The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[Bolo.]

FWIW Akram only bowled as a change bowler in 3 Tests (to be fair, he did average 14). Best change (pace) bowlers (by average) in 25+ innings are:

20.36: Pat Cummins (80 wickets)
21.69: Joel Garner (132)
21.89: Shaun Pollock (59)
22.75: Stuart Clark (66)
23.07: Michael Holding (78)
23.26: Angus Fraser (71)
23.75: Mike Hendrick (45)
23.80: Malcolm Marshall (113)
24.66: Mohammed Shami (77)
25.14: Kagiso Rabada (85)
25.63: Dominic Cork (63)
25.84: Ian Botham (177)
26.48: Merv Hughes (99)
26.51: Courtney Walsh (192)
26.71: Jason Gillespie (46)

Just for comparison, best opening bowlers (since WW1) are:

18.86: Mohammad Abbas (66)
19.25: Alan Davidson (170)
19.48: Colin Croft (74)
19.71: Malcolm Marshall (263)
20.21: Kagiso Rabada (98)
20.22: Joel Garner (127)
20.77: Shane Bond (86)
20.83: Ian Bishop (108)
20.91: Bill Bowes (62)
21.10: Neil Adcock (104)
21.15: Curtly Ambrose (376)
21.34: Glen McGrath (541)
21.57: Fred Trueman (307)
21.84: Vernon Philander (214)
21.90: Imran Khan (347)

Interesting to see the extent to which reality disagrees with perception, even for players you have seen a ton of.

Im a huge Pollock fan, but I pretty much considered him worthless by ATG standards as a change bowler.

Im not that big of a Rabada fan, but considered him almost
unmatched as a change bowler.

Huge fan of your stats posts Andrew. The rest of us all post stats to defend or attack a player. It is great to see stuff without an agenda.

 

[ataraxia]

Ahem. He's advocating for ***-mins supremacy.

 

[h_hurricane]

Anyone thinks Shami has done enough to claim a place in India ATG XI (assuming we are still waiting on Bumrah to play few more years)? I do think Shami has overtaken Zaheer and Srinath. Averages under 27. Wow!

Kapil,Bumrah,Shami and Ashwin have scalped 1031 wickets at around 27. India certainly has an ATVG attack in an ATG team now, with potential to go up further.

 

[vcs]

With India regularly playing 5-man attacks at home, the bowlers are maintaining really good averages but not picking up big hauls, so the WPM is low. Nice problem to have.

When India first rose to No. 1 on the back of Ashwin and Jadeja's heroics in 2015-16, it was a much more spin-focused attack with India playing on a few rank turners, so Ashwin in particular raced to 250+ wickets with a huge number of 5-ers.

 

[Slifer]

Umm no. Bumrah hasn't played near enough tests to be considered for India's at xi. Seriously??!!

 

[h_hurricane]

The benchmark for indian pace bowlers has been pretty low. I would say most are not willing to pick Zaheer or Srinath ahead of Bumrah knowing what you get out of them. Very similar to picking Proctor ahead of Ntini in an ATG SA team(if some one like Pollock or Rabada did not exist). It is not as if we had a Pollock to make it debatable.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Anyone thinks Shami has done enough to claim a place in India ATG XI (assuming we are still waiting on Bumrah to play few more years)? I do think Shami has overtaken Zaheer and Srinath. Averages under 27. Wow!

They're both easily better than Zaheer/Srinath regardless of what they do from this point onwards. Zaheer was only great for a short stretch and even in that purple patch he didn't do anything close to what bumrah managed. And shami has 150+ wickets at 27. Neither Zaheer nor Srinath had a run that good.

 

[Coronis]

Bowes underrated bowler. Hard done by selectors.

 

[ankitj]

With India regularly playing 5-man attacks at home, the bowlers are maintaining really good averages but not picking up big hauls, so the WPM is low. Nice problem to have.

When India first rose to No. 1 on the back of Ashwin and Jadeja's heroics in 2015-16, it was a much more spin-focused attack with India playing on a few rank turners, so Ashwin in particular raced to 250+ wickets with a huge number of 5-ers.

Yeah, Ashwin's wicket taking rate is going to slow down. Not going to make it to fastest 400 (also because it was somewhere after 300 wickets that Murali took off).

 

[h_hurricane]

Yeah, Ashwin's wicket taking rate is going to slow down. Not going to make it to fastest 400 (also because it was somewhere after 300 wickets that Murali took off).

Ashwin might just about become the fastest indian to 500 wickets if he manages to play for 3-4 years. That is one realistic record for him to achieve. Needs to improve his fitness though.

On a different note, Jadeja has been a minor concern as a bowler in the last few matches. Kept darting them in. Didn't hurt India though.

 

[Burgey]

They're both easily better than Zaheer/Srinath regardless of what they do from this point onwards. Zaheer was only great for a short stretch and even in that purple patch he didn't do anything close to what bumrah managed. And shami has 150+ wickets at 27. Neither Zaheer nor Srinath had a run that good.

Shami is awesome. Thought he was terrific out here last year. Has a red hot go

 

[Slifer]

Yeah Shami is a very impressive bowler and certainly belongs in an indian at xi. And I've read the arguments that Indian needs a Shami and/or a Bumrah in their atg team. I assume that that's mostly for away games, because at home an ATG Indian XI is already unbeatable; I don't care who they play against.

 

[kyear2]

which Akram is this?

Wasim Akram was a bonafide new ball bowler and retired with the distinction of having opened the bowling more than anyone else in history, barring kapil dev IIRC

Yeah, can't believe I didn't remember that. Especially after, and I hope I'm remembering this one properly, Haynes changed his entire stance to partly better handle Wasim with the new ball.

 

[Coronis]

Yeah Shami is a very impressive bowler and certainly belongs in an indian at xi. And I've read the arguments that Indian needs a Shami and/or a Bumrah in their atg team. I assume that that's mostly for away games, because at home an ATG Indian XI is already unbeatable; I don't care who they play against.

Cook
Hayden
Kallis
Smith
Lloyd*
Sobers
McCullum+
Benaud
Roberts
Saqlain
Walsh

Tried to pick mainly modernish players who have played in India.

 

[srbhkshk]

Cook
Hayden
Kallis
Smith
Lloyd*
Sobers
McCullum+
Benaud
Roberts
Saqlain
Walsh

Tried to pick mainly modernish players who have played in India.

Gotta have Steyn in there somewhere.

 

[Slifer]

Cook
Hayden
Kallis
Smith
Lloyd*
Sobers
McCullum+
Benaud
Roberts
Saqlain
Walsh

Tried to pick mainly modernish players who have played in India.

I honestly wouldn't dream of picking 2 spinners much less a leg spinner to tour India. But this proves my point, to even do well in india you'll have to pick a composite team. None of the other ATG XI is winning in India. I do however , obviously expect some to do better than others: I'd expect Wi, Australia and South Africa to do better than England or NZ

 

[stephen]

An AT Australian team would beat India in India. Bradman alone would make it happen, but he'd be backed by Smith and Hayden. O'Reilly stylistically was much like Kumble and a pace attack of McGrath, Lillee and Davidson would be good enough to take wickets and bowl dry when necessary.

India's ATG batting lineup (sans Gavaskar) was beaten in 2004 by Australia without Bradman, Smith or O'Reilly. They certainly would not be invincible at home - they'd be exceptionally strong though.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Wasim Jaffar>> Graham Thorpe.

 

[CricAddict]

An AT Australian team would beat India in India. Bradman alone would make it happen, but he'd be backed by Smith and Hayden. O'Reilly stylistically was much like Kumble and a pace attack of McGrath, Lillee and Davidson would be good enough to take wickets and bowl dry when necessary.

India's ATG batting lineup (sans Gavaskar) was beaten in 2004 by Australia without Bradman, Smith or O'Reilly. They certainly would not be invincible at home - they'd be exceptionally strong though.

You never know. Bring on Bradman now to face the current Indian team. Ishant Sharma will york him out.

 

[Slifer]

An AT Australian team would beat India in India. Bradman alone would make it happen, but he'd be backed by Smith and Hayden. O'Reilly stylistically was much like Kumble and a pace attack of McGrath, Lillee and Davidson would be good enough to take wickets and bowl dry when necessary.

India's ATG batting lineup (sans Gavaskar) was beaten in 2004 by Australia without Bradman, Smith or O'Reilly. They certainly would not be invincible at home - they'd be exceptionally strong though.

You present some well thought out points but taking two spinners and unproven Dennis Lillee to India would seriously handicap Australia's attack. Australia does have the batting to do well though , no doubt about that. You say Australia beat an atg Indian team, but conveniently forget that an ordinary indian attack/team sans sehwag, ashwin, kumble, beat a peak atg oz team on a 16 match winning streak. So yeah atg Indian team imo would beat all comers at home.