The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[watson]

Pre WWII XI
Hobbs
Sutcliffe
Bradman*
Headley
Hammond
Ames+
Faulkner
Gregory
Grimmett
Larwood
Barnes

Yes, no O'Reilly. I think Grimmett would complement Barnes far better, but thats me. Sure I could squeeze him in somehow.

Not a great fan of Ames' batting as he struggled somewhat against Australia as far as I can tell. Faulkner more solid at No.6 I think.

 

[honestbharani]

OK, swapping Healy and Imran around in the batting order. Dujon is tempting, but Healy and Warne are a pretty legendary partnership.

Can't see Waqar being superior to Imran, Hadlee, Marshall, or Ambrose; unless you take a short window of about 2 years when he was in his pomp.

Best of the 80s and 90s
01. Sunil Gavaskar
02. Gordon Greenidge
03. Viv Richards
04. Sachin Tendulkar
05. Brian Lara
06. Steve Waugh
07. Imran Khan
08. Ian Healy
09. Richard Hadlee
10. Malcolm Marshall
11. Shane Warne

Would bat Lara at 4 and Sachin at 5 just to cushion in the left hander between the right handers..

 

[bagapath]

fixers XI

salman butt
herschelle gibbs
mohammad azharuddin
salim mailk (c)
hansie cronje
ajay jadeja
kamran akmal (wk)
ajay sharma
mohammad amir
mohammad asif
santhakumaran sreesanth

reserves: kapil dev, shane warne, mark waugh, wasim akram, waqar younis

it will be impossible to lose to this team. each and every time, someone would have taken cash to underperform for sure. all the shirt pulling, looking at the sky, tapping, tying/ untying of shoe laces and towel in pocket gestures would keep all sorts of bookies around the globe super busy throughout the game.

 

[Coronis]

What would a peak XI look like? Haven't looked too much into it, but Botham, Ponting and Waqar are all names that come to mind. Anyone care to have a go at compiling one?

 

[Prince EWS]

What would a peak XI look like? Haven't looked too much into it, but Botham, Ponting and Waqar are all names that come to mind. Anyone care to have a go at compiling one?

I've fiddled around with some stats on this before and I think one of the great under-rated batting peaks is that of Steve Waugh.

http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/2839025-post57.html

 

[Red]

Using that data for the top 7, and also including Botham and Waqar, the peak XI might begin to look like...

- Matthew Hayden
- Len Hutton
- Don Bradman
- Jaques Kallis
- Steve Waugh
- Ricky Ponting
- Adam Gilchrist/Andy Flower
- Ian Botham
-
-
-
- Waqar Younis

 

[Howe_zat]

So I thought I'd look up some bowlers to add to that, mainly from the ICC rankings which are designed to look at how good someone was at any one moment. And it turns out noted second fiddler Tony Lock was the 6th greatest bowler of all time.

His record does show why - he took 5 wickets per Test at an average of around 16 from 1955-59. His county record from that time is pretty fearsome too - checking it on cricket archive, his total home FC record from those 5 seasons is a ridiculous 864 wickets at 13.

 

[the big bambino]

True but NZ were toilet and pitches bad. I think his record v NZ is too much of an outrider that flatters him. I think he averages around 32 against all others which is mighty high for his era. Minnow basher.

 

[kyear2]

True but NZ were toilet and pitches bad. I think his record v NZ is too much of an outrider that flatters him. I think he averages around 32 against all others which is mighty high for his era. Minnow basher.

The same is true for S.F. Barnes, where his numbers vs South Africa is so massively off from his numbers vs Eng, that they too for me are an outlier and similarily flatters his overall numbers.

 

[the big bambino]

Nah SA were outgunned by Aus and Eng but manned up against almost every other bowler except Barnes. Whereas NZ in the 50's couldn't bat worse than now.

 

[Coronis]

Using that data for the top 7, and also including Botham and Waqar, the peak XI might begin to look like...

- Matthew Hayden
- Len Hutton
- Don Bradman
- Jaques Kallis
- Steve Waugh
- Ricky Ponting
- Adam Gilchrist/Andy Flower
- Ian Botham
-
-
-
- Waqar Younis

Sutcliffe had a pretty good peak didn't he? Averaged 60+ for 54 test matches, over 11 years.

Though, after his 40th test (his last century), at the age of 38, his figures were: 40 matches, 63 innings, 3839 runs @ 69.80, 16 centuries. Stunningly underrated. Something I've noticed too, the three great English batsmen before WWII (Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Hammond) all played a few series too long, when they were already at great ages. Truly incredible batsmen.

 

[watson]

Jeff Thomson was for about 2 years the most feared bowler in the history of cricket. Worth a place I think.

 

[Coronis]

Oh, Murali's got to be the spinner. Cannot remember the article, but there was some stat, in the middle of his career (before his decline) 90 tests, 631 wickets @ 19.94.

Found it.

 

[smash84]

yeah that 90 test streak at sub 20 sure makes a good case for Murali being the greatest bowler of all time

 

[Days of Grace]

My Peak XI - based on standards maintained over a period of 25 and 50 matches

1. Hobbs
2. Hutton
3. Bradman
4. Ponting
5. Richards
6. Sobers
7. Gilchrist (wk)
8. Hadlee
9. Marshall
10. Waqar Younis
11. Muralitharan

Waugh
Imran Khan

 

[Howe_zat]

Wouldn't it be fairer to do it on peak years rather than matches? 50 matches was Bradman's 20 year career after all.

 

[Prince EWS]

Wouldn't it be fairer to do it on peak years rather than matches? 50 matches was Bradman's 20 year career after all.

Back when I was doing peak analysis I found that whichever approach you took, it put a one group or the other out. It's easier to maintain an excellent peak average based on matches if you're playing more matches per year, but on the flip side it's easier to maintain an excellent peak average based on years if you're playing less matches per year. The results ended up biased either way.

I think the fairest measure would probably be to look at both - for example, batsman's peak of 40 innings and a batsman's peak of 5 years - and then average out those peaks (or possibly just take the highest one).

 

[Howe_zat]

Back when I was doing peak analysis I found that whichever approach you took, it put a one group or the other out. It's easier to maintain an excellent peak average based on matches if you're playing more matches per year, but on the flip side it's easier to maintain an excellent peak average based on years if you're playing less matches per year. The results ended up biased either way.

I think the fairest measure would probably be to look at both - for example, batsman's peak of 40 innings and a batsman's peak of 5 years - and then average out those peaks (or possibly just take the highest one).

That's true but I think looking at years is still going to be a better measure of what we're actually looking at. When we talk about peaks we think of how a player's career varies with time.

I would think the effects of form, fitness and general improvements/debilitations are a consequence of how long you've been playing, not how many Tests you've had - those older players were still playing plenty of FC cricket after all.

 

[Prince EWS]

That's true but I think looking at years is still going to be a better measure of what we're actually looking at. When we talk about peaks we think of how a player's career varies with time.

I would think the effects of form, fitness and general improvements/debilitations are a consequence of how long you've been playing, not how many Tests you've had - those older players were still playing plenty of FC cricket after all.

I agree that years are a better measure than matches but it definitely does have a bias in the opposite direction, even if not one quite as strong. You can tell just by looking at the results.

I don't think it's really caused by burnout or what have you anyway; it's just statistically more likely for smaller samples of scores to produce outlying means. The bigger the sample of anything, the closer the sample mean becomes to the true mean. It's fair to say that an study of peaks is prone to anomalies so you get bigger ones with fewer matches as a part of your data.

 

[Days of Grace]

Back when I was doing peak analysis I found that whichever approach you took, it put a one group or the other out. It's easier to maintain an excellent peak average based on matches if you're playing more matches per year, but on the flip side it's easier to maintain an excellent peak average based on years if you're playing less matches per year. The results ended up biased either way.

I think the fairest measure would probably be to look at both - for example, batsman's peak of 40 innings and a batsman's peak of 5 years - and then average out those peaks (or possibly just take the highest one).

My ratings incorporate length of time, average, centuries and significant innings for batsmen, and length of time, average, WPM, 5W/I and significant contributions in matches won for bowlers.