Tony Greig's all time best Indian Test XI

[short shorts]

My preference:

1) Vijay Merchant (bat ave ~ 47)
2) Sunil Gavaskar (bat ave ~ 51)
3) Rahul Dravid (bat ave ~ 58)
4) Sachin Tendulkar (bat ave ~ 55)
5) Vijay Hazare\Gundappa Viswanath (bat ave ~ 47 and 42 respectively)
6) Vinoo Mankad (arguably the greatest spin all rounder ever) (bat ave ~ 31, bowl ave ~ 30)
7) Kapil Dev (bat ave ~ 33, bowl ave ~ 28)
8) Farookh Engineer + (bat ave ~ 31)
9) Amar Singh (bat ave ~ 22, bowl ave ~ 30 in 7 tests, but 18 in 92 FC games)
10) Erapalli Prasanna (bowl ave ~ 29)
11) Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (equals Kumble overall, but was a far better bowler in England, Australia and New Zealand) (bowl ave ~ 29)

12th man: live-wire Eknath Solkar

In conditions where a third seamer is required, Mohammad Nissar (bow ave ~ 17 in FC cricket) could step in.

 

[Perm]

I listened to this the other day, thought it was complete madness when he had Dravid opening and basically lost interest.

 

[Richard]

so if they say almost without fail that he was the best, why did you say 'Subhush Gupte always gets forgotten'?

Because there ain't many of those guys on this forum. In fact, there's 1 - SJS.

 

[Richard]

I listened to this the other day, thought it was complete madness when he had Dravid opening and basically lost interest.

Too many people (Greigy's certainly not the only one) will say "Dravid's technically proficient enough to open" ignoring the fact that he hates batting there and that there are other alternatives who are equally technically equipped and actually did like opening (Merchant being the most obvious, and for sheer run-ravenous ability he was third only to Bradman and Headley in the First-Class-average size).

 

[Perm]

Too many people (Greigy's certainly not the only one) will say "Dravid's technically proficient enough to open" ignoring the fact that he hates batting there and that there are other alternatives who are equally technically equipped and actually did like opening (Merchant being the most obvious, and for sheer run-ravenous ability he was third only to Bradman and Headley in the First-Class-average size).

Exactly, we all know that Dravid could do the job as an opener but probably not as well as a specialist opener could do. Then of course you'd need to find a #3 who makes up for Dravid's ability in that position. Merchant was one of India's finest batsman ever produced, just a shame he didn't bat more at Test level. He would be the obvious choice to bat alongside Gavaskar I would've thought.

 

[Days of Grace]

Aye. I agree wholeheartedly.

I don't think Tawny thought too much about this (like much of what he says), and notice how he slyly began with 'well, I haven't seen most of these guys play/picking an Indian team is going to be difficult for me'. Bascially saying, "I don't know sweet F.A. but I'll have a barkin' stab at it anyway."

When picking all-time XIs you should never compromise, i.e. batting players out of position just to get the best batsmen in the side. Esp. with openers, which Dravid ain't.

Oh, Tawny, I remembered you said that you would go with averages since you didn't know bugger all about the Indian batsmen of the past. So, what do you do? You leave out a guy with a F.C. batting average of 70!!! LMFAO!!!

 

[JBMAC]

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/talk/content/multimedia/301356.html?view=transcript

1. Sunil Gavaskar (captain)

2. Rahul Dravid

3. Sachin Tendulkar

4. Mohammad Azharuddin

5. Vijay Hazare

6. Kapil Dev

7. Farokh Engineer (wicketkeeper)

8. Anil Kumble

9. Bishan Bedi

10. EAS Prasanna

11. Javagal Srinath

Good team though I would remove Azhar and open with Mankad (averaged 40 as an opener) and Gavaskar, with Dravid at 3, Sachin at 4, Hazare at 5 and Kapil at 6.

In the bowling Chandra over Kumble.

C.K.Nayadu considered to be the "father" of Indian Cricket and still playing at aged 68 could be considered a glaring omission.

 

[Richard]

He would be the WG of Indian cricket, in fact, had the times coincided.

 

[The Sean]

My preference:

1) Vijay Merchant (bat ave ~ 47)
2) Sunil Gavaskar (bat ave ~ 51)
3) Rahul Dravid (bat ave ~ 58)
4) Sachin Tendulkar (bat ave ~ 55)
5) Vijay Hazare\Gundappa Viswanath (bat ave ~ 47 and 42 respectively)
6) Vinoo Mankad (arguably the greatest spin all rounder ever) (bat ave ~ 31, bowl ave ~ 30)
7) Kapil Dev (bat ave ~ 33, bowl ave ~ 28)
8) Farookh Engineer + (bat ave ~ 31)
9) Amar Singh (bat ave ~ 22, bowl ave ~ 30 in 7 tests, but 18 in 92 FC games)
10) Erapalli Prasanna (bowl ave ~ 29)
11) Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (equals Kumble overall, but was a far better bowler in England, Australia and New Zealand) (bowl ave ~ 29)

12th man: live-wire Eknath Solkar

In conditions where a third seamer is required, Mohammad Nissar (bow ave ~ 17 in FC cricket) could step in.

That's very similar to the side I'd select actually - my only real changes would be to have Kirmani behind the stumps, and I'd put Bedi or Gupte ahead of Prasanna personally.

The real problem position is who to take the new ball with Kapil - it would have been great if Singh and Nissar had played more Test cricket to judge them better, though their reputation among peers and contemporaries speaks volumes for their ability. Srinath is an obvious choice with his volume of wickets, but like SS I felt he was never more than a reasonably good Test bowler and would get absolutely murdered taking the new ball for an all time XI against other all time XI batting line ups.

 

[shankar]

Thing is, though, Srinath could bowl really well, sometimes even in non-seam-friendly conditions. Certainly I'd rather him than a spinner, meanwhile, in a Test in 1990s England. As so often, you can't really pick an all-time team that would never change, teams always have to change according to conditions, and an Indian one probably more than most.

I've always thought, like Xuhaib and Wasim Akram, that Srinath could have got more out of his career, though not neccessarily because of laze.

Yeah, not due to laze, more due to the lack of a brain.

 

[Beleg]

Tendulkar
Gavaskar
Dravid
Vengsarkar
Amarnath
Mankand
Dev
Kirmani
Srinath
Kumble
Bedi

 

[Perm]

Tendulkar opening the batting?

 

[Richard]

Tendulkar
Gavaskar
Dravid
Vengsarkar
Amarnath
Mankand
Dev
Kirmani
Srinath
Kumble
Bedi

That'd make sense as a team of the last 30 years but for Mankad (unless, of course, you were talking Ashok who was one of the worst-treated players in Test history).

 

[Richard]

That's very similar to the side I'd select actually - my only real changes would be to have Kirmani behind the stumps, and I'd put Bedi or Gupte ahead of Prasanna personally.

Not sure how Kirmani > Engineer, TBH. Sure, he was undoubtedly their best wicketkeeper, but Engineer was hardly a slouch with the gloves and, unlike Kirmani, could bat and bat well.

That'd be like picking Bob Taylor or Keith Andrew as an England all-time wicketkeeper ahead of Ames, Knott and Stewart.

 

[Anil]

That'd be like picking Bob Taylor or Keith Andrew as an England all-time wicketkeeper ahead of Ames, Knott and Stewart.

off-topic but how can you even think of stewart in the context of an all-time england 'keeper? he was a batsman who could keep decently, that's it...

 

[Richard]

Not sure why so many Indians are of that mentality (had this with Sanz once... along with 50 other things too...). Did he have a shocker against India early on or something?

Stewart, from 1996 onwards, was a very, very good wicketkeeper, many even said he became better standing back than even Jack Russell (myself included). He barely missed a thing standing back.

We don't know how he'd go on uncovered wickets, no, but his 'keeping to spinners in the subcontinent in 2000\01 was first-rate, too.

I think Stewart often gets a raw deal from a great many people.

 

[tooextracool]

Cant help but feel for the dearth in pace bowling quality in Indian cricket history. Beyond Kapil and Srinath, there is almost no one remotely decent who played more than just a handful of tests.

This would be worth a new thread really, Prasad would probably be their number 3. I really do hope for their sake that Shreesanth develops into a quality bowler.

 

[silentstriker]

Cant help but feel for the dearth in pace bowling quality in Indian cricket history. Beyond Kapil and Srinath, there is almost no one remotely decent who played more than just a handful of tests.

This would be worth a new thread really, Prasad would probably be their number 3. I really do hope for their sake that Shreesanth develops into a quality bowler.

I know.

 

[Richard]

Haha, thought "has tec ever met ss" when reading that post, TBH.

 

[tooextracool]

So my guess is that the thread has been done already? I've missed out a fair bit of threads and posts on this forum since the Ashes in 2005 so pardon my lack of knowledge regarding this topic