Fanie didn't play in a match with both Kallis and Cullinan, so the batting was never as good.Surely a team with Fanie de Villiers would be better than Klusener (tests) or Adams? Must have been a team with that.
He's the best after Maharaj, although that's not a particularly high bar.Adams probably one of their best spinners after readmission though.
Huh, interesting! SA batting was definitely a strange beast around that time period.Fanie didn't play in a match with both Kallis and Cullinan, so the batting was never as good.
In this instance I think it's more a result of Fanie not playing that many test matches. He played 18 in total, and only four of those were after Kallis's debut, so it's possible that injuries prevented Kallis and Cullinan playing together in any of those..Huh, interesting! SA batting was definitely a strange beast around that time period.
Most of the batsmen were averaging mid 30s at the time, including Kallis. Kirsten and Cullinan were above 40 but that wasn’t a great batting line up.Huh, interesting! SA batting was definitely a strange beast around that time period.
GripperZimbabwe
Ali Shah
Grant Paterson
Jack Heron
Andy Pycroft
Dave Houghton
Duncan Fletcher
Kevin Curran
Iain Butchart
Peter Rawson
John Traicos
Vince Hogg
Not their best batting line-up by a long chalk (Pycroft-Houghton-Fletcher-Curran is decent, mind), but that bowling attack - Rawson & Hogg to open up with Traicos and Fletcher behind and Curran and Butchart to fill in the gaps.
Granted I've nabbed this from an ODI line-up, but chances are the line-up was pretty similar for any FC played under the Zimbabwe banner at the time.
And that's a vastly better batting line up, with a vastly inferior bowling line-up. And didn't that batting line-up fail pretty badly in the Test that this comes from?Gripper
G. Flower
Goodwin
A. Flower
Johnson
Campbell
G. Whitall
Brent
B. Strang
Olonga
Matambanadzo
this is one.
There was another one with Paul Strang and Streak in.
ZIM never had the chance of Houghton, A. Flower, Johnson and Goodwin playing together, forming a core barring group for an extended time.
Herath for Dharmasena. Basically this, but was beaten 3-0 by Aussies at home. Vastly inferior side to this white washed Aussies about a decade later.MM bringing the goods. 2 for 2 so far.
edit:
Atapattu
Jayasuriya
Sanga +
Mahela
Dilshan
Hashan Tillakaratne
Samaraweera
Chandana
Vaas
Dharmasena
Murali
this one might be a challenger, v Aus in 2004
Comes down to de Silva + Arnold vs Dilshan + SamaraweeraFor me the idea of Sanga, Mahela and Aravinda together in the middle order is too juicy to look past
Sangakkara, Mahela, Sam and Dilshan is one of the gun middle orders of the era. PJ averaging 30 was the keeper to add to that.Comes down to de Silva + Arnold vs Dilshan + Samaraweera
All those players played together in this match:It's really hard to find a line-up where the ingredients of the mid-90s all came together for Zimbabwe at the time. A line-up with Flowers-Goodwin-Johnson-Campbell, but with Streak and maybe Mbangwa or Huckle.