CW All-Time XI Openers

[NUFAN]

Didn't know where to post this, but since this thread seems like we are discussing the Eccentric Wests Supporters views, I figure my suggestion is on topic.

We are forever trying to work out who makes world all time XI's and who just misses out etc, but it feels as though we are just discussing the same 25 cricketers or so all the time. I'm getting slightly sick of it, because for the most part its getting a little too predictable up the top, but the area I have no clue is where people rate players such as your Boycotts or Charlie Turner or a current player like James Anderson.

I was thinking that it would be kind of fun once we've named this All Time team we could then make a World XI A team, then b, c, d you get the picture until we have say 16 teams and we could sim an All Time Tests tournament using Pews standardised averages (see I was on topic) by having 4 groups of 4 or something like that with the top 2 progressing to the quarters where you would have best of 3 series, culminating in a grand final 5 test match series.

Obviously it would be a lot of work and I'm not going to do the sim, but I think it would be a pretty cool idea and I'm sure we'd have some interesting discussion. If it were to go ahead, we'd definitely have to change the 2 all rounders thing and allow players in more than one category. Thoughts?

 

[Mike5181]

Didn't know where to post this, but since this thread seems like we are discussing the Eccentric Wests Supporters views, I figure my suggestion is on topic.

We are forever trying to work out who makes world all time XI's and who just misses out etc, but it feels as though we are just discussing the same 25 cricketers or so all the time. I'm getting slightly sick of it, because for the most part its getting a little too predictable up the top, but the area I have no clue is where people rate players such as your Boycotts or Charlie Turner or a current player like James Anderson.

I was thinking that it would be kind of fun once we've named this All Time team we could then make a World XI A team, then b, c, d you get the picture until we have say 16 teams and we could sim an All Time Tests tournament using Pews standardised averages (see I was on topic) by having 4 groups of 4 or something like that with the top 2 progressing to the quarters where you would have best of 3 series, culminating in a grand final 5 test match series.

Obviously it would be a lot of work and I'm not going to do the sim, but I think it would be a pretty cool idea and I'm sure we'd have some interesting discussion. If it were to go ahead, we'd definitely have to change the 2 all rounders thing and allow players in more than one category. Thoughts?

Rough attempt:

A
1.Jack Hobbs
2.Len Hutton
3.Don Bradman
4.Viv Richards
5.Sachin Tendulkar
6.Garry Sobers
7.Adam Gilchrist+
8.Imran Khan
9.Richard Hadlee
10.Shane Warne
11.Malcolm Marshall

B
1.Herbert Sutcliffe
2.Sunil Gavaskar
3.George Headley
4.Brian Lara
5.Wally Hammond
6.Jacques Kallis
7.Alan Knott+
8.Kieth Miller
9.Wasim Akram
10.Glenn McGrath
11.Mutiah Muralitharan

C
1.Victor Trumper
2.Barry Richards
3.Ricky Ponting
4.Javed Miandad
5.Greg Chappell
6.Ken Barrington
7.Andy Flower+/Les Ames
8.Dennis Lillee
9.Fred Trueman
10.Curtly Ambrose
11.Sydney Barnes

 

[smash84]

a really cool idea NUFAN

I think most of us would have thought at one time or another as to where the boycotts and the anwars would stand in the pantheon of cricketing greats. Given that these were very good players but not usually put into the same category as the "predictable" greats as you say.

Maybe 16 people can volunteer to run the voting for 1 team each to come up with 16 teams and then running the sim could be thought of later?

Edit: i.e. If I understand you correctly

 

[NUFAN]

Nice teams there Mike, I disagree with a couple of choices, but that's normal.

Smali, cool I'm glad you like it. My idea would be time consuming but it would end up being CW's second XI, third XI, fourth XI etc, while it seems as though your idea would still just be individual peoples opinions but it might be more fun for those 16 people, hmm. Or do you just mean to make it less time consuming we can get another 15 people to do what kyear has done??

So Smali you can organise, I'll just be in the background and we can get equal praise at the end :P

 

[smash84]

Nice teams there Mike, I disagree with a couple of choices, but that's normal.

Smali, cool I'm glad you like it. My idea would be time consuming but it would end up being CW's second XI, third XI, fourth XI etc, while it seems as though your idea would still just be individual peoples opinions but it might be more fun for those 16 people, hmm. Or do you just mean to make it less time consuming we can get another 15 people to do what kyear has done??

So Smali you can organise, I'll just be in the background and we can get equal praise at the end :P

The part in bold is what I am hinting at. Asking one person to run threads to come up with 16 teams would be too much. Split it up between 16 people, 1 each.

lol.......don't pump me up or else we might have a CW top 226 (50 +176)

 

[Jager]

Obviously it would be a lot of work and I'm not going to do the sim, but I think it would be a pretty cool idea and I'm sure we'd have some interesting discussion. If it were to go ahead, we'd definitely have to change the 2 all rounders thing and allow players in more than one category. Thoughts?

This is interesting. I was just trying to think of ideas on how it might work, what if 10 people volunteered to select their first ATG XI, and then a thread was made where people voted on the teams as a whole? Whichever team wins becomes the 'A' team for the exercise. Whichever players are chosen are then eliminated from the selection pool, and the same exercise is repeated for the 'B' team and so on, until we have as many teams as we want (hopefully over 10, so we see some variety).

 

[NUFAN]

The part in bold is what I am hinting at. Asking one person to run threads to come up with 16 teams would be too much. Split it up between 16 people, 1 each.

lol.......don't pump me up or else we might have a CW top 226 (50 +176)

Even if we don't have 16, it could be shared by 4 people or 8 or so. It wouldn't be that hard to do. I would expect people to add some personal touches like work out the opening bowlers earlier (I would probably do this).

I think it would be fun to do, obviously if we get a sim happening, the teams wont be evenly matched, but it would still be fun to see.

 

[Jager]

I think it would be fun to do, obviously if we get a sim happening, the teams wont be evenly matched, but it would still be fun to see.

Who knows, it's a sim- last night, I played Steven O'Keefe on International Cricket Captain and he took 9/34 in his second innings on test debut... my point being, the impossible often happens on sims

If we use PEWS' standardised averages, it could make the sims extremely hard to guess. Should be start a thread discussing this?

 

[G.I.Joe]

I like NUFAN's idea. Let's do this.

 

[NUFAN]

This is interesting. I was just trying to think of ideas on how it might work, what if 10 people volunteered to select their first ATG XI, and then a thread was made where people voted on the teams as a whole? Whichever team wins becomes the 'A' team for the exercise. Whichever players are chosen are then eliminated from the selection pool, and the same exercise is repeated for the 'B' team and so on, until we have as many teams as we want (hopefully over 10, so we see some variety).

The way I was thinking was that we would just repeat what Kyear has done 16 times over, lol and yeah exclude the players already chosen.

The way I see it is just because someone finishes 3rd and 4th (for openers) doesn't guarantee that they'll be the 2 choices for the A team. I would suggest that whoever's turn it is gets to nominate the players to include (to some degree) in the poll and the formation, so kyear had 2 all rounders, you might want to have 6 batsman, 3 quicks and a spinner.

Who knows, it's a sim- last night, I played Steven O'Keefe on International Cricket Captain and he took 9/34 in his second innings on test debut... my point being, the impossible often happens on sims

If we use PEWS' standardised averages, it could make the sims extremely hard to guess. Should be start a thread discussing this?

Yeah that's true about the standardised averages part, it would be fun and I'm sure a few teams lower down would actually beat there higher ranked opponents.

Go for it if you want to start a thread. It might be nice to have sub forum for this as some people probably wouldn't want to have all these polls in Cricket Chat.

 

[Jager]

The way I was thinking was that we would just repeat what Kyear has done 16 times over, lol and yeah exclude the players already chosen.

The way I see it is just because someone finishes 3rd and 4th (for openers) doesn't guarantee that they'll be the 2 choices for the A team. I would suggest that whoever's turn it is gets to nominate the players to include (to some degree) in the poll and the formation, so kyear had 2 all rounders, you might want to have 6 batsman, 3 quicks and a spinner.

Agreed with what you said about changing votes for third and fourth, but the personal touch might annoy people as it seemed to in kyear2's polls. That's why I was suggesting the voting on 10 different teams, so that as long as we had a variety of different viewpoints, people could get different formats of team etc.

If we said "select the team closest to your ATG first side" it would also mean that some people might have to vote on a team that's not exactly the same as theirs, but it just generally reflects what their own selections might have been. That could take out a lot of the complaining, too.

 

[NUFAN]

I like NUFAN's idea. Let's do this.

Good stuff.

I don't want to rain on Kyears parade, he was going to wait until Monday to announce the world team, I guess we could work out the World A keeper and middle order bats before this though seeing as though Gilly, Bradman, Tendulkar and Richards are way out in front.

I don't see the opening bats changing either, but I want confirmation from kyear first.

 

[NUFAN]

Agreed with what you said about changing votes for third and fourth, but the personal touch might annoy people as it seemed to in kyear2's polls. That's why I was suggesting the voting on 10 different teams, so that as long as we had a variety of different viewpoints, people could get different formats of team etc.

If we said "select the team closest to your ATG first side" it would also mean that some people might have to vote on a team that's not exactly the same as theirs, but it just generally reflects what their own selections might have been. That could take out a lot of the complaining, too.

But how do you make the 10 different teams? What if two people name the same XI? I think its easy for people to "select the team closest to your ATG first side" But it would be impossible to "select the team closest to your ATG 11th XI"

I wouldn't want the personal touch to be anything drastic, I just meant including a player in the poll that they like.

Kyear wanted to copy Benaud's team makeup and that's fair enough, his/our final XI is going to be awesome regardless.

The personal touch I would do is open up the sixth spot in the batting lineup by including specialist batsman and all rounders and the fourth bowler spot to include quicks, all rounders and spinners and do them last.

So I would probably work out opening bats, opening bowlers, 3 middle order bats, spinner, keeper, then the two mentioned above.

 

[Jager]

But how do you make the 10 different teams? What if two people name the same XI? I think its easy for people to "select the team closest to your ATG first side" But it would be impossible to "select the team closest to your ATG 11th XI"

Isn't that the same thing? :s

 

[NUFAN]

Isn't that the same thing? :s

Nah. My main point for this idea is that I don't believe people know how there World C, F or K teams really are. Everyone is just focused on the best XI or second best XI and it we just limit it to 10 teams it will be frustrating to vote for a team if you like 10 players from one team and ten from another team, it just becomes more of a guess. I get the feeling your idea is almost like a draft idea.

Anyway that's just my personal opinion and I like the voting part of kyears world team, it just needs a few tweaks to allow players in multiple categories.

 

[Arachnodouche]

If I'd want any two openers to bat for my life, it would be probably be Boycott and Gavaskar. Else, Hobbs and Gavaskar. The latter's being an opinionated, overly-jingoistic **** takes nothing away from the fact that he fronted up to some of the fiercest bowlers in history, and scored runs against them. While batting for a pisspoor side.

 

[The Sean]

Love NUFAN's idea. I have my own all time XIs hierarchy (I'm currently down to my eleventh XI!) so would love to see how something like this worked out.

 

[Jager]

Love NUFAN's idea. I have my own all time XIs hierarchy (I'm currently down to my eleventh XI!) so would love to see how something like this worked out.

Would there be any chance you could send them to me and satisfy my curiosity? I am interested in who you picked lower down.

 

[NUFAN]

Love NUFAN's idea. I have my own all time XIs hierarchy (I'm currently down to my eleventh XI!) so would love to see how something like this worked out.

Good to hear. Voting has started already for the A team's opening batsman and wicket keeper, so please vote.

 

[The Sean]

Would there be any chance you could send them to me and satisfy my curiosity? I am interested in who you picked lower down.

Sure thing, have the teams at home so will send over the weekend. Where can I send them to?