The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[Prince EWS]

My Greatest XI:

Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton
Don Bradman
Viv Richards
George Headley
Andy Flower+
Imran Khan*
Richard Hadlee
Wasim Akram
Curtley Ambrose
Muralitharan

Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton
Don Bradman
Viv Richards
Garry Sobers
+Andy Flower
*Imran Khan
Richard Hadlee
Wasim Akram
Malcom Marshall/Bill O'Reilly
Muttiah Muralitharan

Startling.

 

[Red]

You tanked out on the funnest part. Zohrer and Taibu are certs as bowlers. Dhoni and de Villiers bowl handy medium pace.. can we count Andrew Hall as a wicket keeper? Dilshan?

Matthew Wade bowls his first Test over - YouTube

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Startling.

Indeed.

And 1 against SRL as well.Lets also mention he never toured Asia again on account of his business responsibilities & fake injuries.

There are many people who would say McGrath is better than Lillee. Lillee was very successful on bowling friendly wickets of Australia & England but failed miserably on Asian wickets and avoided touring asian countries a few times on account of fake injuries & "business committments".

 

[Coronis]

Interesting, very interesting.

 

[kyear2]

Top 5 Captains by winning %, for those to captain 20 matches
Steve Waugh, 57 tests, 41 wins, 9 losses and 7 draws (71.93%)
Don Bradman, 24 tests, 15 wins, 3 losses and 6 draws (62.50%)
Ricky Ponting, 77 tests, 48 wins, 16 losses and 13 draws (62.34%)
Lindsay Hassett, 24 tests, 14 wins, 4 losses and 6 draws (58.33%)
Mike Brearley, 31 tests, 18 wins, 4 losses and 9 draws (58.06%)

Unsurprising top 5 really, with Waugh and Ponting, along with Bradman, playing in some of the best teams of all time. Hassett, inherited the captaincy and a wonderful team from Bradman. Brearley's captaincy period was dominated by Botham, in his peak. Bradman and Brearly both have a very low percentage of losses. While Steve Waugh dominates in terms of draws.

For the record, Viv, had a winning percentage of 54, but a huge 30% draw rate. Imran Khan was captain for 48 tests, and only won 14 (29.17%). Under his captaincy, Pakistan drew more than half the games they played, having a low percentage of losses.

Though it would have been much better than that.

Imran not only won in Australia & England & almost won three series(I think 2 of them were drawn due to very pathetic & patriotic umpiring) against West Indies when everyone else was getting hammered.but I wouldn't call that or world cup as his greatest achievement but uniting a disassembled team like Pakistan into a match winning unit which never happened before him & hasn't happened since his retirement till now.Before his retirement he was able to prepare a crop of players & until their retirement Pakistan remained a very strong team.

Seriously? Three LBW decisions, compared to "patriotic umpires" The W.I had one of if the the faiest set of umpires in the world during the period. and of the crown disturbances in the Caribbean were caused by decisions againts our own players.

I am tired of hearing about how poor Imran Khan and his side lost some series because of bad umpiring. Shakoor Rana was responsible for a number of series victories by that measure and certainly helped Javed Miandad a little with his average. Let's not make out Imran - a bloke who not averse to bending rules (bottle caps *cough*) - was some sort of victim. Fair enough he may have copped a few bad decisions but equally he and his team benefitted from utterly biased umpring at home. The Pakistani bowlers would just have to hit the pads and boom, lbw! Don't wish to side track the discussion but yeah....

Imran out of the great fast bowlers had one of the largest disparities between his home and away record 19.20 avg vs 25.76 and s/r 47 vs 59. Lets not try to re write history.

 

[the big bambino]

You can change your name Bhupinder but you can't change your finger prints which are all over H4G.

Btw plumbinfront Imran was magnificent. Lets not change history. Just acknowledge it.

 

[Plumbinfront]

What? I never said Imran alone benefitted from biased umpiring at home, I was talking about the Pakistani as a whole. IK was a great bowler, I have never denied that. Just annoying to see Pakistan being made some sort of victim of poor umpiring, when they've had more than their fair share of crap umpiring at home. And as annoyed as I am at how touchy some Imran fans are, I will never say he wasn't a great player. The sun didn't shine from every orifice of his, that's it. ATG he is. Never meant to insinuate that he is what he is because of bad umpiring or something.

 

[the big bambino]

Fair enough.

 

[kyear2]

Similarily agree, Imran makes my ATG XI, but to say he is the best or second best player to play the game, they are too many red lights there for me.
The captaincy thing is subjective at best and not something I place too great an emphasis on, Lloyd was supposedly a great captain, but didn't show it in county cricket, Worrell brought his team together and brought life back into the game along with Benaud in the '60's, but that wouldn't be required on a different team in a different era. Great stategic planing and field placing is important, and the overall vision for a team, but the rest of it is just a little exaggerated.
His fielding wasn't very good, dispite opinion to the contrary he didn't peak or perform consistently with the bat and ball at the same and there was a reason for the difference between his home and away stats beyond the pitches. There are other factors as well, but in the end ATG yes, best all rounder or cricketer, for me no.

 

[akilana]

Home away disparity is BS if the player is already accepted as a great. Just look at Lara abd Sobers's records.

 

[kyear2]

One of the reasons I don't rate Sobers the best bat after Bradman, that and batting so much at #6. But a batting average of 50 away was pretty excellent considering the bolwers he faced in tough conditions in Australia and England.

Also never said a bowling average of 25 was bad.

 

[smash84]

Similarily agree, Imran makes my ATG XI, but to say he is the best or second best player to play the game, they are too many red lights there for me.
The captaincy thing is subjective at best and not something I place too great an emphasis on, Lloyd was supposedly a great captain, but didn't show it in county cricket, Worrell brought his team together and brought life back into the game along with Benaud in the '60's, but that wouldn't be required on a different team in a different era. Great stategic planing and field placing is important, and the overall vision for a team, but the rest of it is just a little exaggerated.
His fielding wasn't very good, dispite opinion to the contrary he didn't peak or perform consistently with the bat and ball at the same and there was a reason for the difference between his home and away stats beyond the pitches. There are other factors as well, but in the end ATG yes, best all rounder or cricketer, for me no.

He had an away average of 25.76 as you say. Which would probably only be marginally below other ATG I think. And an away avg of 25 is nothing to be scoffed at.

 

[kyear2]

No it isn't.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Imran's record as captain is certainly not the best, however what adds to it is that he fought tooth and nail against the best team in the world and that he united a team that has always been known for in-fighting. No other captain from around the world could have united a team like he did.

 

[Red]

Imran's record as captain is certainly not the best, however what adds to it is that he fought tooth and nail against the best team in the world and that he united a team that has always been known for in-fighting. No other captain from around the world could have united a team like he did.

The cool thing about having them both in a team together would be you get a brilliant batsman who could possibly play as a bowler, and a brilliant bowler who could possibly play as a batsman. Stick Gilchrist between them and you bat to #8/

 

[kyear2]

Best of both worlds.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

It's about time we have a best captain thread

 

[Coronis]

10 bucks on Bradman.

 

[Coronis]

Lefties XI (batsmen can bowl with their right and bowlers can bat with their right)

Graeme Smith*
Matthew Hayden
Kumar Sangakkara
Graeme Pollock
Brian Lara
Garry Sobers
Adam Gilchrist+
Wasim Akram
Alan Davidson
Bishan Bedi
Bill Johnston

Very strong batting of course, but I think the area where they lose out is spin bowling, i.e compared to a Murali/Warne, or any of the other top tier spinners (Barnes, O'Reilly, Grimmett, Laker). Perhaps Verity in for Bedi?

 

[bagapath]

one team for both ODIs and Tests (without altering batting positions)

hayden
sehwag
ponting
richards
lara
dhoni +
pollock
hadlee
akram
murali
mcgrath