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

[mr_mister]

point taken. i guess most other nations struggling to replace their 90s stars in the 21st century while Australia seamlessly transitioned is an imporant factor i hadnt considered enough

 

[mr_mister]

splitting the players in my original post for a late '90s set of sides you can produce some pretty solid teams though, as i will demonstrate for fun:


Michael Slater
Matthew Elliott
Ricky Ponting
Mark Waugh
Darren Lehmann
Stuart Law
Adam Gilchrist +
Shane Warne
Michael Kasprowicz
Brett Lee
Jason Gillespie


Mark Taylor
Matthew Hayden
Justin Langer
Damian Martyn
Steve Waugh
Michael Bevan
Ian Healy +
Paul Reiffel
Damian Fleming
Stuart MacGill
Glen McGrath


even in '98/99 I can see both these sides beating most. A lot of the guys who had yet to 'peak' as test players hadn't had much of a chance to do so really (Gilchrist, Lehmann, Hayden, Martyn) and they were certainly peaking in the shield at that time right?

 

[honestbharani]

Martyn was batting #7 when they played here in India in ODIs at that time and looked honestly clueless against spin. I don't think either side would have won much in 1998, forget both winning, NOw if u do it for 2002 or even 2003, and keep the Waugh twins in there, you might have much better looking sides. Also helps early noughties most sides were pretty bad and trying to rebuild from the leaving of their 90s stars.

 

[morgieb]

Yeah the 90's sides certainly had terrific depth. The only barrier is that I think the quality of other teams (e.g. South Africa, Pakistan, West Indies) was a fair bit higher in the late 90's than the early 2000's.

 

[TheJediBrah]

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.

MM is spot on, must have been some pretty bizarre ranking system if that's true. It's not like they weren't playing regularly either.

 

[Victor Ian]

My recollection of late 90s was that SA were very close to australia, only they seemed to bottle the head to heads. The time frame for australia to field 2 no 1 teams would have to be from 99 to just before 04, when England put together a great pace attack.
In that era, aus 2nd 11 would be in the reckoning for 2nd best, but probably gall just short.

Its easy to name a lot of great players, but how would the pace work without mcgrath? They'd be much more susceptible to ups and downs.

How would the batsmen fare if the pressure was on them to hold it all together, instead of being cream on the cake?

But, yeah, **** it. Aus would have been 1,2 and all the other numbers if they could be bothered, because 'Strayla!'

 

[honestbharani]

99 and 2000 is a bit more understandable. 2001 is when RSA were ranked #1 and even Shaun Pollock was on record saying they did not deserve to be that, or at least they did not consider themselves to be the better side.

 

[Shady Slim]

My recollection of late 90s was that SA were very close to australia, only they seemed to bottle the head to heads. The time frame for australia to field 2 no 1 teams would have to be from 99 to just before 04, when England put together a great pace attack.
In that era, aus 2nd 11 would be in the reckoning for 2nd best, but probably gall just short.

Its easy to name a lot of great players, but how would the pace work without mcgrath? They'd be much more susceptible to ups and downs.

How would the batsmen fare if the pressure was on them to hold it all together, instead of being cream on the cake?

But, yeah, **** it. Aus would have been 1,2 and all the other numbers if they could be bothered, because 'Strayla!'

the reasons you've put up here are why i think if rather than doing Aus A and Aus B you split the players and went for 1a and 1b, evenly balancing the two, it'd make it a lot easier to make the argument they'd be the top two teams in the world at a given time. obvious argument the other way is by splitting the game breakers like warne and gilly you're overextending compared to a side with all their aces but i'd say there was enough quality to mitigate that

 

[mr_mister]

I thought SA's whole thing back then was they had good bowlers but their batting was a big weakness until Kallis and Kirsten came into their own in the 2000s

I mean Cronje and Rhodes were two middle order staples through the whole decade averaging in the mid 30s

 

[a massive zebra]

But Cronje was a handy medium pacer and Rhodes is in contention for the title of best fielder ever, so they both offered more than their mid 30s batting averages would suggest.

 

[Dendarii]

Rhodes wasn't a stable in the mid 90s. His form dipped and he was dropped from the side, but came back successfully towards the end of the decade, averaging mid 40s from 1998 onwards.

 

[honestbharani]

Yep he could not get into the side for tests for a lot of the 90s.

 

[Dendarii]

Yeah, for much of the 90s the South African batting could be a bit iffy at times, but if we're talking about late 90s/early 00s there was Gibbs, Kirsten, Kallis, Cullinan, and a reinvented Rhodes, which is a pretty handy line up. Not to mention that they usually batted deep, with Pollock sometimes only coming in at 9.

 

[stephen]

Australia A would have had the batting, but the bowling was basically what we fielded in the 02/03 series against India and that resulted in a very close series - at home and with the number 1 batting lineup.

Mid to late 90s in ODIs is a different story since there was some legitimate talent in the ODI bowling department at the time. McGrath, Fleming, Gillespie, Reiffel, Warne, Hogg, MacGill, Bichel and Kasprowicz all had careers that overlapped this era and all of whom have good to great ODI records. I don't rate most of those guys to be able to carry an attack at test level, outside McGrath, Warne and MacGill. The rest of the quicks were decent number 2 or 3s. Certainly Dizzy was found out every time he was the attack leader.

 

[stephen]

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.

Three years is an absolutely tiny window of time though.

Sri Lanka won the world cup at home in 96 it's true. But it wasn't a sustained run of form or anything. It just happened that Sri Lanka's best batsmen were at their peaks for the tournament and it was at home. Even using your criteria of 96-98 they had nowhere near the best record (it was South Africa by the way who had a win/loss ratio of roughly 4:1, while Sri Lanka were sitting at 3:2 - and that included a home world cup). In that time period they were dominant in Asia (win/loss of 19:2 in Sri Lanka and 7:2 in India) but went 5:7 in the UAE, 3:5 in Australia (2:3 vs Aus and 1:2 vs WI) and 2:4 in South Africa. Basically they were excellent in Asia and competitive elsewhere. South Africa were far more dominant with positive win rates everywhere during that same time period. It's pretty crazy they didn't win the world cup (except that it's South Africa lol).

Expanding the window of time to between 1994 and 1999, when most of those same guys you mention were playing, Sri Lanka's win/loss is only just over 50% (78:70) which placed them firmly in 4th place overall.

I'm not taking anything away from them when I say that Sri Lanka were very lucky that their home world cup happened to coincide with their players peaking (a bit like Australia in 2015). Saying they were definitively the best at the time though is nonsense. They had a better side for the 2007 world cup and were unfortunate to run into the best world cup side ever assembled and then had some terrible luck in the final on top of that.

South Africa were by far the strongest ODI side of the second half of the 90s and it wasn't even close. They just bottled their biggest and best shot at grabbing a world cup. If the 96 world cup were held in England, Australia or the West Indies, I'm sure that South Africa would have run away with it.

 

[Migara]

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

Sure signs that a raw nerve is being pinched.

 

[Migara]

Three years is an absolutely tiny window of time though.

Sri Lanka won the world cup at home in 96 it's true. But it wasn't a sustained run of form or anything. It just happened that Sri Lanka's best batsmen were at their peaks for the tournament and it was at home. Even using your criteria of 96-98 they had nowhere near the best record (it was South Africa by the way who had a win/loss ratio of roughly 4:1, while Sri Lanka were sitting at 3:2 - and that included a home world cup). In that time period they were dominant in Asia (win/loss of 19:2 in Sri Lanka and 7:2 in India) but went 5:7 in the UAE, 3:5 in Australia (2:3 vs Aus and 1:2 vs WI) and 2:4 in South Africa. Basically they were excellent in Asia and competitive elsewhere. South Africa were far more dominant with positive win rates everywhere during that same time period. It's pretty crazy they didn't win the world cup (except that it's South Africa lol).

Expanding the window of time to between 1994 and 1999, when most of those same guys you mention were playing, Sri Lanka's win/loss is only just over 50% (78:70) which placed them firmly in 4th place overall.

I'm not taking anything away from them when I say that Sri Lanka were very lucky that their home world cup happened to coincide with their players peaking (a bit like Australia in 2015). Saying they were definitively the best at the time though is nonsense. They had a better side for the 2007 world cup and were unfortunate to run into the best world cup side ever assembled and then had some terrible luck in the final on top of that.

South Africa were by far the strongest ODI side of the second half of the 90s and it wasn't even close. They just bottled their biggest and best shot at grabbing a world cup. If the 96 world cup were held in England, Australia or the West Indies, I'm sure that South Africa would have run away with it.

South Africa hardly played SL at home. That would have dented that ratio big time during that period. SAF were woeful against spin and SL had a solid spin bowling department then. I could say the same about 1999 WC, if it was in sub continent, either Pakistan or Sri Lanka would have won that.

Initial post is about Australia being able to field 2 sides better than any other country. For half of a decade, they could not even field a single side who was capable of it. The late 90s two dominant sides were SL and SAF.

 

[Victor Ian]

you do realise that the initial post is about Australia fielding two TEST sides better than any other country. If you are going to ignore that, I don't understand why you don't just go full ****** and argue that Sri Lanka were the most winningest side ever in games that they won.

 

[mr_mister]

Yep he could not get into the side for tests for a lot of the 90s.

I feel this isn't really true, he played 48 tests for SA in the '90s, only 4 players played more for them in that decade (Cronje, Donald, Kirsten, Cullinan)

Cronje played 64 over the decade and I assume this was basically every single test, so 48/64 for Rhodes isn't a bad showing

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...al1=span;team=3;template=results;type=batting

He may have been dropped once or twice but he was still more or less a staple IMO

he wasn't out for several years at a time or anything like that, there wasn't a single year that passed where he didn't at least play a couple of tests

 

[a massive zebra]

I feel this isn't really true, he played 48 tests for SA in the '90s, only 4 players played more for them in that decade (Cronje, Donald, Kirsten, Cullinan)

Cronje played 64 over the decade and I assume this was basically every single test, so 48/64 for Rhodes isn't a bad showing

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...al1=span;team=3;template=results;type=batting

He may have been dropped once or twice but he was still more or less a staple IMO

he wasn't out for several years at a time or anything like that, there wasn't a single year that passed where he didn't at least play a couple of tests

South Africa played 66 tests in the 1990s, so Rhodes played in 73% of them.

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...anval1=span;team=3;template=results;type=team