Best ODI XI You Have Seen

[wpdavid]

Weren't they beaten by Australia in the initial round as well?

For me, any team that wins the World Cup is a fantastic team. So hard to look beyond the Australian teams that won the last 3 World cups. My favorite would be the 2003 one. They simply looked unassailable and had this pheonix quality of theirs to come back from the dead was incredible.

Yeah, they'd get my vote too. I remember thinking that the side that played in England in 2001 was absolutely outstanding.

 

[wpdavid]

Greenidge
Haynes
Richards
Lloyd
Gomes
Bacchus
Dujon
Marshall
Roberts
Holding
Garner

looks a bit special to me, though India beat them in the '83 WC final - should've played Gus Logie instead of Faoud Bacchus

Go back 3 or 4 years and WI were pretty outstanding in the one day game. I'm too lazy have to dig out their 1979 WC final side, but from memory it may have been as above except for Kallicheran and King instead of Gomes & Bacchus, Murray for Dujon & Croft for Marshall. None of the other sides had a sniff of a chance aghainst that lot. I ralso emember them being unbelievably good in the triangular series in Aus during 1979/80.

Probably my best ever alongside Aus late 1990's/early 2000's.

 

[Athlai]

New Zealands being potentially their current team when Ryder and Elliott return.

McCullum (+)
Ryder
Guptill
Taylor
Elliott
Vincent?
Vettori
Oram
Mills
Tuffey
Bond

 

[Streetwise]

Three teams spring to mind.

SA
WI
ENG

Eng were unbeatable in 91/92 so I would have to give it to them.

 

[Richard]

New Zealands being potentially their current team when Ryder and Elliott return.

McCullum (+)
Ryder
Guptill
Taylor
Elliott
Vincent?
Vettori
Oram
Mills
Tuffey
Bond

Best NZ team I've ever seen was undoubtedly their 1999 WC one too:
Horne
Astle
McMillan
Fleming
Twose
Cairns
Parore
Harris
Nash
Larsen
Allott

Quality all the way down except for Horne and McMillan, neither of whom were complete wastes of space.

 

[Athlai]

Best NZ team I've ever seen was undoubtedly their 1999 WC one too:
Horne
Astle
McMillan
Fleming
Twose
Cairns
Parore
Harris
Nash
Larsen
Allott

Quality all the way down except for Horne and McMillan, neither of whom were complete wastes of space.

Was thinking about if Astle, Flem, Twose, Cairns, Harris and Larsen ever played together. And whether Hadlee ever had any good support. New Zealand always seem to have very solid if unexpectational ODI outfits.

 

[Richard]

3rd ODI: South Africa v New Zealand at Centurion, Oct 25, 2000 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com Top team.

Sharjah Cup Finals - Final: India v South Africa at Sharjah, Apr 19, 1996 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com

SRL v RSA 1st Match: South Africa v Sri Lanka at Nottingham, Aug 14, 1998 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com

There's some serious quality players in all of them, but there is no team which is short of a weak-link - sometimes two. The 1999 WC side had none.

One of them for instance lacks Donald - there is absolutely no way any best-ever SA XI can contain no Donald, even if there is all of Pollock, Matthews and de Villiers. There must be a game somewhere - must be several, in fact - where all four appeared, possibly plus Symcox. Such an attack would have an almost overwhelming case for being the best ever fielded in a modern ODI.

EDIT: nope, only once did all four seamers appear together, and then McMillan was the fifth prong (not that he was a slouch either, by any SOTI). And the sixth bowler was Kallis. Still, the team in question (Hudson, Kirsten, Cronje, Kallis, Rhodes, McMillan, Pollock, Richardson, de Villiers, Matthews, Donald) might well actually have been even better than their 1999 WC one.

 

[Furball]

There's some serious quality players in all of them, but there is no team which is short of a weak-link - sometimes two. The 1999 WC side had none.

One of them for instance lacks Donald - there is absolutely no way any best-ever SA XI can contain no Donald, even if there is all of Pollock, Matthews and de Villiers. There must be a game somewhere - must be several, in fact - where all four appeared, possibly plus Symcox. Such an attack would have an almost overwhelming case for being the best ever fielded in a modern ODI.

Shoaib, Waqar, Wasim, Saqlain plus one other must have a shout as well?

If the 4 of them ever played together that is.

 

[Richard]

So Richardson for 1996-most of 1998. Boucher for 1999. Just what I said.

Nah, Richardson played 40 games 1996/97-1997/98 (missed 1 with injury), Boucher played 38 1997/98-1999 (also played the one Richardson missed). So almost exactly half-and-half... as I said.

 

[Richard]

Shoaib, Waqar, Wasim, Saqlain plus one other must have a shout as well?

If the 4 of them ever played together that is.

Pretty sure there was at least one occasion where Waqar, Wasim, Shoaib, Saqlain, Mushtaq appeared together - I remember because I found it by digging back after thinking "what an attack that would be".

And unlike in Tests, where Waqar and Mushtaq only had relatively short spells of real excellence (Waqar had another later one of being good; Mushtaq was frankly awful outside his excellent spell), none of them really changed drastically all ODI careers.

EDIT: nope, never appeared together actually, but Waqar, Wasim, Saqlain and Mushtaq played 22 ODIs together in the space of a year (and another, a memorable match actually, in 2000/01 - but memorable for England, not Pakistan). What's easily forgotten is that Shoaib's emergence actually pushed Waqar out of the side - between 1997/98 and 1999, the three appeared together just twice, before they played together a fair bit (and several times alongside Saqlain) 1999/2000-2002/03.

 

[Furball]

Pretty sure there was at least one occasion where Waqar, Wasim, Shoaib, Saqlain, Mushtaq appeared together - I remember because I found it by digging back after thinking "what an attack that would be".

And unlike in Tests, where Waqar and Mushtaq only had relatively short spells of real excellence (Waqar had another later one of being good; Mushtaq was frankly awful outside his excellent spell), none of them really changed drastically all ODI careers.

According to statsguru, those 5 have never taken the field in an ODI together.

 

[Athlai]

1st ODI: Pakistan v New Zealand at Karachi, Apr 21, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com

 

[Richard]

1st ODI: Pakistan v New Zealand at Karachi, Apr 21, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com

Irony being that the NZ batting in that side isn't dissimilar to the 1999 WC - Vincent for Twose, Oram for Cairns. The bowling, however, is immeasurably inferior.

 

[Burgey]

**** I love all this. Been watching this develop for months, and now's as good a time as any to vent.

Really, it's a wonder Australia won anything this past decade and a half, isn't it? In fact, it's the single longest fluking of sporting success in history.

It must be, because there are so many threads on here which clearly establish the following:

- Hayden was crap
- Langer was a misfit opener
- Slater and Taylor weren't as good as openers from other teams, especially Atherton, who was just unlucky he kept nicking to 1st slip for toffee
- Ponting's over-rated, always has been, can't play spin or seam
- the middle order was dross compared with other teams, because blokes like Martyn, M Waugh, Boon, Hussey etc weren't that good, while apparently Cronje, Ganguly, Thorpe et al were ****ing Bradman incarnate - always got the job done much better than their Aussie counterparts, never **** themselves over a bouncer and always relished the really hard going.
- Steve Waugh's captaincy wasn't that great, he only won because he had Warne and McGrath, likewise Taylor for that matter.
- Gilchrist only peaked for 18 months - and anyway, there are 3 or 4 other contemporary keeper-batsmen who are better than him, especially Andy Flower (ffs!); and because Healy's a **** commentator, he couldn't keep or bat either
- Warne wasn't great when he really needed to be - he couldn't bowl out India in India, so apparently he's ******** too, despite being one of the reasons Taylor and Waugh's captaincy didn't have to be that good..
- McGrath and Gillespie wasn't as good a combo as any of Ambrose-Walsh, Wasim-Waqar, Donald-Pollock (most laughably) or anyone else for that matter. Hell, Heath Streak and David Brain had more to offer you'd think, let alone the might of Gough and Caddick and Dominic Cork; or Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan. Funny how McGrath-Gillespie as a combo kept winning though - hope they've each bought lottery tickets, there can be no other explanation.
- The support bowling was just terrible - MacGill, Lee, Kaspa, Bichel and whoever else was picked - a complete bunch of 'tards really. Didn't move it, couldn't bowl blokes out at all. Lucky to be on the same field as their international counterparts from the other much better (though always mightily unlucky) teams.
- The ODi outfit that hasn't lost a match at a WC for more than a decade (a deacde FFS!!) really isn't that flash either. Just don't compare to the great sides like SA in 99 that won **** all.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the Australian ODI side that's won the past 3 WCs, 2 CTs (and was also in the 96 WC final btw) was lucky to beat time with a stick. Pathetic. Can't believe how lucky they were. Biased umpiring also clearly played a part.

Next up, the proof that Australia was rightfully 7th in the test rankings for the past 15 years. It's all there, when you really analyse things.

Dire.

 

[Furball]

Absolutely ****ing epic.

 

[Streetwise]

**** I love all this. Been watching this develop for months, and now's as good a time as any to vent.

Really, it's a wonder Australia won anything this past decade and a half, isn't it? In fact, it's the single longest fluking of sporting success in history.

It must be, because there are so many threads on here which clearly establish the following:

- Hayden was crap
- Langer was a misfit opener
- Slater and Taylor weren't as good as openers from other teams, especially Atherton, who was just unlucky he kept nicking to 1st slip for toffee
- Ponting's over-rated, always has been, can't play spin or seam
- the middle order was dross compared with other teams, because blokes like Martyn, M Waugh, Boon, Hussey etc weren't that good, while apparently Cronje, Ganguly, Thorpe et al were ****ing Bradman incarnate - always got the job done much better than their Aussie counterparts, never **** themselves over a bouncer and always relished the really hard going.
- Steve Waugh's captaincy wasn't that great, he only won because he had Warne and McGrath, likewise Taylor for that matter.
- Gilchrist only peaked for 18 months - and anyway, there are 3 or 4 other contemporary keeper-batsmen who are better than him, especially Andy Flower (ffs!); and because Healy's a **** commentator, he couldn't keep or bat either
- Warne wasn't great when he really needed to be - he couldn't bowl out India in India, so apparently he's ******** too, despite being one of the reasons Taylor and Waugh's captaincy didn't have to be that good..
- McGrath and Gillespie wasn't as good a combo as any of Ambrose-Walsh, Wasim-Waqar, Donald-Pollock (most laughably) or anyone else for that matter. Hell, Heath Streak and David Brain had more to offer you'd think, let alone the might of Gough and Caddick and Dominic Cork; or Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan. Funny how McGrath-Gillespie as a combo kept winning though - hope they've each bought lottery tickets, there can be no other explanation.
- The support bowling was just terrible - MacGill, Lee, Kaspa, Bichel and whoever else was picked - a complete bunch of 'tards really. Didn't move it, couldn't bowl blokes out at all. Lucky to be on the same field as their international counterparts from the other much better (though always mightily unlucky) teams.
- The ODi outfit that hasn't lost a match at a WC for more than a decade (a deacde FFS!!) really isn't that flash either. Just don't compare to the great sides like SA in 99 that won **** all.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the Australian ODI side that's won the past 3 WCs, 2 CTs (and was also in the 96 WC final btw) was lucky to beat time with a stick. Pathetic. Can't believe how lucky they were. Bieased umpiring also clearly played a part.

Next up, the proof that Australia was rightfully 7th in the test rankings for the past 15 years. It's all there, when you really analyse things.

Dire.

Come on man FFS even Bangledesh beat Australia in a ODI.

 

[Burgey]

Absolutely ****ing epic.

Mate, it's ****ing true. Go and add up all the threads and posts that have been made on here in recent times about how every component of those Australian sides is bettered by at least one, and usually more, of their opponents, and so help me, it's a miracle they won the lucky door prize at the post-match function.

 

[mohammad16]

What do you guys think of Pakistan 1999

Saeed Anwar
Afridi
Ijaz
Yousuf Youhana
Inzamam
Abdul Razzaq
Moin Khan
Wasim Akram
Saqlain Mushtaq
Waqar Younis
Shoaib Akhtar

 

[Simon]

Burgey knows where it's at.

 

[Burgey]

What do you guys think of Pakistan 1999

Saeed Anwar
Afridi
Ijaz
Yousuf Youhana
Inzamam
Abdul Razzaq
Moin Khan
Wasim Akram
Saqlain Mushtaq
Waqar Younis
Shoaib Akhtar

A good side imo, very good in fact.