Been thinking about what my all-time eleven would be among players who retired after 1970 (considering their careers as a whole).
In my mind, I prefer teams that try to win, rather than to avoid losing, so I’m for aggressive batters, bowlers with high strike rates, and a broadly win-minded approach. I’ll go through my eleven and then justify it. Note: I’m evaluating players cumulatively over their careers, rather than merely their peaks.
- Barry Richards
- Gordon Greenidge
- Viv Richards
- Brian Lara
- Steve Smith
- Garry Sobers
- Adam Gilchrist †
- Wasim Akram
- Malcolm Marshall
- Shane Warne
- Dale Steyn
The openers: Barry Richards, in my mind, is the best first-class opener of this period. His contemporaries considered him the most talented batter of his generation, perhaps surpassing Viv. I actually suspect Gavaskar was a better opener than Greenidge—but for the
approach I’m taking with my side, I prefer batters who can attack even pretty good deliveries and take risks, so I picked Greenidge anyway.
The middle order: Viv speaks for himself. I think Tendulkar’s probably a marginally better batsman than Lara, but I needed a left-hander. Smith isn’t quite so aggressive as the rest of my top five—although our standards for aggression have increased over time, and he’s more than capable of dispatching away good balls and scoring at 60ish rates on form—but as far as I’m concerned, he’s the best Test batter since Bradman.
The all-rounders: I picked Sobers over Kallis for someone who can dominate bowling attacks in that position, and for an additional left-hander. I considered picking a pure wicketkeeper like Knott to strengthen the bowling, but I reckon Gilchrist’s presence also frees up the earlier batters to bat with freedom.
The bowlers: Akram might be marginally worse than the likes of Khan/Hadlee/McGrath/Lillee/Ambrose, but having a somewhat more unpredictable left-armer—more variations, swinging it both ways, reverse swinging the old ball, able to swing it or bowl yorkers at pace—seems worth it to me, even though Sobers offers another left-arm option. I’m open to being convinced that Sobers is enough and McGrath’s too good to be excluded. As far as I’m concerned, though, Warne, Marshall, and Murali are the three greatest bowlers of all time—except perhaps Sydney Barnes—and Steyn is the second-best fast bowler of this period. I ended up excluding Murali as I consider Warne marginally better.