Wisden names All Time World XI

[SpofforthLohman]

Wisden All Time World XI
01. W.G. Grace
02. Sir Jack Hobbs
03. Sir Donald Bradman *
04. Sachin Tendulkar
05. Sir I.V.A. Richards
06. Sir Garfield Sobers
07. Alan Knott +
08. Wasim Akram
09. Shane Warne
10. Malcolm Marshall
11. Sydney Barnes

All I can say is that it is a slightly bizarre team. Akram ? Viv Richards ?? (seriously I can name 4 or 5 greater batsmen since Viv played, it is an emotional selection I feel, Lara easily kills him in stats, Ponting does too and I believe Steve Waugh does but even they would be far fetched selections. I saw how they came up with their Top 100 players of the 20th century and the entire process was a debacle with all the "selectors" (Waugh was one I believe)..... being asked to name their top 5.... and they were supposed to come up with a top 100 ???,,, lucky to have even come up with 12 names with a bizarre process like that. As a kid I loved Wisden but even then I realised that there was a large degree of bias. I isn't good enough to say, "well I saw Richards play and he looked awesome to me", we are talking an entire century for gods sake. I think at his prime he certainly was the world's best batsman. as for Alan Knott.... man what a damn joke, yes he was a great keeper but there were better. Gilchrist is more of a 21'st century player but if this is an all time top XI he just has to be there, simply no one compares to Gilly..... How does Wally hammond get overlooked ?.. I have always had to toss up between Hobbs and Hammond as the two best batsmen England ever had and I always had them at 2 and 3 out of any batsmen ever. I never rated Marshall as high as that, Lillee was better certainly and I have a feeling Ambrose was the biggest nightmare for batsmen the West Indies ever produced. Wisden needs to pick up its act.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

McGrath for Barnes. Also would probably have Hammond or Headley for Tendulkar, but meh.

There'll be some comment about Knott over Gilly I suppose, but I don't see a problem with going for a pure gloveman in an ATG XI.

Mate, McGrath was a genius but I saw Lillee play too and he was the best since I have been on the earth, but to put McGrath ahead of the incredible Syd Barnes is just tto big a stretch. being the best of your own time does not guarantee you a spot or Trumper would be a shoe in (but not to me, his stats don't add up to his reputation to me but maybe he played on mostly wet wickets. You can come back at me I suppose with a statement like, "well how would McGrath do in Barnes time ?.. yes his bowling everage would be lower but I still go for Lillee under those circumstances. Lillee on rain affected Australian pitches would have been simply unplayable, I doubt any batsmen of Vic Trumpers time would have seen someone as fast and accurate as lillee........ They say that rain affected Aussie wickets were ever harder to bat on than the English ones... I doubt many of us can imagine just how hard batting was under those circumstances. Don't get me wrong, I am a big McGrath fan.

 

[grecian]

All I can say is that it is a slightly bizarre team. Akram ? Viv Richards ?? (seriously I can name 4 or 5 greater batsmen since Viv played, it is an emotional selection I feel, Lara easily kills him in stats, Ponting does too and I believe Steve Waugh does but even they would be far fetched selections. I saw how they came up with their Top 100 players of the 20th century and the entire process was a debacle with all the "selectors" (Waugh was one I believe)..... being asked to name their top 5.... and they were supposed to come up with a top 100 ???,,, lucky to have even come up with 12 names with a bizarre process like that. As a kid I loved Wisden but even then I realised that there was a large degree of bias. I isn't good enough to say, "well I saw Richards play and he looked awesome to me", we are talking an entire century for gods sake. I think at his prime he certainly was the world's best batsman. as for Alan Knott.... man what a damn joke, yes he was a great keeper but there were better. Gilchrist is more of a 21'st century player but if this is an all time top XI he just has to be there, simply no one compares to Gilly..... How does Wally hammond get overlooked ?.. I have always had to toss up between Hobbs and Hammond as the two best batsmen England ever had and I always had them at 2 and 3 out of any batsmen ever. I never rated Marshall as high as that, Lillee was better certainly and I have a feeling Ambrose was the biggest nightmare for batsmen the West Indies ever produced. Wisden needs to pick up its act.

Hmm, interesting you say Viv is comfortably beating in stats by others, but then you put Lillee ahead of Marshall.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Well I see a problem, they obviously went for a keeper who could bat and Knott certainly could bat but compared to Gilchrist he looks like a Chandrasekar or Jim Higgs with the bat... incidentally those two are easily the worst two batsmen I ever saw.. ROFL. If you want to go for a "pure" keeper (whatever the hell that is) then surely its between Godfrey Evans and Don Tallon but picking them doesn't make much sense to me as the best possible XI of ALL TIME surely can't have weak links like a long tail as I could pick a 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th all time XI that could be almost unbeatable. So you have to go for a keeper batsman and no one compares to Gilly, no one. He was a very handy gloveman and of all the Aussie keeper I saw only Healy could possibly be a better gloveman than Gilly but of course he couldn't bat compared to Gilly either................ mini rant over.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

And he's awesome.

I love all time teams, but I really think that pre-1910/1920 cricketers are too hard to gauge.

Well not really, just remember to add at least 10 to 15 runs on their batting averages and for the old time bowlers check their averages and then adjust them also, they played on wet wickets a lot and no 19th century pitches were anywhere near todays standard. A top batsman back then was thought to have an average closer to 30 than to 40. It wasn't till a couple of decades later when Hobbs started hitting his straps. Yes no film of any of them so you can only go on statistics and from old players opinions less so but thats all we have to go on. Take a bloke like Lohmann or Turner and change those averages from 10 something and 16 something to say 17 something and 21 something. One thing I do know is that cricketers have been playing at a very high standard ever since WG Grace was a boy.The game was very very professional and there were just so many top class cricketers from such an early period. A great is a great is a great.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Happy to see Tendulkar there, great choice by Wisden. But they should have put him at 3.

LOL...Tendulkar at number three ???? LOL no one can compare him to Bradman What the ??????... surely you jest sir, tendulkar was very very good but not even the most one eyed Indian would ever put him ahead of Bradman and ever hope to be taken seriously. Every batsman to ever play is a dunce compared to the DON.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Love the team. I don't think it's just a test team though... Probably all forms of cricket.

Akram's record never really impressed me that much. 414 wickets in 104 matches isn't that great for such a great bowler. Anyway i don't get the logic of picking a left armer for the sake of variety when you've got a cricketer who is at worst equal as a bowler and a far more capable batsman. This one all-rounder only rule which most such lists seem to follow is BS. Imran deserves a spot

Personally I always pick two allrounders just to make sure my XI bats a long way down. I just can't see how Akram compares to the great Keith Miller who was just an incredible cricketer with both bat and ball, Miller was a better bowler than even Sobers who is simply a must have even if you don't need him to bowl because as a pure batsman he is still a certainty. Most observers felt that if there was no Sbers then Miller would be the best all time all rounder. My grandfather assures me that Miller was faster than Lillee but not quite as quick as a Thommo but was indeed a bowler of express pace. Akram is very much a bowler, he was a bit ordinary with the bat most times. I just think with Miller and Sobers in the side, you bat a long way down and have plenty of bowlers because you would need that to beat most concievable all time 2nd XI's... from the players that didn't make the Wisden team you could pick a side that would bother this team big time.... The only thing is that with Bradman you already have an entire batting side in a single player. Bradman is god.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

I would like to add that I am puzzled that Dennis Lillee never seems to get picked in these sides. Surely Lillee and Barnes are the two best pace bowlers ever. Is it just an anti- Australian bias ? if so nothing has ever changed with Wisden. If English players were so superior why has Australia won so many more tests than they ever lost to England... lol, maybe our dominance is just a pure fluke. lol

 

[Dawood Ahmad]

Where is a good captain?

 

[SpofforthLohman]

I would bet that Kallis is a better bowler than Sobers. But a better batsman - not a chance!

I wouldn't put Kallis near Sobers or Miller. you are right, Sobers was a much greater batsman and at least his equal with the ball, and Sobers could destroy teams with spin as well so he is good in all types of conditions. I think if I had to pick just one allrounder since the 80's onwards I would go for Kallis but Botham was more of a match winner so I'd just have both of them. If I went for Imran or Akram it wouldn't be for their batting even though they were capable of destroying bowling on some occasion. Put it this way, there was no bowling attack that Sobers couldn't handle, not in his time or before or since.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Seriously as far as the selection of Viv Richards is concerned, if you have to have a West Indian as specialist batsman how can you go past Lara and pick Richards... yes I know stats don't tell the whole story but they tell at least 90 per cent of the story, Lara just has too many runs for Viv to compare... sorry to all the Viv fans but I think this was because everyone liked Viv, so did I and many don't like Lara, and neither do I but that doesn't give me the right to look past him. I wouldn't have Lara in this team, nor would I have Viv. I think Ponting was better than both of them. and ditto Wally Hammond.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Sobers 8032 runs at 57.78 Kallis 13133 at 55.64. Although different times i agree, i think as the All rounder Kallis brings more benefit in the bowling

In that case why not Miller ahead of Kallis as Keith Miller was twice as good a bowler. FYI I have both Miller and Sobers in my XI.... I think those who saw Sobers bowl would be amazed that some moderns think Kallis is a better option, I know what Richie Benaud and Ian Chappell would say.... not to mention the Don himself.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Imran

True but skill wise Akram was the greatest old ball bowler, although Waqar did reverse it more.

Well as far as I have discovered it was Imran who first developed reverse swing and he taught Wasim and Waqar how he did it. Goes to show you can't produce a Barnes without a Lohmann, or a Mailey without a Bosanquet. As Newton said," I only have managed to see so far because I sat upon the shoulders of the great ones."... not verbatim.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Actually Sarfraz did it before Imran.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Wisden announces an alternative XI as well

Brian Lara, Adam Gilchrist and Imran Khan included in alternative World XI, but there's no room for Ian Botham - Telegraph

LOL apart from the Bradman factor I think that alternative xi is superior. Hammond, Hutton, Lara, Pollock, Gavaskar and Gilchrist is a simply stunning and all round brilliant batting line up. The fact that Lillee is not in Wisden's XI and in this team means these batsmen don't have to face the awesome Lillee.and Trueman. Now Trueman is the best fast bowler England ever produced, the man was a monster with the ball and truth be told Lillee only slightly edges him. Imran , Murali and Hammond will have to take up the rest of the bowling, to think that after Lillee and Trueman's opening spells you have Imran to come in and keep the heat right on, then Murali to weave some magic with the fast medium seamers of the very capable Hammond to talke up the slack. Only problem here is Bradman, even at their best these guys get eaten by the Don 3 times out of 4 but it is an awesome side as it should be. The fact is some of the guys in this alternative side should have been i the first side. Hammond and Lillee extremely unlucky to miss out. For pure bowling, how could Imran be ahead of McGrath ?....... sure McGrath couldn't bat but by the time he comes in or in this case, Imran, they have scored 500 already despite having to face Barnes and Warne and Marshall.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Actually Sarfraz did it before Imran.

Cool, I didn't know that, Only saw Pakistan play when in Australia. I loved old Sarfraz, he, Asif Iqbal and Imran were my favorite players from Pakistan. I am always happy to be corrected if I make a mistake.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

LOL apart from the Bradman factor I think that alternative xi is superior. Hammond, Hutton, Lara, Pollock, Gavaskar and Gilchrist is a simply stunning and all round brilliant batting line up. The fact that Lillee is not in Wisden's XI and in this team means these batsmen don't have to face the awesome Lillee.and Trueman. Now Trueman is the best fast bowler England ever produced, the man was a monster with the ball and truth be told Lillee only slightly edges him. Imran , Murali and Hammond will have to take up the rest of the bowling, to think that after Lillee and Trueman's opening spells you have Imran to come in and keep the heat right on, then Murali to weave some magic with the fast medium seamers of the very capable Hammond to talke up the slack. Only problem here is Bradman, even at their best these guys get eaten by the Don 3 times out of 4 but it is an awesome side as it should be. The fact is some of the guys in this alternative side should have been i the first side. Hammond and Lillee extremely unlucky to miss out. For pure bowling, how could Imran be ahead of McGrath ?....... sure McGrath couldn't bat but by the time he comes in or in this case, Imran, they have scored 500 already despite having to face Barnes and Warne and Marshall.

There isn't much to separate Imran and Lillee as bowlers. I would say they are both about equal, but when it comes to batting Imran is miles ahead.

Imran has the same stats as Keith Miller, whom it seems you idolise.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

Where is a good captain?

In my opinion and in the opinion of the stats I reckon Steve Waugh is the greatest test captain of all time but many say Bradman was without peer in that department too (he was also a supreme fieldsman) so Bradman simply has to be the captain of the Wisden team.

 

[SpofforthLohman]

There isn't much to separate Imran and Lillee as bowlers. I would say they are both about equal, but when it comes to batting Imran is miles ahead.

Imran has the same stats as Keith Miller, whom it seems you idolise.

I am with the old timers on the Miller thing, of course you can't compare Lillee to Imran as a batsman but Lillee was faster in his prime and he could bowl every delivery ever known up to that time. So I agree Imran could bat and is an allrounder of the Miller variety except for the fact that Miller was miles ahead of Imran as a Batsman. If I had to just pick a bowler I would pick Lindwall ahead of Miller and Imran. Thing with Imran is, his era was an era overloaded with phenomenal allrounders who bowled very fast or not express but were somewhat slower but complete masters of the bowling art. Botham, Imran, Akram, Dev, Hadlee, Marshall and it depended on where they played and who they played. Against the Australians Imran was nowhere near as effective as Botham was, gee, Botham destroyed so many Australian careers that most were never seen again. On the reverse side of the coin, Imran and Dev were far better on sub-continental wickets. I idolise dozens of past greats, my favorite batsman in my time was Steve Waugh, for the simple reason that he saved our butts literally dozens of times, a batsman who turned many certain defeats in victories and in a few cases draws when the seemed shot ducks. Nearly every time he came out to bat in the 1990's the score was like 3 or 4 for less than 50. So why in hell wouldn't he have been my favorite, even though Tendulkar and Ponting are a bit ahead of him but not by very much. His record isn't pumped up by playing so many tests against very weak teams like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe like in Tendulkars case. Lara can be fairly rated slightly higher than Waugh but in a very bad situation I would want Waugh first. My ultimate idol isn't surprising, THE DON... who was a god for sure.

 

[Esperance]

once i read through your posts