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Ridiculous Comparisons (and any other draft related items) that don't deserve their own thread

Who is the better Test bowler?

  • Bill Johnston

    Votes: 7 70.0%
  • Stuart Clark

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • Total voters
    10

shortpitched713

International Captain
This is the place to "Ask the Audience" on any and all of your drafting conundrums, and if indeed PlayerComparisons is an alt, we'll hopefully see a lot less comparison posting on the main CC forum (lol who knows).

I'll start with one for the last pick of the current draft:

Bill Johnston vs Stuart Clark as Test bowlers?

For Johnston:
He's an Invincible
He's got a funny as hell action, can post clips, if anyone wants
Played more tests, and took more wickets
Could bowl left arm seam and orthodox spin

For Clark:
He's all fast and modern and stuff
Shades of Glenn McGrath with his accuracy
He could probably do your taxes once the match is over

Both have about the same average of 23 odd, who would you pick in a draft as a specialist bowler?
 

shortpitched713

International Captain
Have you ever been drafting, and thought to yourself any of these questions "Why am I using such smol brain strategies as picking specialists?", "Should I ascend from the baseline plane of thinking involving simply pick bowler with low average, batsman with high average?" "Should I start justifying my picks based on nuanced concepts like value and flexibility, and start running teams that are hard to compare with literally anyone else's?"

In that case you should consider joining the:

Astute All-Rounders Appreciating Assembly

Just pick all-rounders, easy enough no? No, actually the below are a comprehensive list of the all-rounders which you must pick before picking their specialist counterparts, at risk of being kicked out of our prestigious association. Simply at the start of a vanilla draft (no Bradman), whenever GOAT specialists are available, you must choose one of the following all-rounders instead, if available:

Batting All-Rounders (choose before Brian Lara):
Wally Hammond
Garry Sobers
Jacques Kallis

Seam Bowling All-Rounders (choose before Glenn McGrath):
Keith Miller
Imran Khan
Richard Hadlee
Ian Botham
Kapil Dev
Shaun Pollock

Spin Bowling All-Rounders (choose before Muttiah Muralitharan):
Ravichandran Ashwin
Ravindra Jadeja


Yes, yes I hear "But actually shortpitched, I think Tendulkar/Marshall/Warne, etc. are the GOAT batsman/seamer/spinner!" I'm happy for you bro, but for the purposes of comparing an all-rounder to specialists and avoiding confounding variables, I have selected these specific GOAT specialists due to their lack of competence at their secondary skill.

Basic rules also do not require the picking of any more than 2 bowling all-rounders. Once you have 2, you are free to choose the best available specialist bowlers. Also, once you have 5 full-time bowlers (including all-rounders), you do not any longer have to consider bowling as a factor in considering your batsmen picks. Happy drafting, my current and future AAAA members!
 
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shortpitched713

International Captain
All are front-line bowlers, so it's not like you're picking up someone debatable like a Ben Stokes or something. You use your second pick for a specialist new ball partner because you basically can't do anything else because everyone here likes to pick 7 seam bowlers before they even consider picking any other type of cricketer. Regardless you end up with a team that can always score more runs than the side which went for just specialist seamers, and to top it off, you might end up with more bowlers too.
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
To be fair we all know that if Jadeja or Ashwin played in the 1930s they would be way more popular in drafts than they are now.
To add to this, we all secretly admit every noteworthy batsman from the 00s is as good as or better than McCabe, right?
 

shortpitched713

International Captain
Did my own self draft (snake picks and everything) of 3 Post WWII Test XIs excluding currently active players, and here's the teams that I got. I like to call them the "You get everything XIs", because, well they each get basically everything they want to maximize strength in all areas:

Team 1

Bill Lawry
Sunil Gavaskar
Ken Barrington
Javed Miandad
Adam Gilchrist
Tony Greig
Shaun Pollock
Richard Hadlee
Malcolm Marshall
Shane Warne
Allan Donald


Team 2

Virender Sehwag
Matthew Hayden
Everton Weekes
Jacques Kallis
Viv Richards
AB de Villiers
Ian Botham
Vernon Philander
Joel Garner
Muttiah Muralitharan
Glenn McGrath


Team 3

Graeme Smith
Gordon Greenidge
Kumar Sangakkara
Brian Lara
Neil Harvey
Garry Sobers
Keith Miller
Imran Khan
Anil Kumble
Dale Steyn
Curtly Ambrose


I wanted to maintain comparable team balances for all, with 2 bowling all-rounders, a batting all-rounder, and a spinner for each team, so there is an "interesting" last pick for each of them, lol.

Might sim this later, but anyway, which of these teams do you guys find stronger?
 
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shortpitched713

International Captain
Did my own self draft (snake picks and everything) of 3 Post WWII Test XIs excluding currently active players, and here's the teams that I got. I like to call them the "You get everything XIs", because, well they each get basically everything they want to maximize strength in all areas:

Team 1

Bill Lawry
Sunil Gavaskar
Ken Barrington
Javed Miandad
Adam Gilchrist
Tony Greig
Shaun Pollock
Richard Hadlee
Malcolm Marshall
Shane Warne
Allan Donald


Team 2

Virender Sehwag
Matthew Hayden
Everton Weekes
Jacques Kallis
Viv Richards
AB de Villiers
Ian Botham
Vernon Philander
Joel Garner
Muttiah Muralitharan
Glenn McGrath


Team 3

Graeme Smith
Gordon Greenidge
Kumar Sangakkara
Brian Lara
Neil Harvey
Garry Sobers
Keith Miller
Imran Khan
Anil Kumble
Dale Steyn
Curtly Ambrose


I wanted to maintain comparable team balances for all, with 2 bowling all-rounders, a batting all-rounder, and a spinner for each team, so there is an "interesting" last pick for each of them, lol.

Might sim this later, but anyway, which of these teams do you guys find stronger?
No one want to take a punt at this before I sim it?
 
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Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
Team 1

Bill Lawry
Sunil Gavaskar
Ken Barrington
Javed Miandad
Adam Gilchrist
Tony Greig
Shaun Pollock
Richard Hadlee
Malcolm Marshall
Shane Warne
Allan Donald


Team 2

Virender Sehwag
Matthew Hayden
Everton Weekes
Jacques Kallis
Viv Richards
AB de Villiers
Ian Botham
Vernon Philander
Joel Garner
Muttiah Muralitharan
Glenn McGrath


Team 3

Graeme Smith
Gordon Greenidge
Kumar Sangakkara
Brian Lara
Neil Harvey
Garry Sobers
Keith Miller
Imran Khan
Anil Kumble
Dale Steyn
Curtly Ambrose


I wanted to maintain comparable team balances for all, with 2 bowling all-rounders, a batting all-rounder, and a spinner for each team, so there is an "interesting" last pick for each of them, lol.

Might sim this later, but anyway, which of these teams do you guys find stronger?
You could add team 4 (following your directives):

Bob Simpson
Barry Richards
Ricky Ponting
Sachin Tendulkar
Graeme Pollock
BJ Watling
Kapil Dev
Ray Lindwall
Wasim Akram
Hugh Tayfield
Fred Trueman
 

shortpitched713

International Captain
The batting of that team looks like it could be comparable to Team 1 or 2, but the bowling I think, looks a step down to all of them.
 

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