CW15 Draft Polling Thread

[ankitj]

CW50 Draft Polling Thread

Vote for top 3 teams from the teams listed below.

The draft thread can be found here: CW50 draft thread
The round wise selections can be found here: CW50 draft spreadsheet

ankitj	AldoRaine18	weldone	Saint Kopite	Pothas	Red Hill
Herbert Sutcliffe	Victor Trumper	Geoff Boycott	Barry Richards	Graham Gooch	Gordon Greenidge
Bruce Mitchell	Roy Fredericks	Vinoo Mankad (5)	Matthew Hayden	Justin Langer	Mark Taylor *
Clyde Walcott	Vivian Richards	Clem Hill	Neil Harvey	Hashim Amla	Ricky Ponting
Vijay Hazare * (6)	Everton Weekes	Denis Compton	Martin Crowe	Stan McCabe	Brian Lara
Mohamad Yousuf	Frank Worrell*	Kumar Ranjitsinhji	David Gower	Shvinarine Chanderpaul	Kevin Pietersen
Andy Flower +	Aubrey Faulkner[5]	Mahela Jayawardene *	Garry Sobers (5) (*)	Allan Border *	Mark Waugh (5)
Wilfred Rhodes (5)	Mark Boucher+	Kapil Dev (3)	Ian Healy (+)	Matt Prior +	Les Ames +
Fred Trueman (1)	Maurice Tate[1]	Alan Knott +	Hedley Verity (4)	Dale Steyn (2)	Mitchell Johnson (3)
Fazal Mahmood (3)	Bob Willis[3]	Andy Roberts (2)	Frank Tyson (3)	Waqar Younis (3)	Shoaib Akhtar (2)
Bill O'Reilly (4)	Peter Pollock[2]	Dennis Lillee (1)	Shane Bond (1)	Bishan Bedi (4)	Joel Garner (1)
Brian Statham (2)	Hugh Tayfield[4]	Clarrie Grimmett (4)	Neil Adcock (2)	Glenn McGrath (1)	Derek Underwood (4)
anil1405	Cabinet96	kingkallis	morgieb	Pratters	watson
Conrad Hunte	Alastair Cook	Sunil Gavaskar	Bob Simpson	Saeed Anwar	Bill Woodfull
Graeme Smith*	Virender Sehwag	Arthur Morris	Bill Ponsford	Bill Lawry	Eddie Barlow 6
Rahul Dravid	VVS Laxman	Charles Macartney (5)	Kumar Sangakkara+	Daryll Cullinan	Donald Bradman
Graeme Pollock	Ken Barrington	Younis Khan	Javed Miandad	Inzamam-ul-Haq	Peter May
Michael Hussey	Michael Clarke*	Graham Thorpe	Dudley Nourse	Dilip Vengsarkar	Ted Dexter 5
Tony Greig (5)	Damien Martyn	Doug Walters (6)	Steve Waugh*	Faf du Plessis	Clive Lloyd *
Rashid Latif+	AB de Villiers +	Richie Benaud (c) (4)	Andrew Flintoff (3)	Adam Gilchrist (c)	Denis Lindsay +
Wasim Akram (1)	Curtly Ambrose (1)	Rod Marsh +	Vernon Philander (4)	Shaun Pollock (3)	Alan Davidson 3
Ray Lindwall (2)	Graeme Swann (4)	Mike Procter (2)	Ian Bishop (2)	Harold Larwood (2)	Wes Hall 2
Anil Kumble (4)	Ryan Harris (3)	Malcolm Marshall (1)	Muttiah Muralitharan (5)	Allan Donald (1)	John Snow 1
George Lohmann (3)	Michael Holding (2)	Colin Croft(3)	Courtney Walsh (1)	Lance Gibbs (4)	Subhash Gupte 4

 

[ankitj]

****. Forgot to create the poll. Can one of the mods help?

EDIT: Managed myself.

 

[kingkallis]

Cw15?

 

[kingkallis]

Pothas for his amazing bowling line up and stable batting.
Watson for his brilliant effort to put together a solid team after spending all his money on Don.
Ankit for having a decently balanced team.

3rd spot was a toss up between Ankit, Anil & Weldone. Saint Kopite also missed out due to not so experienced bowling line up despite having a ***y batting.

 

[ankitj]

Cw15?

LOL. Looks like I can't change the thread title. Can someone help?

 

[ankitj]

Why my team deserves your vote:

• Abundance of "great" players. Amongst batsmen, Sutcliffe, Walcott and Flower are clearly greats of the game. Among bowlers, Trueman and O'Reilly are undisputed greats
• The support cast is also top notch. Among batsmen, you have likes of Mitchell, Yousuf and Hazare. Among bowlers, Statham and Fazal.
• Each of the top 6 batsmen average above 47! Each of the top 4 bowlers average under 25
• The all rounder in Rhodes provides the much needed cushion to the four frontline bowlers and adds depth to batting.

Full XI

Herbert Sutcliffe
Bruce Mitchell
Clyde Walcott
Vijay Hazare * (6)
Mohamad Yousuf
Andy Flower +
Wilfred Rhodes (5)
Fred Trueman (1)
Fazal Mahmood (3)
Bill O'Reilly (4)
Brian Statham (2)

 

[ankitj]

Bump. Need more votes. Only 7 so far.

 

[weldone]

Voted for Pothas (awesome bowling + solid batting) and watson (Bradman + 10 solid players)

 

[ankitj]

3 votes, weldone.

 

[watson]

1. Saint Kopite

Really like the batting line-up which is close to batting nirvana because of B.Richards and the choice of left-handers. Assuming that Tyson and Bond are both fit enough to back-up Adcock (the equivalent of Steyn IMO) then the pace attack is also very strong. Pairing Verity with Healy is a nice touch that makes this team generally irresistible.

2. Pothas

Can't go past the obvious really - McGrath, Steyn, Waqar, and Bedi would be a major headache for most batting line-ups and more than capable of taking 20 wickets in 5 days. The batting is not as exciting as SK's, but Amla and McCabe add enough sparkle to the obdurate styles of Gooch, Langer, Border, and Chanderpaul. This is one batting line-up that us not going to cave-in readily.

3. Anil1405

Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis formed one the most feared new ball partnerships in cricket during the 90s. However, despite Waqar's obvious pace and skill he appears to be Ray Lindwall 'Light' to me. Both bowled with a round-arm action that gave them a deadly yorker, and both attacked with a skidding bouncer that hit the batsman at an awkward height. However, Lindwall also had a fabulous out-swinger and consequently was the better bowler. If Wasim and Waqar were able to form a great complementary partnership then I see no reason why Wasim and Lindwall couldn't form a better one;

Standing 5 feet 11 in his prime and weighing 12 stone, Ray was the ideal build for a fast bowler. He had a classic approach to the wicket, gradually gathering speed with no energy wasted. If the run up was classical, the action did not satisfy the purists as his arm was lower than many coaches would favour..........

The low arm did not reduce Ray's effectiveness either. In fact it made him more lethal. His bouncer - termed a bumper in those days - would skid through at the batsman's throat rather than bounce over his head. Rarely bowling such a ball at tail enders - it was, he felt, an insult to his skill to do so - he had different types of bouncer for different batsmen.

Opponents such as Bill Edrich, Dennis Compton and Frank Worrell all had special deliveries reserved for them. His yorker was also lethal, the low arm often convincing the batsman that he was facing a normal good length ball. His main weapon was the outswinger, which the low arm enabled him to start around middle and leg, thus compelling a stroke. Of all the batsmen he faced, only Len Hutton, whose technique he greatly admired, could let him go with confidence.

Ray did not bowl an inswinger until he played a season in the Lancashire League - for Nelson - in 1952. The slips could not hold catches which rocketed off the bat's edge so Ray abandoned his most favoured wicket taking ball in search of inswing, lbws and clean bowled. He took 95 wickets at 7.96. Not bad for a season of Saturday afternoons as he developed a new delivery!

He could - and frequently did - vary his pace without any noticeable change of action and was, it was said, capable of bowling six - or in the Australia of his time eight - balls in an over making the batsman play at each one. He rarely bowled at full pace from the first over, taking three to warm up. However in England's second innings at Brisbane in the 1950/51 series, knowing that the "glue pot" wicket meant that he would bowl little, he unleashed a vicious top pace yorker first ball at opener Reg Simpson, Hutton having been unwisely held back in the order. Simpson's middle stump was knocked out of the ground while his bat was still on its way down from the backlift!

Ray Lindwall: The Swedish Paceman. By Edward Liddle

The other bowling partnership that I like is Anil Kumble and George Lohmann. Both bowled at medium or even medium-fast pace, and both were extremely accurate. However, while Kumble bowled the leg-break, Lohmann mostly turned the ball from the off. On any kind of wicket facing up to this complementary pair would be some task;

He was of the school of Spofforth, commanding great variety of pace, and being master of endless devices for getting batsmen out, but he in no way imitated the great Australian's delivery, nor was he able to bowl so fast a ball. All the same, he would hardly have been the bowler he was if Spofforth before him had not shown that the arts of the old slow and fast bowlers could be combined in one person. On a wicket that afforded him the least help he could get as much off-break as he wanted, and though he wisely did not use the leg-break to any great extent he had it in reserve. To put the matter in a few words, he was a completely equipped bowler, ready to make the most of any advantage that the ground or the weather might give him. On a perfectly true fast wicket he was not so difficult as Richardson or Lockwood, but even under conditions entirely favourable to batsmen he did many wonderful things. Take him for all in all, he was one of the most striking figures the cricket field has known........

In an appreciation of Lohmann as a cricketer, written by Mr. C. B. Fry, appeared the following admirable description of his method and peculiar qualities as a bowler:

"He made his own style of bowling, and a beautiful style it was--so beautiful that none but a decent cricketer could fully appreciate it. He had a high right-over action, which was naturally easy and free-swinging, but, in his seeking after variations of pace, he introduced into it just a suspicion--a mere suspicion--of laboriousness. Most people, I believe, considered his action to have been perfect. To the eye it was rhythmical and polished but it cost him, probably, more effort than it appeared to do. His normal pace was medium ; he took a run of moderate length, poised himself with a slight uplifting of his high square shoulders, and delivered the ball just before his hand reached the top of its circular swing, and, in the act of delivery, he seemed first to urge forward the upper part of his body in sympathy with his arm, and then allow it to follow through after the ball. Owing to his naturally high delivery, the ball described a pronounced curve, and dropped rather sooner than the batsman expected. This natural peculiarity he developed assiduously into a very deceptive ball which he appeared to bowl the same pace as the rest, but which he really, as it were, held back, causing the unwary and often the wary to play too soon.

He was a perfect master of the whole art of varying his pace without betraying the variation to the batsman. He ran up and delivered the ball, to all appearances, exactly similarly each time; but one found now that the ball was hanging in the air, now that it was on to one surprisingly soon. He had complete control of his length, and very, very rarely--unless intentionally--dropped a ball too short or too far up. He had a curious power of making one feel a half volley was on its way ; but the end was usually a perfect length ball or a yorker. He had that subtle finger power which makes the ball spin, and consequently he could both make the ball break on a biting wicket and make it " nip along quick " on a true one. He made a practice of using both sides of the wicket on sticky pitches. If he found he was breaking too much, he would change from over to round the wicket, and on fast pitches he soon had a go round the wicket at a batsman who appeared comfortable at the other sort. But he was full of artifices and subleties, and he kept on trying them all day, each as persistently as the others, one after another. With all his skill, he would never have achieved his great feats but for his insistence of purpose. He was what I call a very hostile bowler ; he made one feel he was one's deadly enemy, and he used to put many batsmen off their strokes by his masterful and confident manner with the ball. He was by far the most difficult medium-pace bowler I ever played on a good wicket."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/235589.htmly

Having raved on about the bowling it is really the team as a whole that I like. Smith-Hunte-Dravid-Pollock is a strong top order, and Hussey-Greig aren't bad either. Rashid Latif is often over shadowed by Wasim Bari, but Latif was a very neat keeper who remains one of Pakistan's best. Overall, Anil has created a nicely balanced team with great variety in both batting and bowling.

 

[anil1405]

I had other (arguably) better keepers in mind but the key factor for me was keeping to Kumble. Thought of Mongia who was exceptional to Kumble behind the stumps but on an overall basis was just about ok. So when Latif came to my mind, I couldn't think of another keeper who would have suited this team better.

 

[watson]

I had other (arguably) better keepers in mind but the key factor for me was keeping to Kumble. Thought of Mongia who was exceptional to Kumble behind the stumps but on an overall basis was just about ok. So when Latif came to my mind, I couldn't think of another keeper who would have suited this team better.

Farokh Engineer and John Waite were other options at No.7.

 

[anil1405]

For some strange reason I thought Farokh was already picked by someone as an opener

 

[kingkallis]

Farokh Engineer and John Waite were other options at No.7.

If I am not wrong, Waite was taken by then.

 

[watson]

If I am not wrong, Waite was taken by then.

Oh that's right, Howe_splat chose Waite in Round 8 or so.

 

[ankitj]

You have 7 more days to vote on this poll. If you wish to.

 

[ankitj]

Time to announce Pothas the winner of the draft. Well done

 

[ankitj]

I don't know how I got just one vote. I have a very well balanced team. Haven't figured out the voting patterns after playing many drafts :/