Which country has the best 2nd ATG XI side?

[watson]

The first proposed England team.....

Herbert Sutcliffe
Geoff Boycott
Peter May
David Gower
Dennis Compton
Tony Greig (c)
Les Ames (w)
John Snow
Derek Underwood
Bob Willis
Alec Bedser

......would beat the second proposed England team.

WG Grace
Herbert Sutcliffe
Peter May
Kevin Pietersen
KS Ranjitsinjhi
Tony Greig
Les Ames
Alec Bedser
Hedley Verity
Tom Richardson
Brian Statham

Although I'd swap Underwood with Verity any day. Slightly better bowler and handy No.8 or 9 batsman

(And as always IMO)

 

[smash84]

West Indies probably have the best 2nd XI bowling attack. Aus probably the best batting.

England have a decent combo of both batting and bowling

 

[The Sean]

The first proposed England team.....

Herbert Sutcliffe
Geoff Boycott
Peter May
David Gower
Dennis Compton
Tony Greig (c)
Les Ames (w)
John Snow
Derek Underwood
Bob Willis
Alec Bedser

......would beat the second proposed England team.

WG Grace
Herbert Sutcliffe
Peter May
Kevin Pietersen
KS Ranjitsinjhi
Tony Greig
Les Ames
Alec Bedser
Hedley Verity
Tom Richardson
Brian Statham

Although I'd swap Underwood with Verity any day. Slightly better bowler and handy No.8 or 9 batsman

(And as always IMO)

Makes for an interesting discussion. Both teams select:

Sutcliffe
May
Greig
Ames
Bedser

I didn’t choose Compton because he made the CW First XI and was thus excluded. In my team he would have replaced Ranji, so excluding both of them, that leaves five players different. You’ve already said that you’d take Verity over Underwood, which means that you must consider the other four:

Boycott
Gower
Snow
Willis

…to be far ahead of:

Grace
Pietersen
Richardson
Statham

Needless to say I strongly disagree (obviously, given that I selected the second team!), but it would be great to hear your opinions.

 

[watson]

Makes for an interesting discussion. Both teams select:

Sutcliffe
May
Greig
Ames
Bedser

I didn’t choose Compton because he made the CW First XI and was thus excluded. In my team he would have replaced Ranji, so excluding both of them, that leaves five players different. You’ve already said that you’d take Verity over Underwood, which means that you must consider the other four:

Boycott
Gower
Snow
Willis

…to be far ahead of:

Grace
Pietersen
Richardson
Statham

Needless to say I strongly disagree (obviously, given that I selected the second team!), but it would be great to hear your opinions.

Grace V Boycott: In relative terms WG Grace is easily the greatest cricketer of his generation, and probably the second greatest cricketer of all time after Bradman. However, in absolute terms I don't that he can complete with such a superb technician as Boycott. Against a bowler like Garner he would not have the technique to score a significant amount of runs without prior training and practice. Likewise, Boycott would probably struggle on a substandard 1870s pitch, but the assumption made by most 'counter-factual' thinkers is that any hypothetical pitch would be at least be flat and reasonable.

Gower V Pietersen: There is not much between these batsman as both would be attacking and unpredictable, although Gower would play any spin bowler significantly better. He was also one of the best cover fieldsman I've seen.

Richardson V Snow: As with Grace, we have a similar set of unknowns with respect to Richardson's bowling. It is possible that he would be as fast and as intimidating as Snow, but I doubt it. Snow played two magnificent series against Australia, and also against the West Indies in 1967/68. John Snow time and again knocked-over great top order batsman, and is a proven performer. Trueman or Larwood might be England's greatest fast bowlers, but John Snow was simply the best.

Willis v Statham: There is not much between these bowlers as they were both accurate and dependable. However, in his prime Willis had an extra yard of pace that Statham never had. With work-horses like Bedser and Underwood/Verity in the side the skills of Statham are not in great demand. Better to have a couple of strike-bowlers like Snow and Willis to open the attack, and then alternate them with shortish stints.

In short, the former batting line-up of......

Herbert Sutcliffe
Geoff Boycott
Peter May
David Gower
Dennis Compton
Tony Greig (c)
Les Ames (w)

......intuitively seems better balanced and more resilient than;

WG Grace
Herbert Sutcliffe
Peter May
Kevin Pietersen
KS Ranjitsinjhi
Tony Greig
Les Ames

Likewise, a bowling attack like.........

John Snow
Derek Underwood
Bob Willis
Alec Bedser

......intuitively seems better balanced, and to have more fire-power than;

Alec Bedser
Hedley Verity
Tom Richardson
Brian Statham

(But of course, if you shout "prove it", I can't)

 

[Himannv]

Aubrey Faulkner would make my first XI as will players like Waugh, Border, Hunte, Garner, Morris and Compton. However, the simple answer to this question is probably Australia.

 

[Migara]

For SL,

First XI

Sanath Jayasuriya
Tillekaratne Dilshan
Kumar Sangakkata
Aravinda de Silva
Mahela Jayawardane*
Mahadevan Sathasivam
Prasanna Jayawardane+
Ravi Ratnayake
Chaminda Vaas
Rumesh Ratnayake
Muttiah Muralidaran

2nd XI
Marvan Atapattu
Roy Dias
Asanka Gurusinghe
Thilan Samarweera
Angelo Mathews
Arjuna Ranatunga*
Hashan Tillekaratne+
Somachandra de Silva
Asantha de Mel
Rangana Herath
Lasith Malinga

It's hard to pick a quality second XI for SL. The number of players have been very limited.

 

[smash84]

For SL,

First XI

Sanath Jayasuriya
Tillekaratne Dilshan
Kumar Sangakkata
Aravinda de Silva
Mahela Jayawardane*
Mahadevan Sathasivam
Prasanna Jayawardane+
Ravi Ratnayake
Chaminda Vaas
Rumesh Ratnayake
Muttiah Muralidaran

2nd XI
Marvan Atapattu
Roy Dias
Asanka Gurusinghe
Thilan Samarweera
Angelo Mathews
Arjuna Ranatunga*
Hashan Tillekaratne+
Somachandra de Silva
Asantha de Mel
Rangana Herath
Lasith Malinga

It's hard to pick a quality second XI for SL. The number of players have been very limited.

Even the first XI's bowling attack seems hard to round off

 

[Migara]

I have seen both Rumesh and Ravi in action. I can assure both were better than Vaas. That would make the bowling line up very strong given Murali is there.

 

[smash84]

It is hard to imagine the ratnanayakes to be better than Vaas. Obviously i didn't see much of them but don't recall too much about them either

 

[smash84]

Ravi Ratnayeke | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

found ravi's record with much difficulty. Couldn't find rumesh. The record doesn't seem all that flash

 

[smash84]

found rumesh

Rumesh Ratnayake | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

epic photo

 

[smash84]

found rumesh

Rumesh Ratnayake | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

epic photo

 

[smash84]

Here is Vaas's record.

Chaminda Vaas | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

Hmmm, average wise the ratnayakes are closer to Ishant Sharma than they are to Vaas

 

[smash84]

might as well take Zoysa over those 2

 

[Migara]

Remember that both Ratnayake's played for a minnow team with hardly any bowling support. And on top of that they never had proper training or fitness regime and basically could not bowl to attacking fields due to circumstances. But Rumesh Ratnayake was slingy, pacy and swung it around and when he was in the mood was quite deadly. Ravi was completely different, as he was a tall bowler, high arm action, accurate, bit of seam and swing and supremely fit and bowled long spells. I would take 5 runs out of their averages to have a better idea of them. They have not lasted long as Vaas or had an ATG bowler bowling from the other end for them, but as a person who have seen them, I rate them above or similar to Vaas and there is absolute daylight between them and Zoysa. Additionally Ravi was quite a good batsman too, and Rumesh was a well known user of long handle.

 

[Red]

Rat in the hire car

 

[harsh.ag]

Aubrey Faulkner would make my first XI as will players like Waugh, Border, Hunte, Garner, Morris and Compton. However, the simple answer to this question is probably Australia.

I have never seen the value in having Faulkner instead of Herbie Taylor in the first XI. There already is fifth bowling support in the form of Kallis, and it's not like Faulkner was anything but an ordinary bowler, despite the odd 5-fer. Average of 26 in that age would be an equivalent of 35 today. Taylor is so much better as a batsman.

I always have Ponting, Chappell and Miller there, so no Waugh and Border for me.
It's a toss-up between Compton and Pietersen for me again, very close. Depends on the day

 

[MartinB]

A couple of teams I’ve come up with, excluding those selected by CW in the First XIs. Not that I necessarily agreed with each CW team, but using them as a base for exclusion. Firstly, Australia:

Matthew Hayden
Bob Simpson
Ricky Ponting
Neil Harvey
Stan McCabe
Steve Waugh
Ian Healy
Alan Davidson
Ray Lindwall
Clarrie Grimmett
Fred Spofforth

An alternative pace bowler (For Spofforth) could be Bill Johnson

 

[honestbharani]

An alternative pace bowler (For Spofforth) could be Bill Johnson

Yeah he is awesome. esp. given that he is in my Mystery Draft team..

 

[watson]

I have never seen the value in having Faulkner instead of Herbie Taylor in the first XI. There already is fifth bowling support in the form of Kallis, and it's not like Faulkner was anything but an ordinary bowler, despite the odd 5-fer. Average of 26 in that age would be an equivalent of 35 today. Taylor is so much better as a batsman.

I always have Ponting, Chappell and Miller there, so no Waugh and Border for me.
It's a toss-up between Compton and Pietersen for me again, very close. Depends on the day

I'd rather take the opinion of Jack Hobbs who batted against Faulkner, and had this to say after the first Test of his 1910 tour;

South Africa put on 345 in their second innings. GA Faulkner contributing 123; and we could only reply with 234. This was very disappointing after our fine start. But South Africa had some great bowlers - Faulkner and Vogler were wonderful, while Schwarz with his googlies, and white with his mixture of googlies and leg breaks, were first rate.

I think that at his time Faulkner was the greatest all-round player in the world. He always got runs, and used to bowl right through the innings.

'My Cricket Memories' by Jack Hobbs (1924)

1st Test: South Africa v England at Johannesburg, Jan 1-5, 1910 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

Faulkner, White and Vogler all became googlie experts; Faulkner was the best, and was able to make the ball turn to a pretty good extent either way.

'My Cricket Memories' by Jack Hobbs(1924)

Faulkner will go down to history as South Africa's greatest allrounder. He was a really splendid bowler googly bowler, keeping an immaculate length, much faster than Grimmett, and perhaps the best of the googly bowlers, with the exception of Arthur Mailey.

Sir Jack Hobbs. My Life Story (1935)

Faulkner dismissed Hobbs 4 times - twice in 1910 and twice in 1913 when South Africa toured England. A bowler doesn't get to dismiss Jack Hobbs, 'bowl right through an innings', and be described as 'wonderful', and 'really splendid' without being significantly more than just 'ordinary'.

Faulkner and Kallis should be in any ATG South African XI.