All about All-time XIs

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by sum_1
My all time XI

1. Jack Hobbs
2. Don Bradman
3. Rahul Dravid/Sachin Tendukar
4. Jacques Kallis/Shaun Pollock
5. Viv Richards
6. Gary Sobers
7. Adam Gilchrist/Ian Healy
8. Jim Laker/Erapalli Prassanna
9. Abdul Quadir/Bill O'Reilly
10. Malcolm Marshall/Dennis Lillee
11. Sydney Barnes

that's more of a squad (a big squad at that) than an XI. i know it's really really tough to just pick XI but that's all you can take onto the field.....also bradman wasn't an opener and shaun pollock wouldn't bat at #4....nonetheless it would be a very competitive team.

[sum_1]

yup I admit I found it difficult to zero in on a playing XI. Its more of 3 or 4 playing XIs based on the combinations. The #4 position is specially for Kallis, Pollock would definitely bat lower down the order. But I'd stick with Bradman as the opener, it'd be fun to watch him and Hobbs competing for dominance.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by sum_1
yup I admit I found it difficult to zero in on a playing XI. Its more of 3 or 4 playing XIs based on the combinations. The #4 position is specially for Kallis, Pollock would definitely bat lower down the order. But I'd stick with Bradman as the opener, it'd be fun to watch him and Hobbs competing for dominance.

you are certainly correct there! would be a magnificent battle!

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by sum_1
My all time XI

1. Jack Hobbs
2. Don Bradman
3. Rahul Dravid/Sachin Tendukar
4. Jacques Kallis/Shaun Pollock
5. Viv Richards
6. Gary Sobers
7. Adam Gilchrist/Ian Healy
8. Jim Laker/Erapalli Prassanna
9. Abdul Quadir/Bill O'Reilly
10. Malcolm Marshall/Dennis Lillee
11. Sydney Barnes

btw no warne or murali? what are the reasons for picking all those other spinners ahead of them? i go for warne in my all time team because he's a leggy that has a ton of variations but also i feel he is one of the greatest cricketers ever with his fielding and batting brought into the picture. plus warne did slightly better if you take all conditions into account, both had 2 places they didn't do well in. murali had australia (average 75) and india (average 45), warne had west indies ( average 39) and india (average 43). so warne's worst was better than murali's worst, murali will give you a slightly better strike rate overall and better average but warne isn't as bad in his weak conditions and also has his fielding and batting to add to the team. that's my reasoning for taking warne over anyone else in an all time team.

i'm guessing pollock is in the squad for his all round abilities? he was a great bowler but not right at the top imo (like walsh - i'd love to put walsh with those greats but just can't). but if he is there for his all round abilities then why not take imran or miller or hadlee or procter? all better bowlers (bar miller possibly) and all better batsmen (bar hadlee possibly - though personally if you look into their FC records i prefer hadlee the batsman ahead of pollock and imo hadlee is a far greater bowler than shaun).

[sum_1]

Originally Posted by Gowza
btw no warne or murali? what are the reasons for picking all those other spinners ahead of them? i go for warne in my all time team because he's a leggy that has a ton of variations but also i feel he is one of the greatest cricketers ever with his fielding and batting brought into the picture. plus warne did slightly better if you take all conditions into account, both had 2 places they didn't do well in. murali had australia (average 75) and india (average 45), warne had west indies ( average 39) and india (average 43). so warne's worst was better than murali's worst, murali will give you a slightly better strike rate overall and better average but warne isn't as bad in his weak conditions and also has his fielding and batting to add to the team. that's my reasoning for taking warne over anyone else in an all time team.

i'm guessing pollock is in the squad for his all round abilities? he was a great bowler but not right at the top imo (like walsh - i'd love to put walsh with those greats but just can't). but if he is there for his all round abilities then why not take imran or miller or hadlee or procter? all better bowlers (bar miller possibly) and all better batsmen (bar hadlee possibly - though personally if you look into their FC records i prefer hadlee the batsman ahead of pollock and imo hadlee is a far greater bowler than shaun).

You're absolutely right about Pollock. On second thoughts I'd put Procter and Imran ahead of him. My initial idea was to select an allrouder with exactly 50:50 batting/bowling capabilities, and only those 2 came to mind.

Regarding the spinners, I have a slight tendency to over glorify the past. Though I'd rate Laker among the very best. He has some outstanding records both in domestic (1944 wkts) and international matches, and should walk into any all time XIs.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by sum_1
You're absolutely right about Pollock. On second thoughts I'd put Procter and Imran ahead of him. My initial idea was to select an allrouder with exactly 50:50 batting/bowling capabilities, and only those 2 came to mind.

Regarding the spinners, I have a slight tendency to over glorify the past. Though I'd rate Laker among the very best. He has some outstanding records both in domestic (1944 wkts) and international matches, and should walk into any all time XIs.

if you're looking for allrounders with 50/50 batting/bowling then i'd say look at guys like botham, cairns etc the ones that average around 30 both bat and ball because all the others are generally too far one way or the other e.g. kallis a greater batter, imran greater bowler.

also the tail looks pretty long, though in an all time xi having a long tail probably isn't hurting to much but still nice to have a good #7/8/9 and there are plenty of options with the likes of procter, imran, hadlee, pollock, miller, botham, cairns, shakib, mankad, faulkner.

the all rounder spots are always tough in an all time xi, more so on the bowling front. for my all time XI's i always go by the philosophy that you should only pick an all rounder if you're picking them specifically for one suit with the other being a bonus. sobers for example makes my al time xi regardless of his bowling, imran and procter make my team for their bowling regardless of their batting. hadlee (which i did at one stage have in my all time xi) makes it as a bowler regardless of his batting, kallis would make it on his batting. that's why i don't usually have guys like cairns, botham etc in my all time teams because they aren't strong enough in one suit to make it at the all time level, though at their peaks they are tempting (cairns averaged 42/43 with the bat and 26 with the ball from about 1999-2004).

the other thing about all rounders is do you pick them based on their overall career or their peak when they did both batting and bowling best together? or their talent? for example botham had a great peak where he was awesome with both bat and ball at the same time, but it didn't last that long compared to his entire career. imran and faulkner have great bowling and batting numbers overall but supposedly they were never bowling and batting at their best at the same time (aside from occasional matches - even though imran averaged over 50 with the bat and something like 19 with the ball for a corresponding 10 year period he apparently was rarely bowling his best when batting his best as he bowled less as he got older and batted more so for that reason some people exclude his all round abilities when considering an all time xi). miller, great numbers overall but looking at his FC record where he averaged 48, he seems to have underperformed a bit with the bat internationally, however there are a lot of stories about him saying he would sometimes literally give his wicket away in certain situations and therefore he didn't always try his best, so do you pick him based on his international numbers or overall talent? he didn't always try, that's a negative, but when he did try he got the results which is a positive.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by sum_1
You're absolutely right about Pollock. On second thoughts I'd put Procter and Imran ahead of him. My initial idea was to select an allrouder with exactly 50:50 batting/bowling capabilities, and only those 2 came to mind.

Regarding the spinners, I have a slight tendency to over glorify the past. Though I'd rate Laker among the very best. He has some outstanding records both in domestic (1944 wkts) and international matches, and should walk into any all time XIs.

procter got huge FC numbers to - almost 22000 FC runs with 48 tons and 1400+ FC wickets strike rate of 46, average in the 19s). same can be said for barry richards - 28000+ runs, 54 average, 80 tons and graeme pollock - nearly 21000 FC runs, average 54 with 64 tons.

some players imo deserve to be the exception when it comes to having played a lot of test cricket, mainly the south african's that missed out but still had incredible FC careers, did well in world series cricket and county cricket and batted on the toughest pitches at the time. the period that barry richards, procter and graeme pollock were playing county cricket it was considered to be at it's highest level, greats from all around the world played in it so they were face the very best and batting on the toughest conditions which is why i give them the exceptions.

i do however find it hard to place the older spinners who played on uncovered wickets, no doubt they were very very good but it's hard to compare them to spinners of today who don't get to play on those minefields. batsmen on the other hand, the ones who succeeded on uncovered wickets should certainly have succeeded on covered wickets.

[One World]

The All Time Unbeatable Fixing XI
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1. Salman Butt
2. Herschelle Gibbs (wk)
3. Mohammad Azharuddin (vc)
4. Marlon Samuels
5. Saleem Malik (c)
6. Hansie Cronje
7. Ajay Jadeja
8. Maurice Odumbe
9. Manoj Probhakar
10. Mohammad Asif
11. Mohammad Amir