The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread (white ball edition)

[CricAddict]

Time for a bit of a change of pace then. Here is my all-time England XI. (I'm sure someone could do better than this tbh).

Jason Roy
Kevin Pietersen
Joe Root
Eoin Morgan*
Allan Lamb
Jos Buttler+
Ben Stokes
Andrew Flintoff
Ian Botham
Graeme Swann
Darren Gough

Unlucky: Jonny Bairstow, Marcus Trescothick, Graeme Hick, Paul Collingwood, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett, James Anderson, Bob Willis

Collingwood will be a great 12th man. Both Bairstow and Trescothick terribly unlucky. Tresco was a favourite of mine. Not sure over whom they can come in though.

Also, yes, Stokes, Flintoff and Botham from 7-9 is too much batting sacrificing the bowling.

 

[Burgey]

How many better bowlers do you reckon England has had than Flintoff and Botham in the ODI format? BTW, there's no way Flintoff bats above Botham. He's seven times the bloke and 1/3 the cricketer Botham was.

 

[jimmy101]

Good team, I actually wouldn't be opposed to swapping Lamb with Collingwood to get some extra 5th bowling option. Similiar sort of batsmen in terms of strike rate I think, I could be wrong..

Again, not sure if Colly has what it takes to squeeze out 10 overs at ATG level. Collingwood/Stokes bowling 5 each would be passable I suppose.

Collingwood will be a great 12th man. Both Bairstow and Trescothick terribly unlucky. Tresco was a favourite of mine. Not sure over whom they can come in though.

Also, yes, Stokes, Flintoff and Botham from 7-9 is too much batting sacrificing the bowling.

Yeah I wanted Tresco in there but couldn't fit him in. To alleviate the lack of bowling options I'm convinced that subbing in Jimmeh for Roy is the best bet (KP & Root to open).

How many better bowlers do you reckon England has had than Flintoff and Botham in the ODI format? BTW, there's no way Flintoff bats above Botham. He's seven times the bloke and 1/3 the cricketer Botham was.

More than happy for Beefy to come in at 8. Considering Botham & Flintoff could get into the side on their bowling alone it really does make their lower-order drip with batting depth.

 

[CricAddict]

How many better bowlers do you reckon England has had than Flintoff and Botham in the ODI format? BTW, there's no way Flintoff bats above Botham. He's seven times the bloke and 1/3 the cricketer Botham was.

Agreed. My point is, there are very few bowlers in the team. When they play other countries's ATG XI, they might be thrashed and will have no good 6th bowler to look forward to. We can probably move them up one slot, drop one of the flat track bashers Roy/Morgan and take Woakes. Doesn't weaken the batting much while strengthening the bowling.

 

[DriveClub]

Remember Nick Knight having really good success opening in ODIs for england in early 2000s. Trott another one comes to mind but obviously too slow for modern ODIs.

 

[DriveClub]

Again, not sure if Colly has what it takes to squeeze out 10 overs at ATG level. Collingwood/Stokes bowling 5 each would be passable I suppose.



Yeah I wanted Tresco in there but couldn't fit him in. To alleviate the lack of bowling options I'm convinced that subbing in Jimmeh for Roy is the best bet (KP & Root to open).



More than happy for Beefy to come in at 8. Considering Botham & Flintoff could get into the side on their bowling alone it really does make their lower-order drip with batting depth.

Yeah I was thinking Stokes and collingwood sharing 10 overs. Stokes 6 overs and Colly 4 overs could work

 

[jimmy101]

England 'A'

Nick Knight/Alec Stewart
Marcus Trescotick
Jonathan Trott
Graeme Hick
Jonny Bairstow+
Neil Fairbrother
Paul Collingwood*
Chris Woakes
Adil Rashid
James Anderson
Bob Willis

This one's based off of my first XI from the previous page. Considering after some feedback I ended up leaning towards picking Anderson over Roy, I'd open with Roy/Tresco for this XI (Knight & Stewart unlucky to miss out). Stuart Broad would come in for Anderson.

 

[honestbharani]

Geez can't believe Symonds as a 5th bowler in an ATG XI is still being spoken about.

Its easy to believe when you realize its the same 2 or 3 with the same agenda. Hurricane is juz arguing the obvious.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah I was thinking Stokes and collingwood sharing 10 overs. Stokes 6 overs and Colly 4 overs could work

Root and KP can bowl part time thrash when in a pinch too. Its shaping up pretty well, the English ATG ODI XI. Used to be the laughing stock even 5 years ago. Amazing change since then.

 

[CricAddict]

Root and KP can bowl part time thrash when in a pinch too. Its shaping up pretty well, the English ATG ODI XI. Used to be the laughing stock even 5 years ago. Amazing change since then.

Yes, just missing a ATG ODI bowler. Rest of the pieces fit in well.

 

[h_hurricane]

This is so ridiculous.

Why so ridiculous ? Mick Lewis went for 113 in that epic match vs SA, Rashid Khan had similar figures vs England in the recent world cup. Even Malinga, one of the best yorker bowlers ever, went for 96 in 7.4 overs in that 300+ chase vs India.

And yet, you think Symonds will somehow withstand the onslaught. If anything, he will consistently go for those kind of figures.

 

[h_hurricane]

How many better bowlers do you reckon England has had than Flintoff and Botham in the ODI format? BTW, there's no way Flintoff bats above Botham. He's seven times the bloke and 1/3 the cricketer Botham was.

Flintoff was easily a step up (may be 2 steps) on Botham as an ODI cricketer. He was the better bowler as well as better batsman.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah but who else is there who's a better package than Botham in that role?

 

[TheJediBrah]

Why so ridiculous ? Mick Lewis went for 113 in that epic match vs SA, Rashid Khan had similar figures vs England in the recent world cup. Even Malinga, one of the best yorker bowlers ever, went for 96 in 7.4 overs in that 300+ chase vs India.

And yet, you think Symonds will somehow withstand the onslaught. If anything, he will consistently go for those kind of figures.

That's absurd. Even just looking at career economy Symonds went at 5.00 an over. Malinga went at 5.35. I'm not saying Symonds would be a great ATG 5th bowler but pretending that he'd go for 100 off 10 every other game is idiotic.

And for what feels like the 50th time, no one is picking Symonds in an ATG team because he's the best 5th bowler

Personally I'd consider picking him ahead of Bevan at 6 and not have to rely on his bowling. I know that would be unpopular but Symonds actually averages about the same as Bevan outside Australia (with a much better SR) and in the field is in a completely different league. And while you wouldn't want to rely on him bowling 10 overs every game his bowling is nowhere near as bad as a lot of you are pretending it is.

 

[Daemon]

Why so ridiculous ? Mick Lewis went for 113 in that epic match vs SA, Rashid Khan had similar figures vs England in the recent world cup. Even Malinga, one of the best yorker bowlers ever, went for 96 in 7.4 overs in that 300+ chase vs India.

And yet, you think Symonds will somehow withstand the onslaught. If anything, he will consistently go for those kind of figures.

Nah definitely an exaggeration imo. I feel he’ll leak runs at 7-8ish per over and then the captain will be forced to bowl his sixth bowler who will go for something similar. But he’ll bat 7 balls in an ATG lineup so I suppose that makes it worth it.

 

[DriveClub]

Symonds is a 6th bowler not a 5th bowler, he can fill in overs if the 5th bowler goes for runs. No way he's bowling 10 overs in an ATG XI team if they're bowling first (assuming they're playing against another pretend ATG XI)

 

[jimmy101]

I motion we henceforth refer to ODI pie-chuckers as "Symonds-tier" bowlers.

EG: Malinga was world class when at his best, but in that 300+ chase vs India he definitely became Symonds-tier.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I always feel that fielding is taken into account nowhere near enough in this sort of thing. A gun fielder can save 20-30 runs in an innings from ground fielding alone, and that extra classic catch/run out they take on occasion could make an immeasurable difference.

Just using Flintoff or Bevan as examples. It's not crazy to think that Symonds could save an extra 20 runs a game on average with fielding alone than Flintoff or Bevan. It's also fair on the other hand to think that Flintoff could save those 20 runs with his bowling compared to Symonds. If I had to guess though I'd back the former as a more likely scenario, and a diving catch or freak run out to dismiss an ATG batsman, while a rare occurrence, could save a team 50+ runs easily.

And all this is without taking consideration the difference in pressure on the batsmen that having a solid and dangerous inner ring can be, which can bring about mistakes. I may be exaggerating but it irks me a little how underrated fielding ability is in this sort of context. It's like everyone knows what a huge difference strong fielding makes in the context of games but when it comes to picking a theoretical side like this it just gets thrown out the window.

 

[jimmy101]

I always feel that fielding is taken into account nowhere near enough in this sort of thing. A gun fielder can save 20-30 runs in an innings from ground fielding alone, and that extra classic catch/run out they take on occasion could make an immeasurable difference.

Just using Flintoff or Bevan as examples. It's not crazy to think that Symonds could save an extra 20 runs a game on average with fielding alone than Flintoff or Bevan. It's also fair on the other hand to think that Flintoff could save those 20 runs with his bowling compared to Symonds. If I had to guess though I'd back the former as a more likely scenario, and a diving catch or freak run out to dismiss an ATG batsman, while a rare occurrence, could save a team 50+ runs easily.

And all this is without taking consideration the difference in pressure on the batsmen that having a solid and dangerous inner ring can be, which can bring about mistakes. I may be exaggerating but it irks me a little how underrated fielding ability is in this sort of context. It's like everyone knows what a huge difference strong fielding makes in the context of games but when it comes to picking a theoretical side like this it just gets thrown out the window.

Absolutely. All of this is extremely valid. I once used a similar argument to advocate Jonty Rhodes.

 

[DriveClub]

I wouldn't be opposed to having guys like Symonds/Rhodes/Ponting/Gibbs(apart from that choke ) in the top 6 just for their fielding tbh but it's a different argument though.