Playing selector: Lets pick the best test XI of different eras

[oz_fan]

Any chance of Armstrong being put in as an allrounder? I'd vote for Faulkner over him, but I reckon he deserves to be included.

Yeah I can put Armstrong in as an allrounder as well.

 

[oz_fan]

So far the team looks like this:
1. Grace
2. Trumper
3. Ranji
4. Clem Hill
5. Chosen from: Archie MacLaren, Billy Murdoch, Andrew Stoddart, Arthur Shrewsbury, Johnny Tyldesley, George Gunn, Stanley Jackson
6. Chosen from: Allrounders + 3 runners up of the number 5 poll.
7. Jack Blackham
8. Final Bowler (runners up of the allrounder, spinners, and opening bowlers poll)
9. Spin Bowler
10. Syd Barnes
11. Fred Spofforth
I'll start the number 5 poll soon.

 

[pasag]

Nice stuff.

 

[Perm]

Looking good at the moment guys, keep it up.

 

[Raghav]

Having gone through several lists of all-time XIs and polls to choose greatest knocks, partnerships etc. I propose to start a thread in which all of us can play selectors and choose the best team from the past two decades. It might be just a variation of other discussions we've had. But putting together a team with our various national, cultural backgrounds, knowledge bases and understanding of the game might be interesting.

I do have some ideas on how it can be done. Tell me if it makes sense or if we need to change a few rules to start a selection process.

1) The team should be the best possible XI representing players who have actively played test cricket from the English summer of 1986 to the English summer of 2005 - including both seasons. We will base our selection only on performances in the given time frame.

This gives us 20 years of test cricket to base our opinions on. It is not too long and not too short. Also, it might be the correct era for most of our forum members to have a first hand opinion on.

2) The team will have two specialist openers, three middle order batsmen, one genuine all-rounder, one wicket keepr, two fast bowlers and two spinners. If the all-rounder happens to be a spinner (which is highly unlikely for this era), we can choose three fast bowlers and one specialist spinner.

3) A batsman with bowling skills or a bowler with ability score runs or a player with greater fielding ability can be given extra weightage when we discuss their places. We will also select a captain.

4) Since we have very knowledgable members with good writing skills we will have an open discussion for each slot before starting the poll. The poll conductor can decide whent to start and end the polls. I am not experienced in running polls. If someone with the knowledge can volunteer, it can avoid a lot of confusion.

5) As a strategy we can consider having batsmen of different temperaments, left-right cominations, spinners of different styles etc. But it doesnt have to be a rule. We will decide on a case by case basis on what suits the team we are choosing.

6) We will deal with the whole process in a phased manner. The six stages will be: Openers, middle-order, all-rounder, keeper, fast bowlers and spinners.

I will try to name all the possible names who have played in the given time frame. We can add delete before setlling down on the final list.

1. Openers:

Australia: Boon, Taylor, Slater, Hayden, Langer
England: Gooch, Atherton, Vaughan, Trescothick, Strauss
India: Gavaskar, Navjot Sidhu, Sehwag
Pakistan: Anwar, Sohail
New Zealand: Wright, Fleming
South Africa: Gary Kirsten, Gibbs, Smith
Sri Lanka: Jayasuriya, Attapattu
West Indies: Haynes, Greenidge, Gayle

2. Middle Order:

Australia: Mark Waugh, Seve Waugh, Allan Border, Ricky Ponting, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist, Dean Jones
England: Gower, Thorpe
India: Amarnath, Vengsarkar, Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly
Pakistan: Miandad, Salim Malik, Inzamam, Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan
New Zealand: Martin Crowe
South Africa: Kallis, Cullinan
Sri Lanka: De Silva, Jayawardane, Sangakkara
Zimbabwe: Andy Flower
West Indies: Richards, Lara, Chanderpaul

3. All Rounders: Imran, Botham, Kapil, Hadlee, Cairns, Pollock, Kallis, Flintoff, Akram.

4. Wicket Keepers: Healy, Gilchrist, Stewart, Russell, Mongia, Moin Khan, Latif, Ian Smith, Parore, Boucher,

Sangakkara, Dujon, Jaobs, Andy Flower,

5. Fast Bowlers:

Australia: McDermott, Hughes, McGrath, Gillespie, Lee
England: Botham, Gough, Caddick, Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff
India: Kapil Dev, Srinath
Pakistan: Imran, Akram, Waqar, Akhthar
New Zealand: Hadlee, Cairns, Bond (??)
South Africa: Donald, Pollock, Ntini
Sri Lanka: Vaas
Zimbabwe: Streak
West Indies: Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop

6. Spinners:

Australia: Warne, McGill
India: Kumble, Harbhajan
Pakistan: Qadir, Mushtaq, Saqlain
New Zealand: Vettori
Sri Lanka: Muralitharan

Appreciate for your good work!

 

[oz_fan]

Stanley Jackson just got the number 5 spot ahead of Armstrong. I've started the thread to decide the number 6 spot where the contenders are allrounders and the runners up of the number 5 spot. Once that is decided I'll start a poll to choose the two final bowling spots which will be made up of spinners and the runners up of the opening bowler and allrounder polls.

 

[simmy]

Maybe Botham will be only English player in this side! Lol.

 

[oz_fan]

Pre 1914 Test XI

The final bowlers have been decided and the side looks like this:
1. WG Grace
2. Victor Trumper
3. Ranji
4. Clem Hill
5. Stanley Jackson*
6. Aubrey Faulkner
7. Wilfred Rhodes
8. Jack Blackham+
9. George Lohmann
10. Fred Spofforth
11. Sydney Barnes
12th man - Warwick Armstrong (he was runner up in most of the batsmen polls and the allrounder poll)

I don't know much about any of these players captaincy records apart from Grace. So I'll put him as captain for now but if anyone has a better option I'm happy to change. If anyone is interested in doing a combined XI of all the pre World War 2 players I'm happy to do it if there is enough interest. Thanks to everyone who voted.

 

[neville cardus]

The final bowlers have been decided and the side looks like this:
1. WG Grace*
2. Victor Trumper
3. Ranji
4. Clem Hill
5. Stanley Jackson
6. Aubrey Faulkner
7. Wilfred Rhodes
8. Jack Blackham+
9. George Lohmann
10. Fred Spofforth
11. Sydney Barnes
12th man - Warwick Armstrong (he was runner up in most of the batsmen polls and the allrounder poll)

I don't know much about any of these players captaincy records apart from Grace. So I'll put him as captain for now but if anyone has a better option I'm happy to change. If anyone is interested in doing a combined XI of all the pre World War 2 players I'm happy to do it if there is enough interest. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Jacker was easily a better skipper than W.G., who seems to have had a tendency to let the game drift - waiting for something to happen rather than making it happen. With Jackson, we need only look at his miraculous performances of 1905 to understand his capabilities.

 

[Matt79]

The final bowlers have been decided and the side looks like this:
1. WG Grace*
2. Victor Trumper
3. Ranji
4. Clem Hill
5. Stanley Jackson
6. Aubrey Faulkner
7. Wilfred Rhodes
8. Jack Blackham+
9. George Lohmann
10. Fred Spofforth
11. Sydney Barnes
12th man - Warwick Armstrong (he was runner up in most of the batsmen polls and the allrounder poll)

I don't know much about any of these players captaincy records apart from Grace. So I'll put him as captain for now but if anyone has a better option I'm happy to change. If anyone is interested in doing a combined XI of all the pre World War 2 players I'm happy to do it if there is enough interest. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Thanks for running the process mate!

 

[JBH001]

Thanks for running the process, dude. I think we have picked a fine side with strength in all departments. I too think that F S Jackson should be the captain, apparently he was well able to unify and lead a side previously manhandled by A C McLaren.

So, FSJ for skipper, and WG for VC.

 

[oz_fan]

Thanks for running the process, dude. I think we have picked a fine side with strength in all departments. I too think that F S Jackson should be the captain, apparently he was well able to unify and lead a side previously manhandled by A C McLaren.

So, FSJ for skipper, and WG for VC.

Ok I'll change the captain to Jackson as he seems a better option than Grace.

 

[archie mac]

I think Jacker would play under WG but not so sure about the other way around

I don't mind the side we have selected, Hill was also a Test captain, but Jacker certainly has the best record

 

[archie mac]

Thanks for running the process, dude. I think we have picked a fine side with strength in all departments. I too think that F S Jackson should be the captain, apparently he was well able to unify and lead a side previously manhandled by A C McLaren.

So, FSJ for skipper, and WG for VC.

I hope you are not saying anything bad about Archie Mac

He certainly has a strange rep: some players rated him the best captain they played under and others rated him the worst, lets just remember 1921

 

[neville cardus]

"My God! Look what they've sent me!" - Archie Mac upon seeing the team that the England selectors had given him for the 1902 Test Match at Old Trafford.

"It is disillusioning to one of my youthful loyalties to realise that the majestic MacLaren was an extremely stupid, prejudiced and pig-headed man." - George Lyttelton

(Quoted in Haigh, Gideon: The Penguin Book of Ashes Anecdotes: 1882-2005 [Penguin, 2006], p. 336.)

 

[Matt79]

"My God! Look what they've sent me!" - Archie Mac upon seeing the team that the England selectors had given him for the 1902 Test Match at Old Trafford.

"It is disillusioning to one of my youthful loyalties to realise that the majestic MacLaren was an extremely stupid, prejudiced and pig-headed man." - George Lyttelton

(Quoted in Haigh, Gideon: The Penguin Book of Ashes Anecdotes: 1882-2005 [Penguin, 2006], p. 336.)

To clarify - that was Archie MacLaren in 1902, not our Archie Mac.




He's not THAT old.

 

[archie mac]

To clarify - that was Archie MacLaren in 1902, not our Archie Mac.




He's not THAT old.

Just noticed this

 

[bagapath]

Ok I'll change the captain to Jackson as he seems a better option than Grace.

thanks oz fan for finishing off the job. logged in after a long time and saw you had run this poll. i had a busy last three months and could not be part of this forum at all. but the good thing about my schedule was i missed most of this stupid world cup. i see aussie-tragic has also not been around for a long time.

will be stuck with my work for some more time. hope someone runs a pre-war XI poll combining this team with the 1919 - 1939 team. and then select an all time XI using that pre-war XI and the post war XI we already have.

having re-started this, why dont you do it oz-fan, if you can?

 

[bagapath]

The final bowlers have been decided and the side looks like this:
1. WG Grace
2. Victor Trumper
3. Ranji
4. Clem Hill
5. Stanley Jackson*
6. Aubrey Faulkner
7. Wilfred Rhodes
8. Jack Blackham+
9. George Lohmann
10. Fred Spofforth
11. Sydney Barnes
12th man - Warwick Armstrong (he was runner up in most of the batsmen polls and the allrounder poll)

I don't know much about any of these players captaincy records apart from Grace. So I'll put him as captain for now but if anyone has a better option I'm happy to change. If anyone is interested in doing a combined XI of all the pre World War 2 players I'm happy to do it if there is enough interest. Thanks to everyone who voted.

this is a superb team. i miss monty noble and armstrong. but this XI has the right mix of everything. great job guys!

 

[neville cardus]

I must say that I am exceptionally pleased to see the Prince of Wicketkeepers and his grand partner-in-crime, The Demon, in that side. It is notice-snatching to me that everyone, right down to number eleven, could brandish the willow to respectable consequence when the mood or need struck him.