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The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

Coronis

International Coach
My XI is quite conventional. I have absolutely no idea of the players who played before WW2 (except the popular ones) and so I'll just go with this:

Lennard Hutton, Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, AB de Villiers, Adam Gilchrist, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Malcolm Marshall, Shane Warne, Joel Garner

This is completely biased and not objective, although I don't know how you can be objective. It's ridiculous to compare AB de Villiers with someone who played a 100 years before him. The pace of bowlers, pitches, rules, length of test matches, batting orders, everything was so ridiculously different for me to make a logical comparison.

I mean, I see guys picking players in the 1860s and 70s of whom we have nothing but just descriptions of players who've watched them live in first class cricket. We probably dont even have in depth numbers of these guys. That sounds a bit ridiculous to me. People who watched Vinod Kambli bat in first class cricket probably thought he's the greatest ever. Turns out, he was a mile away from it. Shubman Gill is an absolute best whenever he played first class cricket. Can't put him in all time test xis isn't it?
Apart from @capt_Luffy occasionally mentioning Grace, who is picking people from the 1860’s and 1870’s?

And no, not really a conventional XI with AB and Garner particularly.
 

capt_Luffy

International Coach
Apart from @capt_Luffy occasionally mentioning Grace, who is picking people from the 1860’s and 1870’s?

And no, not really a conventional XI with AB and Garner particularly.
Tbf I have Grace in my ATG team, but then again; it's Grace. And dude played with Rhodes, Hill, Trumper and ffs even Barnes!!
Not AB or Garner, I am more shocked by it likely being the only AT team I have seen without Sobers.
 

Srinath P

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Apart from @capt_Luffy occasionally mentioning Grace, who is picking people from the 1860’s and 1870’s?

And no, not really a conventional XI with AB and Garner particularly.
AB was a bias pick. Sobers was prolly better but I fit in AB because he was one of my favorites. As I said, completely biased and subjective.

I already had Hadlee and Imran to take the new ball in my team. Garner was arguably the greatest non-new ball pacer ever and adds so much variety to this bowling. You can also opt for a second spinner in Muralitharan or go for someone like Barnes.

Hobbs, Hutton, Bradman, Tendulkar, Sobers, Gilchrist, Imran, Hadlee, Marshall, Warne, Barnes. It's looking more conventional now.
 

Srinath P

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
I'll agree with Garner

Rohit as an opener I feel is second to none (except Sachin), with the way he has been batting especially in the past 3 years. I don't really rate 2019 very highly but his 2023 edition was second only to Mark Waugh and Tendulkar 96.

Wasim, McGrath, Garner: All 3 take the new ball and Pollock isn't any better than them as a new ball bowler anyway. So I'll just take a good death bowler and a better batter in Flintoff.
 

Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
Rohit as an opener I feel is second to none (except Sachin), with the way he has been batting especially in the past 3 years.
Rohit is a fine player but I don't pick him in an ATG team for 3 main reasons:

1. Weak against swing/seam/elite pace. I've often seen him dominated in ODIs by Boult and Henry. I don't know if he'd last long against the likes of McGrath, Wasim, Garner, Pollock, Hadlee, Bond, Donald, Bracken etc.

2. He can't bowl. Viv and Sachin are okay, but I'd really want a decent 6th bowling option, so someone like Jayasuriya is considered

3. He is a poor fielder and slow between wickets.
 

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