SA Footy

The joy of the past

There may be plenty of well-known problems inherent in picking all-time XIs, but the exercise is still a worthwhile one

Great article from Gideon.

Dissident wrote:The joy of the past

There may be plenty of well-known problems inherent in picking all-time XIs, but the exercise is still a worthwhile one

Great article from Gideon.

A common statement

That was easy. Media Park's Best XI

1. Sir John Hobbs
2. Matthew Hayden
3. Sir Donald Bradman
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Sir Garfield Sobers
6. Zaheer Abbas
7. Mark Boucher
8. Sir Richard Hadlee
9. Shane Warne
10. Lance Gibbs
11. Glenn McGrath

12: Colin Bland

Interesting side MP. Everyone has a different perspective, but the selections that stand out to me as a little controversial are Abbas and Boucher. Your openers are an interesting combination as well.

You're right GWW, everyone has different views...

For me, I am a tad biased, as Boucher is one of my favorite players, but he's the most capped keeper, and has the record for most dismissals (they do sort of go hand in hand), and I don't know if he does still, but DID have most runs scored without conceding a bye.

The runs he's made don't phase me, and the top 5 would likely end up declaring at 3-782

Zaheer, from what I have seen, was just a glorious batsman- His average of 44 doesn't quite stack up, but simply in my eyes a star who could turn a match in a session (FWIW it was either him or Lara).

I'd like to see what others would pick as well...

I can recall watching Abbas on tv as a kid, quite a good player, had a long beard from memory. I personally wouldn't rate him higher than Miandad as far as Pakistani batsmen were concerned.

I think the bowlers generally pick themselves, and i'd agree with most of your selections there. I would probably have Sobers at 6, and at 5, would have either IVA Richards, Lara or Greg Chappell.

Alright i was born in 1983 so im gonna pick a team based from what i have seen so from about the late 80's onwards

1. G.Greenidge
2. D.Haynes
3. S.Tendulkar
4. B.Lara
5. V.Richards
6. S.Waugh
7. A.Gilchrist
8. W.Akram
9. S.Warne
10. C.Ambrose
11. G.McGrath

12th C.Walsh

The number six batting position took me forever to think i went Waugh because if the unthinkable happened and we lost early wickets he was the worlds best backs against the wall batter, other wise i would have went with Ponting.

Probably could have used Akram at number 7 as an allround but with those four bowlers i dont think the 5th would do more than spectate. Couldnt really seperate McGrath and Walsh went with McGrath because he probably didnt have as good an attack around him as often as Walsh did.

whufc wrote:Alright i was born in 1983 so im gonna pick a team based from what i have seen so from about the late 80's onwards

1. G.Greenidge
2. D.Haynes
3. S.Tendulkar
4. B.Lara
5. V.Richards
6. S.Waugh
7. A.Gilchrist
8. W.Akram
9. S.Warne
10. C.Ambrose
11. G.McGrath

12th C.Walsh

The number six batting position took me forever to think i went Waugh because if the unthinkable happened and we lost early wickets he was the worlds best backs against the wall batter, other wise i would have went with Ponting.

Probably could have used Akram at number 7 as an allround but with those four bowlers i dont think the 5th would do more than spectate. Couldnt really seperate McGrath and Walsh went with McGrath because he probably didnt have as good an attack around him as often as Walsh did.

Don't rate Hayden?

Dogmatic wrote:

whufc wrote:Alright i was born in 1983 so im gonna pick a team based from what i have seen so from about the late 80's onwards

1. G.Greenidge
2. D.Haynes
3. S.Tendulkar
4. B.Lara
5. V.Richards
6. S.Waugh
7. A.Gilchrist
8. W.Akram
9. S.Warne
10. C.Ambrose
11. G.McGrath

12th C.Walsh

The number six batting position took me forever to think i went Waugh because if the unthinkable happened and we lost early wickets he was the worlds best backs against the wall batter, other wise i would have went with Ponting.

Probably could have used Akram at number 7 as an allround but with those four bowlers i dont think the 5th would do more than spectate. Couldnt really seperate McGrath and Walsh went with McGrath because he probably didnt have as good an attack around him as often as Walsh did.

Don't rate Hayden?

Hayden was great but imho openers are there for there opening partnership, and you cant beat Greeninge and Haynes as the best opening partners almost ever.

I use to watch the coin toss to see the Windies were batting, turn the tv off, comeback 2-3 hours later to see the windies were 0 for 100, that was a massive childhood memory happened on so many occasions.

whufc wrote:

Dogmatic wrote:Don't rate Hayden?

Hayden was great but imho openers are there for there opening partnership, and you cant beat Greeninge and Haynes as the best opening partners almost ever.

I use to watch the coin toss to see the Windies were batting, turn the tv off, comeback 2-3 hours later to see the windies were 0 for 100, that was a massive childhood memory happened on so many occasions.

By averages Hayden and Langer were better.
Hayden's returns in test cricket are way ahead of Dessie's too.

Dogmatic wrote:

whufc wrote:

Dogmatic wrote:Don't rate Hayden?

Hayden was great but imho openers are there for there opening partnership, and you cant beat Greeninge and Haynes as the best opening partners almost ever.

I use to watch the coin toss to see the Windies were batting, turn the tv off, comeback 2-3 hours later to see the windies were 0 for 100, that was a massive childhood memory happened on so many occasions.

By averages Hayden and Langer were better.
Hayden's returns in test cricket are way ahead of Dessie's too.

true but i think the quality of bowling that the windies pair had to face was alot better, add to that pitches were alot trickier back then as well with alot of games being played on green tops.

Realistically who were the real quality opening bowling partnerships that Hayden and Langer had to face probably the only one would have been the Saffies with Pollock and Ntini, add to that a couple of there big scores were against Zimbabwe as well and they may have possibly played Bangladesh as well.

Younis/Akram
Pollock/Donald
Gough/Caddick
Srinath/Prasad
Streak
Hoggard/Harmison

whufc wrote:

Dogmatic wrote:

whufc wrote:

Dogmatic wrote:Don't rate Hayden?

Hayden was great but imho openers are there for there opening partnership, and you cant beat Greeninge and Haynes as the best opening partners almost ever.

I use to watch the coin toss to see the Windies were batting, turn the tv off, comeback 2-3 hours later to see the windies were 0 for 100, that was a massive childhood memory happened on so many occasions.

By averages Hayden and Langer were better.
Hayden's returns in test cricket are way ahead of Dessie's too.

true but i think the quality of bowling that the windies pair had to face was alot better, add to that pitches were alot trickier back then as well with alot of games being played on green tops.

Realistically who were the real quality opening bowling partnerships that Hayden and Langer had to face probably the only one would have been the Saffies with Pollock and Ntini, add to that a couple of there big scores were against Zimbabwe as well and they may have possibly played Bangladesh as well.

Greenidge & Haynes didn't have to face the WI and missed most of South Africa due to apartheid.
Hayden & Langer had 3 innings together against the Bangers for 13,14 & 6.
Versus Sri Lanka; 31, 91, 25, 11, 43, 40, 72, 12, 255, 10 I don't think this has distorted the figures so they must have been pretty good against the rest.

So Dogmatic is happy with your team, WHUFC, but would replace Haynes with Hayden, in his Best XI.

Media Park wrote:Younis/Akram
Pollock/Donald
Gough/Caddick
Srinath/Prasad
Streak
Hoggard/Harmison

compare that to the windies pair who would have faced.

Younis/Akram/I.Khan (in their prime)
Lillee/Thomson (at the end of their careers)
McDermott/Hughes
Kapil Dev/Srinath
Botham
Hadlee

Thats just off the top off my head im sure there is plenty i have missed out on especially from England and Australia even.

All very valid points, i guess ill just stick with the pitches that were prepared in their time were alot harder than the roads which have become more common in cricket in the 00's

Media Park wrote:So Dogmatic is happy with your team, WHUFC, but would replace Haynes with Hayden, in his Best XI.

In that era most of the players are automatically picked.
Murali ahead of Courtney Walsh and Punter for Waugh.
Kallis very stiff to miss out.

Dogmatic wrote:

Media Park wrote:So Dogmatic is happy with your team, WHUFC, but would replace Haynes with Hayden, in his Best XI.

In that era most of the players are automatically picked.
Murali ahead of Courtney Walsh and Punter for Waugh.
Kallis very stiff to miss out.

Am big on Kallis, he'd take Sobers spot in my side if I put a restriction on "all-time"

Media Park wrote:

Dogmatic wrote:

Media Park wrote:So Dogmatic is happy with your team, WHUFC, but would replace Haynes with Hayden, in his Best XI.

In that era most of the players are automatically picked.
Murali ahead of Courtney Walsh and Punter for Waugh.
Kallis very stiff to miss out.

Am big on Kallis, he'd take Sobers spot in my side if I put a restriction on "all-time"

totally forgot about Kallis, probably takes Steve Waugh spot for his all round quality was both a world class bowler and batter.

sorry Murali wasnt up for consideration i dont include chuckers.

Reason i choose Waugh over Ponting was i thought he would compliment the top 5 alot better than Punter would.

whufc wrote:

Media Park wrote:

Dogmatic wrote:

Media Park wrote:So Dogmatic is happy with your team, WHUFC, but would replace Haynes with Hayden, in his Best XI.

In that era most of the players are automatically picked.
Murali ahead of Courtney Walsh and Punter for Waugh.
Kallis very stiff to miss out.

Am big on Kallis, he'd take Sobers spot in my side if I put a restriction on "all-time"

totally forgot about Kallis, probably takes Steve Waugh spot for his all round quality was both a world class bowler and batter.

sorry Murali wasnt up for consideration i dont include chuckers.

Reason i choose Waugh over Ponting was i thought he would compliment the top 5 alot better than Punter would.

With that top order, no need to worry about who is batting at 6.
Chucker or not, he dominated batsmen over a long period.

My 'wish I had been able to see them play' XI

WG Grace
V Trumper
D Bradman
G Headley
K Miller
G Sobers
R Benaud
R Lindwall
P Blackham (wkt)
H Larwood
W O'Rielly

12th C Grimmett

regards,

REB