Ranking the Cricinfo All-Time XIs

[aussie]

Cricinfo SL XI was a disgrace. Should have been something like this.

Marvan Atapattu, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara, Aravinda de Silva, Mahela Jayawardane*, Mahadevan Sathasivam, Brendon Kuruppu+, Ravindran Rathanayke, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Muralitharan

That will be some long - long batting order, with some fire power from Vaas, Malinga and Murali.

Dias or Samaraweera or Sathasivam.

Sangakkara to keep insterad. Kuruppu+ didnt keep long enought to be seriously considered for such a key position TBF.

In a hypotetical home test in Sri Lanka. I think the idea of playing 3 spinners in Murali, S De Silva, Herath becomes a strong possibility also.

Will be interesting to see how A Matthews develops as an all-rounder in the coming years as well. Since the SRI ATXI unlike the other suffers from not having a quality all-rounder, which would give the option of having 5 bowlers.

 

[subshakerz]

Yeah, completely agree with GF. Border has to be the most under-appreciated Batsman ever. Has a very genuine claim to be the second greatest batsman of all-time.

Dont think he has a good case for being the second greatest Australian batsman, Chappell, Ponting and Waugh I rate ahead of him.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Dont think he has a good case for being the second greatest Australian batsman, Chappell, Ponting and Waugh I rate ahead of him.

Think he's definitely in the same class as those three, no doubt in my mind.

 

[Slifer]

you can say you prefer the other three to border; me, too, to be honest. and it is simply because i prefer flair to grit.

but saying he doesnt belong in the same class is unfair. have you taken a look at allan border's overseas record? and have you compared that with lara's? border was consistency personified throughout his career. he performed creditably in every country he toured. faced all sorts of bowling with great success. and he was the master of managing the tail. lara belongs more, in comparison with allan, in the all or nothing category. his overseas record is comparatively poorer to his stellar home record. he never did well in india. but i am not going to hold it against brian to denigrate him. similarly richards didnt do well in new zealand and was not too hot against pakistan either. despite these flaws i can point out, i think they all belong in one category. because they were the mainstays of whichever teams they played in and the best bowlers in the opposition regularly lost sleep plotting to get their wickets.

assuming we make a combined team of the aussie and west indian all time XIs we have on hand, nos 3,6 and 7 in the middle order can be chosen without too much discussion. after you do that, how can anyone say a batting line up of bradman, chappell, border, sobers and gilchrist is significanlty inferior (or superior) to a batting line up of bradman, richards, lara, sobers and gilchrist? there is really nothing between these four guys.

Funny that u recognise that there is nothing to choose between Border and Lara/Viv but u dont afford the same consideration for Mcgrath vs Amby or Garner vs Lillee

 

[vcs]

I agree with bagapath that Dujon seems to be an obvious pick for the WI All-time XI at first blush. What's the logic behind Hendricks?

 

[Slifer]

I agree with bagapath that Dujon seems to be an obvious pick for the WI All-time XI at first blush. What's the logic behind Hendricks?

I assume they chose him for his somehwat prowess keeping to spin.

 

[bagapath]

Funny that u recognise that there is nothing to choose between Border and Lara/Viv but u dont afford the same consideration for Mcgrath vs Amby or Garner vs Lillee

mcgrath vs ambrose is probably closer than garner vs lillee. assuming he were born in the carribbean, lillee would definitely have bowled for the great west indian teams of lloyd and richards. he would have replaced croft, garner, roberts or, even, holding if it ever came to that. only marshall's position could be assumed to be more certain than dennis'. similarly, if garner were an australian he would certainly have replaced pascoe, alderman, hogg and even thompson in the australian teams led by the chappell brothers or kim hughes.. but lillee would have certainly retained his place above joel garner. i cannot rank garner as lillee's equal, how much ever i liked, and admired, the big bird.

 

[Teja.]

mcgrath vs ambrose is probably closer than garner vs lillee. assuming he were born in the carribbean, lillee would definitely have bowled for the great west indian teams of lloyd and richards. he would have replaced croft, garner, roberts or, even, holding if it ever came to that. only marshall's position could be assumed to be more certain than dennis'. similarly, if garner were an australian he would certainly have replaced pascoe, alderman, hogg and even thompson in the australian teams led by the chappell brothers or kim hughes.. but lillee would have certainly retained his place above joel garner. i cannot rank garner as lillee's equal, how much ever i liked, and admired, the big bird.

Love how you say the would've as if it's a fact set in stone. The truth is there is nothing between them and it should be acknowledged as such.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Haven't really heard of anyone rate Garner above Lillee who played against them both, ITBT.

 

[Teja.]

Haven't really heard of anyone rate Garner above Lillee who played against them both, ITBT.

The statement was in context of baghpath saying there was no way to split Border/Viv/Richards/Chappel for all practical purposes as for as AT XIs are concerned but still splitting Lillee and Garner.

 

[bagapath]

Love how you say the would've as if it's a fact set in stone. The truth is there is nothing between them and it should be acknowledged as such.

have you read my posts before, teja? they really are not worth deep analysis. my english is quiet weak and as a result my choice of words may not necessarily carry the intended meaning. my syntax is messy. articles go missing. the tense is confused. basically my posts have all the **** ups of a non native speaker attempting to communicate in English.

but in this case, i did use "would've" with the certainty you are accusing me of projecting. if there is only one fast bowling place available in a cricket team and it is a toss up between garner and lillee, 9 out 10 people would choose lillee. the 10th person would be joel garner's mum.

The statement was in context of baghpath saying there was no way to split Border/Viv/Richards/Chappel for all practical purposes as for as AT XIs are concerned but still splitting Lillee and Garner.

a bowling attack with X,Y,Z and Lillee looks stronger than an attack with X,Y,Z, and garner. whereas a batting line up of X, Chappell, Border and Y looks the same as X, Richards, Lara and Y.

 

[vic_orthdox]

The statement was in context of baghpath saying there was no way to split Border/Viv/Richards/Chappel for all practical purposes as for as AT XIs are concerned but still splitting Lillee and Garner.

Assuming that you mean Border/Chappell/Lara/Richards there.

Yeah, look, I'd probably just take Richards and Lara. The intangibles of the two of them, with Viv's presence and Lara's ability to produce genius tip the scales in their favour.

It's a bit hard to compare in a similar manner than to the bowlers though, when you have Viv overlapping with Chappell and Border, but Lara sits out by himself a bit, only playing one series against Border. Don't know enough about the times, but Chappell my impression has been that Chappell was seen as an equal of Viv for much of his career, or at least while they overlapped.

I think you'd find a lot of batsmen who would rate Ambrose higher than McGrath though, which indicates that there's sweet bugger all of a gap between the two of them, and I think they're very much complete equals.

 

[Burgey]

Border's massively underappreciated.

To score the volume of runs that he did, at the average he did, in the team that he did and against the attacks that he did is the hallmark of a very, very fine batsman. The only weaknesses in his record are against South Africa - whom he faced at the very fag end of his career, and the West Indies at home - however to achieve an average of 53 in the West Indies in the era in question is a feat not to be sniffed at.

He may not have had the grace of Chappel or Lara or the intimidation factor of Sir Viv, but he was a very fine Test batsman who in my opinion deserves to stand on the same podium as the other greats of his era.

(Y)

Yeah, completely agree with GF. Border has to be the most under-appreciated Batsman ever. Has a very genuine claim to be the second greatest batsman of all-time.

(Y)

No he doesn't. The batsmen who have legitimate claims of being second best after The Don are Sobers, Richards, Tendy mainly.

Dont think he has a good case for being the second greatest Australian batsman, Chappell, Ponting and Waugh I rate ahead of him.

Think he's definitely in the same class as those three, no doubt in my mind.

(Y)

 

[Teja.]

@bagapath

Yeah, I'm an non-native speaker and not very good at English too.

Disagree with the Garner-Lillee statement though. I even created a poll once. It was very hotly contested leading to a 30-26 in favour of Lillee.

http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/cricket-chat/46595-joel-garner-vs-dennis-lillee-tests-only.html

 

[Slifer]

Haven't really heard of anyone rate Garner above Lillee who played against them both, ITBT.

Similarly I havent ever heard ne one rank Chappell over viv or Border over Lara, I persona;;y think there isnt much to chose betweeb them all but apparantly theres some huge gap between Garner: Av 20.97, Sr 50 WPM 4.5 econ 2 and a bit, and Lillee who only has a better WPM and who had a poorer record away from home (ala Border vs Lara). Lillee > Garner is reasonable but to insinuate that he was a class above or ne thing like that is foolish all things considered.

Ps this isnt directed at u per se just a general statement

 

[Slifer]

have you read my posts before, teja? they really are not worth deep analysis. my english is quiet weak and as a result my choice of words may not necessarily carry the intended meaning. my syntax is messy. articles go missing. the tense is confused. basically my posts have all the **** ups of a non native speaker attempting to communicate in English.

but in this case, i did use "would've" with the certainty you are accusing me of projecting. if there is only one fast bowling place available in a cricket team and it is a toss up between garner and lillee, 9 out 10 people would choose lillee. the 10th person would be joel garner's mum.



a bowling attack with X,Y,Z and Lillee looks stronger than an attack with X,Y,Z, and garner. whereas a batting line up of X, Chappell, Border and Y looks the same as X, Richards, Lara and Y.

How? When Garner has a better av, sr and econ and a wpm of 4.5.

 

[vcs]

I remember making the point in that thread about Garner's lack of five-fors (despite his brilliant average and strike-rate) and I have to say the stats seem to back up Bagapath's point about Lillee being a leader of attacks and Garner playing second fiddle for most of his career. I do think that factor should put Lillee above Garner by a small, but definite margin.

Of course, having not watched the bowlers in question, I bow to superior knowledge of any mitigating factors that might have stopped Garner from playing the leading role in the WI attacks of the past.

 

[vic_orthdox]

The more that I hear about Flintoff's retirement, the more that I think of Lillee as being pretty much the same icon for Australia. Except that his figures are great in isolation. His contribution seemed to go well beyond pure numbers, he almost was Australian cricket from his emergence, overshadowing players like Chappell, Marsh, Hughes.

 

[Teja.]

I remember making the point in that thread about Garner's lack of five-fors (despite his brilliant average and strike-rate) and I have to say the stats seem to back up Bagapath's point about Lillee being a leader of attacks and Garner playing second fiddle for most of his career. I do think that factor should put Lillee above Garner by a small, but definite margin.

Of course, having not watched the bowlers in question, I bow to superior knowledge of any mitigating factors that might have stopped Garner from playing the leading role in the WI attacks of the past.

It is important to consider that Garner's role as an 'impact' bowler was due to to circumstances that surrounded his career, Joel Garner's career also coincided with almost unlimited ATG bowling strength for the West Indies and it was never required of him to lead the attack. Also, Due to the combination of Garner being the 'impact' bowler of the team and also the strength of his co-bowlers, the chance for him to take 5-fers was extremely low.

EDIT:- While acknowledging that Lillee's wpm is truly epic, It must also be kept in mind that Garner despite the bowlers surrounding him also had a wpm of 4.5

 

[Slifer]

I remember making the point in that thread about Garner's lack of five-fors (despite his brilliant average and strike-rate) and I have to say the stats seem to back up Bagapath's point about Lillee being a leader of attacks and Garner playing second fiddle for most of his career. I do think that factor should put Lillee above Garner by a small, but definite margin.

Of course, having not watched the bowlers in question, I bow to superior knowledge of any mitigating factors that might have stopped Garner from playing the leading role in the WI attacks of the past.

Im a child of the 80s and didnt see much cricket on TV live but did listen to a lot of cricket via the radio like most west indians of the time. Garner if i recall burst onto the scene in the late 70s after Roberts and Holding were already established. He would often come on 1st or second change, when most of the shine had already been taken off the ball or to bowl at the tail. Due to competition for wkts and the fact that he was mostly use as a shock bowler he would come on and take the odd 2 or 3 wickets here while at the same time keeping run scoring to an absolute minimum. One has to also remember Garner is 6 7 and thus was never goin to get thru as many overs as his other team mates. One looks at Holding and Roberts etc and wonder how come they have 10 fors to their name but Garner doesnt. There are only a finite number of wkts to take per innings (10), and Garner like stated b4 came on with the old ball, with only a few wkts left to mop and mop up he did. Sorta similar to the situation to what Walsh had for most of his career b4 the retirement of MM, Bishop etc. And even he (Walsh) managed a few 10 fors.