SL/Pak weakness as it as about anything else. AZH and I managed it by picking those players first while hb and Saint Kopite and a few others left them till very late in the draft. It means that AZH and I have smoother teams where we aren't hiding players, but we don't have the superstars that the other sides have.

Yeah I think we missed a trick maybe

 

[stephen]

Yeah I think we missed a trick maybe

Maybe. Probably should have done a hybrid - I think my side would have been a lot stronger if I delayed my Pakistan pick by two rounds. But that's the risk you take.

 

[Saint Kopite]

Saint Kopite has a good side too but a couple of names let it down.

I think you are being harsh on Hanif.

Hanif was a very good opener and is usually considered amongst Top-5 Pakistani batsmen along with the likes of Miandad, Younis, Inzy and Yousuf.

A very gritty batsman who was a one-man show in batting for Pakistan most of the times during the 50s and 60s.

Mominul, yeah. He is underwhelming in comparison but frankly 3/4 odd teams aside teams aside most have a meh/average batsman/bowler in their team. With Hobbs, Hammond, Dravid, Waugh and AB there, 5 of the Top-25/30 batsmen of all time, I am fine with compensating it there tbh.