In the late '90s/early 00s could Australia put out the best 2 XI's in world cricket?

[mr_mister]

Looking at the depth Australia had in its ranks from say 96-02 I wonder if an Australia A could beat nearly everyone else in the test arena. I know there was an ODI experiment in 1995 where they used Australia A and it showed they were top class, but expanded out to tests would they still be as dominant?

So from this era here are roughly our 22 best players, I know timelines are a bit overlapped and not all of these guys were stars/peaked at the same time but around 97-98 they were all active

4 openers:

Taylor
Slater
Elliott
Hayden

8 middle order batsman:

S Waugh
M Waugh
Ponting
Langer
Lehmann
Martyn
Bevan
Law

2 keepers:

Healy
Gilchrist

2 spinners:

Warne
MacGill

6 quicks:

McGrath
Gillespie
Fleming
B Lee
Reiffel
Kasprowicz


There are some other potential names of course, Blewett, Bichel etc. Boon and McDermott also made it to 1996 but I feel that's cheating to include them

I feel though the bowling was maybe a step behind what Pakistan, Windies and SA could offer at their best in 1998(assuming the 2nd Xi would be missing both Warne and McGrath) the batting stocks were essentially twice as deep as every other country's bar maybe India. Nearly any combination of those 12 players in either top 6 would be full of ATG and future ATGs

 

[honestbharani]

Blewett and Bichel should be in there IMO. I never thought Elliott was much flash and Hayden was not any good till he had that amazing India tour. Bevan was found out at test level and Ponting and Martyn were nowhere near their best, and Langer was pretty so-so. Brett Lee only showed up around 1999 IIRC at the international level, and Gillespie hit his prime around 1999 and not before. So I think if you are strictly considering an Australia A side for 1997-1998, they would have been at best, middle of the road, as an international side.

 

[mr_mister]

I don't know exactly which year I want to focus on. Use 2001 instead of 1997 and you could replace Taylor, Healy and Reiffel with Cox, Berry and Bracken or some such combination. And then all those players like Ponting, Hayden Martyn, Langer and Dizzy who had not yet peaked were suddenly in their prime

I'm definitely kind of just roughly averaging out what our strongest year was by using 97/98 as the example year.

Either way it still leaves out people like Hussey, Siddons, Love, Katich, endless list of batting names really...

Maybe establishing which year was Australia's strongest(in terms of depth) is a necessary step before deciding the 22 players

 

[Migara]

Looking at the depth Australia had in its ranks from say 96-02 I wonder if an Australia A could beat nearly everyone else in the test arena. I know there was an ODI experiment in 1995 where they used Australia A and it showed they were top class, but expanded out to tests would they still be as dominant?

So from this era here are roughly our 22 best players, I know timelines are a bit overlapped and not all of these guys were stars/peaked at the same time but around 97-98 they were all active

4 openers:

Taylor
Slater
Elliott
Hayden

8 middle order batsman:

S Waugh
M Waugh
Ponting
Langer
Lehmann
Martyn
Bevan
Law

2 keepers:

Healy
Gilchrist

2 spinners:

Warne
MacGill

6 quicks:

McGrath
Gillespie
Fleming
B Lee
Reiffel
Kasprowicz


There are some other potential names of course, Blewett, Bichel etc. Boon and McDermott also made it to 1996 but I feel that's cheating to include them

I feel though the bowling was maybe a step behind what Pakistan, Windies and SA could offer at their best in 1998(assuming the 2nd Xi would be missing both Warne and McGrath) the batting stocks were essentially twice as deep as every other country's bar maybe India. Nearly any combination of those 12 players in either top 6 would be full of ATG and future ATGs

Nope. In 96 - 98 period they could not even put out the best XI even. It was either SL XI or SAF XI. A combined SAF + SL XI of late 90s would be better than any side that Australia managed to field.

Openers:
Jayasuriya clearly better than all four Aussie openers.

Middle order:
De Silva and Ranatunga were hot in middle order

Spinners:
No contest. Murali way better than Warne in ODIs

Fast bowlers:
Only Mac Grath and Lee could boast the quality over Vaas in ODIs.

Keepers:
Healy was a better keeper. Kaluwitharana was a better Keeper batsman.


So yes, looking at overall records you may form a best XI, but not two best XIs when you have a WC winning side who were beating sides left right and center in late 90s. But if you consider performances of late 90s, SL XI was extremely hot, and it is a joke to suggest Aussies had a better 22 players but repeatedly their arses being handed over to them in encounters.

 

[Migara]

A combined XI of SAF and SL in 95 - 99 period would be;

Jayasuriya
Atapattu
Kallis
Aravinda
Arjuna*
Cronje
Boucher+
Klusener
Pollock
Donald
Muralitharan

Beat that if you can.

 

[honestbharani]

Migara, think Mr2 ​was talking about Tests, not ODIs.

 

[mr_mister]

Yes, I did want to focus on tests. I have no issue declaring most teams were more than capable of beating Australia's first XI in ODIs around that era and therefore our second XI would be a step behind nearly all of them


Maybe it was a mistake to use 98 as my initial year too, 2000/2001 might have been the better option

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah coz if you go to any time post 2001, you are talking about a truly world beating side, one of the greatest of all time. And therefore, more chances the second XI could be very very good too.

 

[Flem274*]

bowling could get sketchy quick, but it would be a solid test side for sure.

 

[Shady Slim]

see if you balance the teams and instead of having australia and australia a you go for australia 1a and australia 1b, like rather than a first xi and second xi, i think you could do it

 

[mr_mister]

Ah yes, so Warne in one team and McGrath in another? And Gilchrist in the side with the weaker batting.

yes that would probably work

 

[TheJediBrah]

Nope. In 96 - 98 period they could not even put out the best XI even. It was either SL XI or SAF XI. A combined SAF + SL XI of late 90s would be better than any side that Australia managed to field.

Openers:
Jayasuriya clearly better than all four Aussie openers.

Middle order:
De Silva and Ranatunga were hot in middle order

Spinners:
No contest. Murali way better than Warne in ODIs

Fast bowlers:
Only Mac Grath and Lee could boast the quality over Vaas in ODIs.

Keepers:
Healy was a better keeper. Kaluwitharana was a better Keeper batsman.


So yes, looking at overall records you may form a best XI, but not two best XIs when you have a WC winning side who were beating sides left right and center in late 90s. But if you consider performances of late 90s, SL XI was extremely hot, and it is a joke to suggest Aussies had a better 22 players but repeatedly their arses being handed over to them in encounters.

I heard the average Sri Lankan club under-13 B-grade player in the 90s was better than Bradman at his best, can confirm?

 

[TheJediBrah]

Anyway feel like we discuss this almost every week on here. Late 90s also a weird point to focus as Aus were most dominant in mid-00s where they were practically unbeatable. In late 90s they were the best but could still be beaten on their day.

To answer the question though, I think it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that Aus could have put forward the best 2 sides if you take the whole period into consideration and not a single point in time. Stretching it to a 10 year period 1997-2007 you could come up with:

Slater
Taylor
Katich
Waugh
Waugh
Lehmann
Healy
Johnson
Gillespie
Fleming
MacGill


Langer
Hayden
Ponting
Martyn
Clarke
Hussey
Gilchrist
Warne
Lee
Clark
McGrath

Both those sides would be favourites against any other international side from the same time, but that is stretching it out a bit to an 8-9 year period at best.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Same time period for India:

1 Jaffer
2 Bangar
3 A.Jadeja
4 Tendulkar
5 Azharuddin
6 Ganguly
7 Dhoni
8 Agarkar
9 Kumble
10 Harbhajan
11 Srinath


1 Sehwag
2 Gambhir
3 Dravid
4 Laxman
5 Yuvraj
6 Kaif
7 P Patel
8 I Pathan
9 Z Khan
10 I Sharma
11 M Kartik

A few questionable choices. Struggled to find openers, had to make do with Bangar and Jaffer. Not sure Ajay Jadeja, Kaif or Murali Kartik quite up to standard either. I always rated Parthiv Patel though.

Would HB or anyone have any alterations? I'd be interested in making some comparisons between countries, keeping in mind that it was a very arbitrary time period chosen to ideally suit Australia.

 

[honestbharani]

I really don't think we would have ever had a second XI to take on international sides, even at home, except maybe the 2010s. I am in a bit of a hurrry and multitasking right now, will go through the teams and post more detailed thoughts later.

Australia A circa 2002 would be pretty damn good though.

 

[mr_mister]

I think one reason why I focused on the late 90s was that I feel Fleming/Reiffel were pretty awesome bowlers (with test records more impressive than Brett Lee, Kasper, Bichel and Johnson) and their international careers were pretty much over by the 21st century

You can find 12 great aussie batsman in any year from 95-05 really but bowling is where we're a bit weaker

 

[morgieb]

Australia A would easily be international standard, but don't think they'd have been #2 in the world at any point.

If you split the 22 evenly then it's a different story. Not convinced they'd be better than South Africa circa the late 90's, but could easily be 1 and 2 in the early 00's. Bowling probably a concern at some parts though.

 

[Bolo.]

2002 sounds plausible, even with the bowling issues, because everyone else had even bigger issues. Before that, no, even by splitting the players. Aus actually lost the no 1 ranking briefly in 99, 2000, and 2001, and before that a number of teams were very competitive.

 

[mr_mister]

I mean considering they won 16 tests in a row during that time I'd say any loss of number 1 ranking could be put down to a flaw in the ranking system... especially in 2000 when they won 8/8 tests

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah, I really don't think an Aus A would have been competitive outside Aus in the 90s but from around 2002 to anywhere till 2007 I think their second best side would have given a run for money for many countries' first sides.