The Stealers Draft

[Saint Kopite]

PLEASE CHOOSE THREE OF THE BEST TEAMS FROM THE FOLLOWING & VOTE FOR THEM!​

ankitj:-

01. Bruce Mitchell
02. Bill Ponsford
03. Kumar Sangakkara +
04. Dudley Nourse
05. Steve Waugh
06. Vijay Hazare
07. Tony Greig
08. Imran Khan *
09. Shaun Pollock
10. Shane Bond
11. Muttiah Muralitharan


bagapath:-

01. Matthew Hayden
02. Virender Sehwag
03. Hashim Amla
04. Inzamam Ul-Haq
05. Andy Flower
06. AB de Villiers +
07. Keith Miller (3)
08. Richie Benaud *(4)
09. Alan Davidson (2)
10. Peter Pollock (1)
11. Hugh Tayfield (5)


morgieb:-

01. Barry Richards
02. Graeme Gooch
03. Clem Hill
04. Sachin Tendulkar
05. Peter May*
06. Clyde Walcott+
07. Ian Botham (2)
08. Richard Hadlee (1)
09. Mitchell Johnson (4)
10. Hedley Verity (5)
11. Bob Willis (3)


Saint Kopite:-

01. Gordon Greenidge.
02. Victor Trumper.
03. Neil Harvey. ^
04. Greg Chappell. [C]^
05. Martin Crowe.
06. Garry Sobers. [4]^
07. Ian Healy. [+]
08. Dennis Lillee. [1]
09. Jeff Thomson. [2]
10. Waqar Younis. [3]
11. Bhagwath Chandrasekhar. [5]


camo999:-

01. WG Grace 5
02. WM Lawry
03. RB Kanhai
04. Javed Miandad
05. DI Gower
06. MJ Clarke *
07. WA Oldfield +
08. Wasim Akram 2
09. SK Warne 4
10. J Garner 3
11. SF Barnes 1


kyear2:-

01. Sir Leonard Hutton (vc)
02. Justin Langer^
03. George Headley
04. Brian Lara^
05. Clive Lloyd*^
06. Charles Macartney (5)
07. Mike Procter (2)
08. Don Tallon +
09. Malcolm Marshall (1)
10. Jim Laker (4)
11. Ian Bishop (3)


Pothas:-

01. Graeme Smith
02. Conrad Hunte
03. Ricky Ponting
04. Ken Barrington
05. Denis Compton
06. Kevin Pietersen
07. Adam Gilchrist
08. Dale Steyn
09. Fred Trueman
10. Clarrie Grimmett
11. Brian Statham


Cabinet96:-

01. Geoffory Boycott
02. Alastair Cook
03. Rahul Dravid
04. Jacques Kallis
05. Everton Weekes*
06. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
07. Matt Prior*
08. Curtly Ambrose
09. Rangana Herath
10. Allan Donald
11. Courtney Walsh


AldoRaine:-

01. Jack Hobbs
02. Herbert Sutcliffe
03. Viv Richards*
04. Graeme Pollock
05. Zaheer Abbas
06. Aubrey Faulkner [5]
07. Jeff Dujon+
08. Ray Lindwall [1]
09. Andy Roberts [2]
10. Alec Bedser [3]
11. Colin Croft [4]


KingKallis:-

01. Sunil Gavaskar /
02. Arthur Morris /
03. Wally Hammond /
04. Allan Border / o (c)
05. VVS Laxman /
06. Andrew Flintoff o / (4)
07. Les Ames + /
08. Kapil Dev o / (3)
09. Bill O'Reilly o (5)
10. Wes Hall o (2)
11. Glenn McGrath o (1)


watson:-

01. Bob Simpson
02. Roy Fredericks
03. Don Bradman
04. Stan McCabe
05. Ted Dexter
06. Frank Worrell*
07. Alan Knott+
08. Harold Larwood
09. John Snow
10. Derek Underwood
11. Michael Holding

 

[Stace]

Can anyone vote or only the ones who participated? Some great teams, well all of them are really..

 

[Saint Kopite]

Can anyone vote or only the ones who participated? Some great teams, well all of them are really..

Everyone is eligible to vote, mate.

 

[Stace]

I don't know enough about most of the older (non English) guys so I cant vote for the best anyway, but I would love to see Pothas' side bat with Ponting,and Barrington setting a platform for KP and Gilchrist to up the RR, then Steyn and Trueman with the ball they would be great to watch. Also AldoRaine's top 3

 

[ankitj]

Voted Kyear,Pothas and Aldoraine. Lot of x factor in these teams.

 

[Saint Kopite]

Voted Kyear,Pothas and Aldoraine. Lot of x factor in these teams.

Hello Simon Cowell!

 

[cnerd123]

Such a hard poll.

ankit bats deep, but khan and murali aside has no ATGs - has players who are close, but not there.

bagapath a very modern XI, and two keepers, but that top 4 doesn't inspire the same confidence of other XIs. Good thing he bats deep. Bowling attack is good, but not as good as some of the others formed in this draft.

mogieb's bowling attack has so many match winners, and deep batting, is a very decent side. Not the best keeper or captain, but solid enough.

Kopite, Pothas and Camo have exciting XIs. The sides you would pay to watch. Camo the best bowling side but thin on batting, and hard to pick between Koptie and Pothas as the each are backed by ATG allrounders (Sobers and Gilly).

kyear2 has really solid depth through the XI. Bats deep, enough bowling, good captain and keeper. Some weak links here and there, but compensated by the X-factor of Proctor, Marshall, Lara...

Cabinet's team has the most solid batting lineup I feel - just seems so difficult to bowl to. Add to that an ATG pace trio, good support form Herath and Kallis, and a decent slip cordon too...good side.

Aldo relying on Faulkner/Viv for spin weakens it a bit, but the Top 3 could be selected for any ATG XI with no complaints. And such a nice diverse pace attack...

KingKallis maybe the weakest side...Laxman, Flintff, Ames feel out of place in ATG XIs and Border maybe a spot too high at 4? But good top 3, good captain, solid bowling...

Watson has Bradman, with a couple of other really good batsmen in the side, a good skipper, some ATG quicks, good keeper.

Very very hard choice.

I'll vote for Cabinet (That is a team I can imagine working very well together and forcing a good mix of draws and wins), camo (love that bowling attack, despite the weak batting) and Koptie (Sobers adds really nice balance to this side, plus some really entertaining cricketers)

 

[harsh.ag]

No way am I going to be able to pick 3. Sorry. Maybe another day when I am in a fouler mood :P

 

[watson]

Not sure which teams I'm going for yet, but I'll start with a big vote for SKs graphic design. Nice spacing, instructions in red, names in bold with interesting font, and everything lined up beautifully because of the zeros. SK rocks!

 

[kyear2]

Narrowed it down to 4- 5 teams. Como, Saint Kopite, Watson, AldoRaine and Pothas.

Tough vote though.

 

[Howe_zat]

My eye was immediately drawn to Pothas' side too, but on second glance I think he made a key mistake regarding his batting order.*

Ultimately I went for Watson. Loses credit for having a cheating Australian leading the batting but McCabe, Worrell, Larwood and Holding bring plenty of cool points to see it through.

Alongside that I also like kingkallis' and kyear's.

*By which I mean Smith is in it

 

[ohnoitsyou]

Good work guys, this is the closest draft ive ever seen.

 

[watson]

Yeah it is tough deciding, but as always I'll go for the teams with the best balance.

That is, a lengthy batting order with a good blend of defensive and attacking batsman, plus a bowling attack with plenty of variety and options. Extra points are given to teams with a great captain, keeper, or fieldsman. Lastly, each player should be placed in their 'natural position' on the batting order.

Obviously if a team really excels in one particular area then this will compensate for any deficiencies in other areas. No team is ever perfect.

 

[kyear2]

Will vote shortly. This really is tough.

 

[fredfertang]

Don't suppose anyone will be in the least surprised I chose Watson's team - they're all good though - tbh I think we're getting to a stage now where if there are fewer than 10 drafters the sides are always going to be much of a muchness - need to make them trickier, imo

 

[watson]

I thought that my favourite teams were worth a write-up....

MORGIEB'S TEAM
I probably wouldn't choose Walcott as my keeper but he did score 3 centuries and average 40 while batting in the middle-order (except for 2 innings) during the 15 Tests that he kept wicket. One of those centuries was a game changing 168* during the second innings at Lords, 1950. After a timely declaration the West Indies went on to beat England by 326 runs on the 5th day. So he's not entirely out of place at No.6.

However, Walcott is only a small part of Morgieb's team anyway. Barry Richards, Hill, and May are close to being the best batsman of their respective eras, while Tendulkar is the best batsman of his era, challenged only by Lara.

A bowling line-up of Botham - Hadlee - Johnson - Verity - Willis has everything required by an attack while at the same time giving the batting line-up great depth. Even Verity at No.10 opened for England on the odd occasion. Admittedly, it does rely somewhat on the brilliance of Hadlee and Verity, but Botham, Johnson, and Willis are still proven performers capable of taking big 5fers on their day.


KYEAR'S TEAM
A middle of order of Headley - Lara - Lloyd - Macartney - Procter - Tallon is very strong. Supported by a couple of tenacious openers in Hutton and Langer and the whole lineup becomes even stronger.

The bowling attack is founded on raw pace, and is likely to be resisted only by an opposing lineup that is gifted in handling the inevitable aggression. Add the complementary spin of Laker and Macartney, plus the keeping of Tallon, and the bowling is every bit as good as the batting.


ALDORAINE'S TEAM
It is difficult to say which is stronger, Faulkner's batting or his bowling. He does boast a double century at No.3 against a strong Australian bowling line-up, but his leg-spin skills are also rated very highly by none other than Jack Hobbs. Apparently it wasn't unusual for Faulkner to bowl unchanged all day in Tests against England. As a consequence the bowling loses very little if anything with respect to spin, but instead gains a 4 pronged pace attack that has the added variation of Bedser's medium paced swing and cut. Also, it is possible that Andy Roberts was even faster than Michael Holding when they bowled against Greig's team in 1976. As for Lindwall, not until Lillee came along in the 70s did anyone seriously consider (Larwood fans aside) that there might be a better fast bowler.

However, it is really the top 4 that is the highlight of this team; Hobbs - Sutcliffe - Richards - Pollock. Reliability, aggession, power combined.

 

[bagapath]

Voted for the best bowling attacks, imo. Could have chosen any three actually. good job guys.

 

[kyear2]

With sincere apologies to the two omitted teams, I ultimately voted for Camo, Watson and Aldo just over Saint Kopite and Pothas.

 

[kyear2]

Come on guys. 12 participants and only 9 votes.

 

[Saint Kopite]

Voted for Kyear, Pothas and Aldo.