Your Greatest "5 year Peak" Test XI (post 1970)

[ankitj]

Imran's bowling peak 81-86, he had a bowling average of 14.85!
Blogs: Anantha Narayanan: Test streaks: 52 and 27 matches long | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

Which I why I have always rated him as a better bowler than some here have given him credit for. As good as anyone ever. The batting just makes him irresistible. Walks into my best XI.

Imran also has the 3rd highest peak ICC bowling rating points ever, after pre world war I bowlers Sydney Barnes and George Lohmann. That's something!

ICC Player Rankings

 

[OverratedSanity]

Barnes in 14 tests between 1910-1914 averaged 15 and had 14 5fers. One a game.

 

[Zinzan]

To me, the noteworthy ones are:

Imran Khan 80/81 - 86 - Combined pace and mastery of normal and reverse swing to be the most effective fast bowler ever. Did well in England, Australia and decimated strong batting lineups at home on dead pitches.

Malcolm Marshall 83 - 88 - Second only to Imran, in an attack full of greats, he averaged 6 wickets test and conquered all conditions.

Viv Richards 76 - 80 - At the height of his brutal powers, Viv dominated attacked everywhere and scored against the best in WSC. His performance against Australia in 79/80 particularly noteworthy.

Botham 77 - 82 - Somewhat overrated as he played against Packer depleted sides and didnt perform as well against the WI, but still produced outstanding all-round performances with shocking frequency.

Sachin 1996 - 2002 At at time when bowler standards were at their height, Sachin averaged 60 and scored all across the globe and had notable innings against virtually every major attack.

Murali - 2001 to 2006 - Took wicket-taking to an extreme, averaging over 7 wickets a test.

Sobers 1961 - 1968 - A bit outside the five year limit, but he was at his peak as a bowler averaging 27 and around 4 wickets a test, and was in sublime form as a batsman in this time.

Also give special mention to Warne between 93 and 98, when he had the tight control, the loop and the flipper to be a package unlike any we have seen.

Cheers, I'm getting close to attempting a team

 

[ankitj]

Barnes in 14 tests between 1910-1914 averaged 15 and had 14 5fers. One a game.

Hardly surprising given he took 24 fivers in 27 games. Come up with better trivia next time ****.

 

[vitalogy83]

Herath 2011- to now
273 @25.64 in 51 games. 22 5'fers. 7 - 10wim

Not crazy stats like Imran or Lohmann but up there I'd say.

 

[adub]

Just to blow up Imran because I can. In 5 WSC Supertests he took 25 wickets @ 20.8 with a sr of 40.05.

easily the best ave and s/r of any of the top ten WSC wicket takers which included Lillee, Roberts, Garner, Holding, Croft. (although Garth Le Roux took an awesome 17 @ 15.88 at a sr of 38.1 in 3 Supertests)

 

[listento_me]

Kumar from Feb 09 to Feb 15

52 matches 96 innings 8 no. 5678 runs 319 top score 64.52 ave 10766 bf 52.74 sr 21 100s 23 50s 6 0s

Not quite Bradman, but FMD.

That's 6 years mate. 2009-2015 lol

 

[listento_me]

I think, based on what I've read here Khan walks in as the all rounder, Botham too is you want two of them and Marshall, Warne to beef up the bowling. Sachin, Yousuf and Sanga with the bat.

Thing is, you can pick just about any great cricketer from 1970 on wards and they will have had a period of 4, 5 or 6 years when they seemed to be playing on another level. This is a tough XI to put together with probably 2 or maybe even 3 players in every spot not taken by Khan, Marshall, Akram, McGrath/Holding/Waqar, Warne/Murali, Tendulkar and Ponting.

 

[ankitj]

I think, based on what I've read here Khan walks in as the all rounder, Botham too is you want two of them and Marshall, Warne to beef up the bowling. Sachin, Yousuf and Sanga with the bat.

Thing is, you can pick just about any great cricketer from 1970 on wards and they will have had a period of 4, 5 or 6 years when they seemed to be playing on another level. This is a tough XI to put together with probably 2 or maybe even 3 players in every spot not taken by Khan, Marshall, Akram, McGrath/Holding/Waqar, Warne/Murali, Tendulkar and Ponting.

Surely Murali had a greater peak than Warne to grab the spinner's spot?

 

[ankitj]

Getting peak 5 year stats would be tedious, so I just looked up best ever ICC ratings to draw up this XI:

Matthew Hayden (935)
Sunil Gavaskar (916)
Ricky Ponting * (942)
Viv Richards (938)
Kumar Snagakkara (938)
Adam Gilchrist + (874)
Ian Botham (911)
Imran Khan (922)
Curtly Ambrose (912)
Muttiah Muralitharan (920)
Glenn McGrath (914)

Chose Botham instead of Philander whose peak bowling rating was one point higher. Chose Gilchrist over Andy Flower because former is the better keeper.

So what can be improved on this? Perhaps Waqar and Marshall are only improvements that can be made to the line up. Hadlee would be a good shout too.