Geoffrey Boycott: ICC's Dream XI is a joke - it has no credibility

[centurymaker]

Should this really be a surprise? How many years do you consider "our generation" to be, may I ask? Test cricket has been around since 1877 which means, in an entirely even breakdown, you'd only get one player from each bracket of 12 years or so. The ICC XI picked one player who debuted before 1971 - that's 9% of the team for 70% of history. And that, mind you, ignores all cricket's pre-Test history as well.

last 15 to 20 years
also, far more cricket is played now!!
around 1/3 of the tests have been played since then.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I'd almost certainly go with Gilchrist over Knott but can see why Boycott has been loyal to a former teammate on that one and the rest of his team makes more sense than the fans one.

As for the team the fans picked How the hell does Kapil Dev get chosen ahead of Botham, Sobers and Imran who are clearly the best 3 allrounders ever? How Ambrose, McGrath and Akram all get chosen ahead of Marshall is beyond me and i can't accept the best bats ever apart from Bradman have all played since the 80's and you don't include Richards among them.

 

[centurymaker]

Why? The bloke took considerably more wickets per match at a considerably better average and he took the considerably faster than McGrath did.
Even accounting for pitches he was still the best bowler of his generation by a non-insignificant margin.
During his career he almost took twice the number of wickers as anybody else ffs.

He ONLY played 27 test matches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (even though they didn't play much test cricket in those days, 27 is hardly enough games)

 

[hang on]

He didn't maintain it over a longer period of time though; he just maintained it over more Tests in a period of a very similar length.

should have specified more tests. while i see the difference, i don't think that it's the same case.

for example. a person could play two tests, bookending a 20 year span (say a career of another player), and do superbly. while that is very commendable, it is not the same as playing the same number of tests (of the 20 year career chappie). extreme example but..

 

[Prince EWS]

last 15 to 20 years
also, far more cricket is played now!!
around 1/3 of the tests have been played since then.

Each period of 15 years, in a completely even World XI, would see 1.23 cricketers picked, so he's perfectly within his rights to pick just the one.

Playing more Tests per year does not mean the upper echelon of cricketers are dominating cricket more than they did in previous years. That's what being a great is all about in my books - being a lot better than the average cricketer of your time. The more comparatively better you are, the greater you are and the more you deserve selection in something like this. Whether or not cricketers would perform in other eras is entirely irrelevant because that wasn't their job or what they were trying to achieve. Sydney Barnes's coach wouldn't have been saying to him "No, stop bowling like that - what you should be doing is bowling in a fashion that will be effective 100 years down the track when you're long dead, even if it means you'll be far less effective now, because that's what really matters". It'd make as much sense as telling Dale Steyn that he should be bowling side-arm lobs because they would've been more effective in the 1910's, or disqualifying him from your World XI because he wouldn't have been as good then. Their goal was be as effective as they could with what was in front of them and yes, that batting was easier in some eras and bowling was easier in others is something that should be very heavily considered, but you can't just wipe off an entire era as easier in general for everyone, because it doesn't work like that. Your value is measured by how good you were compared to everyone else in your time.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Both teams are dumb, for different reasons.

Fan XI has no Sobers and has Sehwag opening and just as ridiculous is the fact Boycott has Knott over Gilchrist, who other than Bradman should be the very first player picked.

Warne as the spinner maybe?

Agree i'd have Gilchrist as 2nd or 3rd automatic choice but the 3 Aussies would be my first picks and work from there.

 

[Howe_zat]

What's really frustrating about Barnes' career is that he spent a long time eschewing first-class cricket. It'd be a lot easier to compare him to his contemporaries otherwise.

 

[Howe_zat]

Incidentally, looking at this thread. I'm disappointed people missed out on the chance to use this.

So disappointed.

 

[Prince EWS]

should have specified more tests. while i see the difference, i don't think that it's the same case.

for example. a person could play two tests, bookending a 20 year span (say a career of another player), and do superbly. while that is very commendable, it is not the same as playing the same number of tests (of the 20 year career chappie). extreme example but..

It's a poor analogy. Barnes didn't play many Tests because not many were played during his time.

When you're comparing players from different times, you have to try and remove everything that's time biased. The fact that there were less runs on average during Barnes's time is something that must be considered, and it means he wasn't *quite* as good as his average of 16 or so suggests. By the standards of his time he was still indeed the best bowler but not by the margin in which someone averaging 16 in 2011 would be. However, if you're going to do that, you also have to recognise that they played far fewer Tests in his time - by the standards of the early 1900s, 27 was a lot of Tests.

 

[centurymaker]

I'd almost certainly go with Gilchrist over Knott but can see why Boycott has been loyal to a former teammate on that one and the rest of his team makes more sense than the fans one.

As for the team the fans picked How the hell does Kapil Dev get chosen ahead of Botham, Sobers and Imran who are clearly the best 3 allrounders ever? How Ambrose, McGrath and Akram all get chosen ahead of Marshall is beyond me and i can't accept the best bats ever apart from Bradman have all played since the 80's and you don't include Richards among them.

Because his performances against the west indies were better than any other all-rounder of his time. (btw i wouldn't have picked him but some might justify his selection this way)

in WI he avg'd 23 (35 wickets)
in Aus he avg'd 24 (51 wickets)
besides that he had an avg away record

what i'm saying is that he wasn't as useless as people seem to think.

 

[ankitj]

If the Fans 11 was dominated by more current players ,Boycott is "Romanticising The Past".

What is interesting is that having said all of that he goes ahead and picks Barnes as a bowler from that Era ahead of Mcgrath. Infact from a Era before Bradman,Hobbs,Headley,Hammond etc.. when the matches were lesser scoring mostly than when these people played and the matches got more high scoring.

You seemed very happy after picking Barnes in the scorecard draft

 

[Prince EWS]

What's really frustrating about Barnes' career is that he spent a long time eschewing first-class cricket. It'd be a lot easier to compare him to his contemporaries otherwise.

Yes, quite, but it also shows that First Class cricket held far more prestige and importance in his time than it does now, and that we should also consider the First Class records of the players from that time when we analyse them. He was regarded as the best bowler in the world even after he stopped playing Tests, merely for his ability to dominate county and league cricket - such was its regard and importance to the public.

 

[Cevno]

Reckon this is a silly point to bring up, tbh.

Sehwag averages 53; Hutton averages 56 - those are very comparable averages (in fact Hutton averages more). Boycott thinks batting was more difficult during Hutton's time so he opts for him.

Boycott can admit bowling was easier in Barnes's time than McGrath's and still pick Barnes though because the bloke averaged 16; it's about four fifths of McGrath's average. Even if you take the relative ease of bowling then as compared to now into account, Barnes still comes out very favourably.

Hutton was way after Barnes tbf(pre world war 1 and post world war 2 are different eras, and the Average scores were lower during Barnes Era than Hutton's)

Besides if it is only about averages then why not pick Lohmann(from the same era) and Why Pick Warne as a definite lock in?


Though now that i read the article again, he is also saying -

Some of the biggest names of the past only played a handful of Tests. In the early years there were only matches between England and Australia. Two world wars interrupted many careers and South Africa, because of apartheid, were excluded for 20 years. Then there are runs and wickets achieved against weak opposition like New Zealand, India and Pakistan when they first became Test playing nations. The equivalents today are Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the current West Indies team. In the early years pitches were so poor they had stones in them. Many players batted on uncovered pitches open to the elements until that was changed in 1979.

Which again contradicts in some ways his dismissing of more modern batsman or players in itself in his selections.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Because his performances against the west indies were better than any other all-rounder of his time. (btw i wouldn't have picked him but some might justify his selection this way)

in WI he avg'd 23 (35 wickets)
in Aus he avg'd 24 (51 wickets)
besides that he had an avg away record

what i'm saying is that he wasn't as useless as people seem to think.

I'm not saying he was useless but an allrounder needs to bat and he was a lesser bat than the 3 i mentioned and probably not as good with the ball as Botham and Imran over his career.

 

[vcs]

I don't think Kapil was inferior to Imran purely as a batsman TBH. Though, obviously Imran was comfortably ahead overall.

 

[Howe_zat]

Yes, quite, but it also shows that First Class cricket held far more prestige and importance in his time than it does now, and that we should also consider the First Class records of the players from that time when we analyse them. He was regarded as the best bowler in the world even after he stopped playing Tests, merely for his ability to dominate county and league cricket - such was its regard and importance to the public.

Exactly. I would go as far as to say that any earlier than Barnes and FC cricket is probably a better indicator of someone's stance than Tests, as it removes the inherent sample size issue. Helps put the careers of people like Lohmann and WG into perspective - positively for Grace and negatively for Lohmann.

 

[Cevno]

Should this really be a surprise? How many years do you consider "our generation" to be, may I ask? Test cricket has been around since 1877 which means, in an entirely even breakdown, you'd only get one player from each bracket of 12 years or so. The ICC XI picked one player who debuted before 1971 - that's 9% of the team for 70% of history. And that, mind you, ignores all cricket's pre-Test history as well.

But there are more matches being played in "our generation", more countries, and more teams of a decent standard with better infrastructure.

And most important of all more players playing Cricket Professionally or Semi - professionally than any time in history ,so it is not as simple as spreading it over the years only and it is understandable why there could more AT11 players in this period of time. Actually more likely than majority coming from pre world war 2 era where basically there were only 2 countries of a decent standard and many international cricketers were not even professionals.

 

[Prince EWS]

Besides if it is only about averages then why not pick Lohmann(from the same era.

See Howe's post.

 

[Prince EWS]

But there are more matches being played in "our generation", more countries, and more teams of a decent standard with better infrastructure.

And most important of all more players playing Cricket Professionally or Semi - professionally than any time in history ,so it is not as simple as spreading it over the years only and it is understandable why there could more AT11 players in this period of time. Actually more likely than majority coming from pre world war 2 era where basically there were only 2 countries of a decent standard and many international cricketers were not even professionals.

Totally disagree. It's about your relative merits as a cricketer compared to the standards of the time, to me, not how high people can make completely wild guesses about the standard of cricket you played was.

The balance between bat and ball in different eras is long something I've posted about and taken into account. To just say that one era was better than another overall just has no real logic or evidence to it from my perspective though. Even if Hobbs really would third grade club cricket should he be teleported here, I couldn't care in the slightest. To me it's about how effective he was at his job during his time compared to the average cricketer.

 

[hang on]

Each period of 15 years, in a completely even World XI, would see 1.23 cricketers picked, so he's perfectly within his rights to pick just the one.

Playing more Tests per year does not mean the upper echelon of cricketers are dominating cricket more than they did in previous years. That's what being a great is all about in my books - being a lot better than the average cricketer of your time. The more comparatively better you are, the greater you are and the more you deserve selection in something like this. Whether or not cricketers would perform in other eras is entirely irrelevant because that wasn't their job or what they were trying to achieve. Sydney Barnes's coach wouldn't have been saying to him "No, stop bowling like that - what you should be doing is bowling in a fashion that will be effective 100 years down the track when you're long dead, even if it means you'll be far less effective now, because that's what really matters". It'd make as much sense as telling Dale Steyn that he should be bowling side-arm lobs because they would've been more effective in the 1910's, or disqualifying him from your World XI because he wouldn't have been as good then. Their goal was be as effective as they could with what was in front of them and yes, that batting was easier in some eras and bowling was easier in others is something that should be very heavily considered, but you can't just wipe off an entire era as easier in general for everyone, because it doesn't work like that. Your value is measured by how good you were compared to everyone else in your time.

interesting and reasonably valid argument. however, at a tangent, if one subscribes to the notion (fact? as i do) that the average quality of cricket has increased -perhaps even significantly - over time, it would/could explain why the best cricketers - batsmen and bowlers - of the earlier eras could have stupendous stats. because they best batsmen and bowlers would can one another out but would feast on the lower quality average players. thus, a barnes would, possibly, strike at the same rate as the great bowlers throughout history against the great hobbs-like batsmen but completely clean up against the rest. ditto hobbes and his scoring. cricket, on the whole is harder now. of course, it could be argued that, by virtue of greater quality being possibly more rare, it was harder to do well against it when the opportunity arose.....less acclimatisation, in a manner of speaking.