The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[Bolo]

Where did you get 329 from? 1Jan 2003 - 1 Jan 2008 he took 287 wickets. Around 70 of which were against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

Imran had a much better run and didn't make the team.

I made a mistake and used your criteria of 2003-2008. Should have used 2007 tbf, cos that's 6 years but it doesn't change much- same wpm and better average.

You can't just ignore minnows, but even if you do he's still taking 7wpm @ 21. Possibly the easiest 5 years for batmen ever. Look how insanely far ahead he is of everyone else:

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo

SR, total number of wickets, WPM, average- he's ahead on everyone in every category pretty comfortably, even if you compare to the best of them, not them individually.

What qualifying period does Imran look better in? 287 wickets isn't that far from imrans career total, and he had a long career.

There is definitely no bowler that has ever bettered this. No bat has, except maybe Bradman, which is really difficult to compare. Maybe one of the allrounders has him beat as well, but I'm not sure when, particularly considering the constraints of periods. Kallis had a ridiculous 2003-2007, with a ton of runs @ 67 with the bat and 87 wickets. I'm not sure if another allrounder can beat this, but it beats any specialist since Bradman, other than Murali, who still takes it pretty comfortably IMO.

 

[Red]

Ok, so here's a question. Let's say you select your nation's strongest all time XI, and then you have the opportunity to drop up to three players and draft in any three from another nation in order to make your team stronger.

- What would your original XI be (all players from your own nations)?
- Who would you draft in to replace 3 players, and who would they replace?

 

[trundler]

Ok, so here's a question. Let's say you select your nation's strongest all time XI, and then you have the opportunity to drop up to three players and draft in any three from another nation in order to make your team stronger.

- What would your original XI be (all players from your own nations)?
- Who would you draft in to replace 3 players, and who would they replace?

Anwar, Hanif, Inzi, Miandad, YK, MoYo, Khan, Bari, Wasim, Waqar, Qadir
Saeed Anwar would be replaced by Hobbs, Bari by Knott and O'Reilly over Qadir.

 

[AndrewB]

Hobbs, Hutton, Hammond, Barrington, Compton, Botham, Knott, Larwood, Trueman, Laker, Barnes.

After replacements, this becomes

Hobbs, Hutton, Bradman, Hammond, Sobers, Imran, Botham, Knott, Trueman, Laker, Barnes.

 

[a massive zebra]

What would be you AT XI of cricketers who excelled at other sports too?

Bradman and CB Fry aside, I'm guessing Drik Nannes and Jeff Wilson would feature, and I hope there would space for my personal favorite, M.J. Gopalan

Oh, and ABDV of course

My knowledge of most sports other than cricket is far from encyclopedic so I have probably missed someone obvious, but other than those you have mentioned:

• Denis Compton played football for Arsenal.
• Ian Botham represented Sc-unthorpe at football and was the badminton junior doubles champion for Somerset..
• Jonty Rhodes played Hockey for South Africa.
• Martin Donnelly played rugby for England.
• W.G. Grace was the national champion of 440 yard hurdles and represented England at bowls.
• Keith Miller player Australian Rules football at the top level for some time
• Viv Richards played football for Antigua.
• Brian Close played football for Leeds United and Bradford City.
• Walter Hammond played football for Bristol Rovers.
• Patsy Hendren played football for Coventry City, Queens Park Rangers, Manchester City and Brentford.
• Bill Edrich played football for Tottenham Hotspur.
• Reg Foster captained England at football.
• A.E. Stoddart captained England at rugby union.
• Ted MacDonald played football and rugby for Victoria.
• S.M.J. Woods played rugby for England
• Gregor McGregor played rugby for Scotland
• Jimmy Sinclair played rugby for South Africa and England
• Maurice Turnbull played hockey and rugby for Wales and was South Wales squash champion.
• Kepler Wessels was#1 tennis junior in South Africa in 1973, turned down tennis scholarship from the University of Houston.
• Arnie Sidebottom played football for Manchester United.
• Victor Richardson played baseball for Australia and represented South Australia at golf and tennis
• Johnny Douglas won the gold medal in the middleweight boxing in 1908 Olympics in London.
• Asif Karim played Davis Cup Tennis for Kenya
• Cotar Ramaswami represented India in tennis at the 1922 Davis Cup.

The selection of the XI would depend on whether the players are picked on cricketing ability (Bradman, ABDV, Compton, Botham, Grace, Miller, Richards, Hammond) or their achievements in other sports (Fry, Bradman, ABDV, Wilson, Rhodes, Foster, Stoddart, MacDonald, Turnbull, Richardson, Douglas, Gopalan).

 

[Bolo]

The South African rugby team beat the South African cricket team at cricket in 2014, so I'll go with those guys.

(N)Nelson Mandela Legacy Cup at Johannesburg, Dec 5 2014 | Match Summary | ESPNCricinfo

 

[AndrewB]

Tuppy Owen-Smith played a Test series for SA and captained England at rugby union.

 

[srbhkshk]

Gavaskar , Sehwag , Dravid , Tendulkar , Kohli , Mankad , Dhoni , Kapil , Kumble , Srinath , Zaheer

Would swap out Dhoni , Srinath and Zaheer for Gilchrist , Hadlee and McGrath for a final team of

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Kohli
Mankad
Gilchrist +
Kapil
Hadlee
Kumble
Mcgrath

India gains the most by this approach.

 

[Engle]

Colonel Cottari Kanakaiya Nayudu, who died at Indore on November 14, aged 72, captained India in their first Test match with England...Tall and well proportioned, Nayudu was specially strong in driving, bowled accurately at slow-medium pace and was a fine fielder. He also shone at hockey and association football.

 

[Engle]

Cricketers who could box

ESPNcricinfo XI: Cricketers who donned boxing gloves | Cricket | ESPNcricinfo

 

[stephen]

I made a mistake and used your criteria of 2003-2008. Should have used 2007 tbf, cos that's 6 years but it doesn't change much- same wpm and better average.

You can't just ignore minnows, but even if you do he's still taking 7wpm @ 21. Possibly the easiest 5 years for batmen ever. Look how insanely far ahead he is of everyone else:

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo

SR, total number of wickets, WPM, average- he's ahead on everyone in every category pretty comfortably, even if you compare to the best of them, not them individually.

What qualifying period does Imran look better in? 287 wickets isn't that far from imrans career total, and he had a long career.

There is definitely no bowler that has ever bettered this. No bat has, except maybe Bradman, which is really difficult to compare. Maybe one of the allrounders has him beat as well, but I'm not sure when, particularly considering the constraints of periods. Kallis had a ridiculous 2003-2007, with a ton of runs @ 67 with the bat and 87 wickets. I'm not sure if another allrounder can beat this, but it beats any specialist since Bradman, other than Murali, who still takes it pretty comfortably IMO.

Well if you take out the wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh who were ridiculously bad at the time, Murali averaged 21. McGrath in the same time averaged 22. But Murali played half his tests in Sri Lanka where the curators specifically prepared turning wickets for him.

Warne in the same period averaged a little higher (24.75) but took almost exactly the same number of wickets.

Imran 1977-1983 took 144 wickets at under 20.

Murali was special but Ponting in the same period averaged 70 with the bat. That is utterly insane and is the highest 5 year batting peak in the 55 year period.

There were at least 3 other bowlers who had 5 year bowling averages under 20 - Botham, Imran and Marshall.

 

[stephen]

But yes, I just realised I left Murali off the 03-08 list of contenders, which was wrong.

 

[akilana]

Well if you take out the wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh who were ridiculously bad at the time, Murali averaged 21. McGrath in the same time averaged 22. But Murali played half his tests in Sri Lanka where the curators specifically prepared turning wickets for him.

Warne in the same period averaged a little higher (24.75) but took almost exactly the same number of wickets.

Imran 1977-1983 took 144 wickets at under 20.

Murali was special but Ponting in the same period averaged 70 with the bat. That is utterly insane and is the highest 5 year batting peak in the 55 year period.

There were at least 3 other bowlers who had 5 year bowling averages under 20 - Botham, Imran and Marshall.

But Ponting played half of those tests in Australia

 

[stephen]

But Ponting played half of those tests in Australia

He still averaged over 60 away with 8 hundreds in 20 tests.

I think people are forgetting that we were talking at the time that Ponting might break all of Tendulkar's run scoring records.

 

[bagapath]

Ok, so here's a question. Let's say you select your nation's strongest all time XI, and then you have the opportunity to drop up to three players and draft in any three from another nation in order to make your team stronger.

- What would your original XI be (all players from your own nations)?
- Who would you draft in to replace 3 players, and who would they replace?

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Kohli
Mankad
Dhoni + *
Kapil
Srinath
Bedi
Chandra

Dropping Mankad, Kapil and Srinath for Sobers, Imran and Hadlee

Team becomes

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Kohli
Sobers
Imran
Dhoni + *
Hadlee
Bedi
Chandra

 

[Bolo]

Well if you take out the wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh who were ridiculously bad at the time, Murali averaged 21. McGrath in the same time averaged 22. But Murali played half his tests in Sri Lanka where the curators specifically prepared turning wickets for him.

Warne in the same period averaged a little higher (24.75) but took almost exactly the same number of wickets.

Imran 1977-1983 took 144 wickets at under 20.

Murali was special but Ponting in the same period averaged 70 with the bat. That is utterly insane and is the highest 5 year batting peak in the 55 year period.

There were at least 3 other bowlers who had 5 year bowling averages under 20 - Botham, Imran and Marshall.

He still averaged over 60 away with 8 hundreds in 20 tests.

Discounting the advantages afforded to one bowler while ignoring the disadvantages doesn't work. Murali bowled at some minnows. He also bowled at arguably the strongest batting unit of all time. Remove both of these and his stats for the period are just as good as if you remove neither.

It especially makes little sense to remove his wickets against minnows when looking at the total number of wickets in the period given the fact that he took the same number per match against top opposition and minnows alike. If he'd played the same number of matches in the period against top opposition he would have ended up with the same number of wickets.

His average is secondary. Lots of bowlers would have managed an average either side of 20 in a given period. What really sets Murali apart is his number of wickets in the period and WPM. He was helped in this by having little competition for wickets, and by playing a fairly higher number of tests in the period (in historical terms, not compared to his own era). But the number of wickets is just insane. You have to send down over after over regardless of conditions, form, injury etc to get these numbers. You are comparing him to Imran and Mcgrath who took half as many wickets as him in 5 years. The gulf between Murali and these two is far greater than that of Kallis from 2003-2007 and these two.

I think you are overstating the home pitch issue. You can't doctor all your pitches to suit a single player. Even if you could, the fact that you would consider putting the fate of your team in the hands of one player by doing so says enough about how they are performing. Home advantage is a big thing though, and while Murali benefitted from it significantly, he was insanely good away at his peak.

Ponting averaged 70 overall and 60 away. Kallis averaged 67 overall and 68 away, 8 hundreds in 21 tests. Without further info, these two sets of numbers are exactly equal in my book. Outside of your data snapshot, you could raise plenty of legitimate arguments either way in favour of each having had a better batting period. Ponting definitely wins in my mind, but it's close. Kallis clearly was a superior player though and it's not close- the advantage he gave his team by allowing them an extra bat is enormous.

 

[Coronis]

Hayden
Trumper
Bradman
Chappell
Border
Miller
Gilchrist+
Warne
Lindwall
Lillee
McGrath

Draft in Hobbs, Sutcliffe and Sobers.

Hobbs
Sutcliffe
Bradman
Chappell
Border
Sobers
Gilchrist+
Warne
Lindwall
Lillee
McGrath

 

[trundler]

I guess Bradman over Miandad would be a bigger upgrade compared to Knott over Bari/Latif as the latter 2 were ATG keepers though poor batters. Anwar needs to go. Every other ATG team from major nations would have better openers. Hobbs in. The bloke who averaged 45 as a leggie can **** off and Warne comes in. Would need his fielding and batting too.

 

[trundler]

Hobbs
Hanif
Bradman
YK
MoYo
Inzi
Khan
Latif
Akram
Warne
Waqar

 

[stephen]

Discounting the advantages afforded to one bowler while ignoring the disadvantages doesn't work. Murali bowled at some minnows. He also bowled at arguably the strongest batting unit of all time. Remove both of these and his stats for the period are just as good as if you remove neither.

It especially makes little sense to remove his wickets against minnows when looking at the total number of wickets in the period given the fact that he took the same number per match against top opposition and minnows alike. If he'd played the same number of matches in the period against top opposition he would have ended up with the same number of wickets.

His average is secondary. Lots of bowlers would have managed an average either side of 20 in a given period. What really sets Murali apart is his number of wickets in the period and WPM. He was helped in this by having little competition for wickets, and by playing a fairly higher number of tests in the period (in historical terms, not compared to his own era). But the number of wickets is just insane. You have to send down over after over regardless of conditions, form, injury etc to get these numbers. You are comparing him to Imran and Mcgrath who took half as many wickets as him in 5 years. The gulf between Murali and these two is far greater than that of Kallis from 2003-2007 and these two.

I think you are overstating the home pitch issue. You can't doctor all your pitches to suit a single player. Even if you could, the fact that you would consider putting the fate of your team in the hands of one player by doing so says enough about how they are performing. Home advantage is a big thing though, and while Murali benefitted from it significantly, he was insanely good away at his peak.

Ponting averaged 70 overall and 60 away. Kallis averaged 67 overall and 68 away, 8 hundreds in 21 tests. Without further info, these two sets of numbers are exactly equal in my book. Outside of your data snapshot, you could raise plenty of legitimate arguments either way in favour of each having had a better batting period. Ponting definitely wins in my mind, but it's close. Kallis clearly was a superior player though and it's not close- the advantage he gave his team by allowing them an extra bat is enormous.

I think you are overstating Murali's record during this time. Even with minnows he's only 40 wickets ahead of Kumble.

Removing minnows his record looks very similar to Warne's record during this period (And Warne didn't play in 2003).

High wpm generally says more about the quality of the other players in your team than it does about the bowler themself.

Hadlee is another guy who had a radically higher wpm ratio than other bowlers.

Murali's home average was 18 and his away average was 25. This mainly shows that Sri Lankan wickets of the time were prepared for his bowling. There was never any green tops, never any bounce, just spin.

It's a small sample size but Warne averaged 20 in Sri Lanka during the time in question.

I just don't think Murali was as far ahead of the pack as his stats made him appear.

I'll concede on the Ponting vs Kallis debate. Despite Ponting betting fractionally better with the bat during this time, Kallis would have been better in most teams. Certainly his average in wins vs losses speaks to how vital he was to South Africa.

Ponting is probably remembered better during this time because he was the best in possibly the best side ever assembled.