The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[Johan]

I would be so disappointed if you don't vote for Grace in the English Teams when we eventually get there......

is it true that Grace fixed games

 

[capt_Luffy]

is it true that Grace fixed games

The man is more of a myth than a person at this point..... I strongly believe not.

 

[Johan]

Cool player I'd love to watch live XI

1. V.T Trumper
2. C.E Hunte
3. Sir I.V.A Richards
4. R.G Pollock
5. E.D Weekes
6. G.S Sobers
7. A.B De Villiers
8. I.A Khan
9. S.K Warne
10. M.D Marshall
11. S.F Barnes

 

[capt_Luffy]

Cool player I'd love to watch live XI

1. V.T Trumper
2. C.E Hunte
3. Sir I.V.A Richards
4. R.G Pollock
5. E.D Weekes
6. G.S Sobers
7. A.B De Villiers
8. I.A Khan
9. S.K Warne
10. M.D Marshall
11. S.F Barnes

Hunte??

 

[Johan]

Hunte??

his name is so cool I used it as my name in Skyrim for years, just made a slight change, Dragonborn Comrade Hunte, good times.

 

[capt_Luffy]

I want Miller and Ambrose in the team, but not sure for whom....

 

[kyear2]

When we frame these discussions it's always against a hypothetical opponent, or T theoretical higher level. About a year and a half ago PEWs and I did a little exercise to get two equal teams.

With a little adjustment where I go back to my original selection, we came up with.

Kyear

Hobbs
Richards
Bradman
Richards
Smith
Kallis
Knott
Hadlee
Marshall
Steyn
Muralitharan

PEWS

Hutton
Gavaskar
Hammond
Tendulkar
Lara
Sobers
Gilchrist
Imran
Warne
Ambrose
McGrath

Quite a few points from the above

Neither of us came up with two spinners or shortened batting line ups.

Looking at the two teams, it would be interesting to see them play for several reasons.
Which would come out on top.

If it were an intersquad match to determine who made the final XI, who would prevail

Which secondary facets of the game would be more determative towards the outcome.

It also illustrated that there really aren't that many players of the absolute calibre to make such teams. The only two such that were excluded are Wasim and O'Reilly, of course arguments can be made for some others and I could make up a 3rd team consisting of.

Sutcliffe
Greenidge
Headley
Pollock
Chappell / Ponting
Worrell / Miller
Sangakkara (wk)
Procter / Donald / Lindwall / Garner
Wasim
Lillee
O'Reilly

Thinking about it, Bumrah can also slot in there, but yeah, out side of some ATG bowlers that missed out (Davidson, Holding, Pollock, Trueman) that's the absolute limit of the elite players. Though Simpson is a tempting one as well.

And finally, we always talk about the shallow talent pool for elite openers and spinners, but batting all rounders are legitimately as lacking. It's basically Sobers, Kallis and Hammond. After that it's down to the likes of the aforementioned Simpson and Worrell.

 

[kyear2]

 

[Thala_0710]

The video is pretty close to CW consensus of the tier 1 of Viv, Sachin, Abd and Kohli in some order.
The only difference to the cw poll was, Kohli at 3 and Abd at 4, whereas Kimber had them the opposite, perhaps because Wcs are given more weightage here (he gave some weight to wcs, though he didn't do a deeper analysis, ABD for reference has a lot of bashing weak teams). All in all, a good video though.

 

[kyear2]

The video is pretty close to CW consensus of the tier 1 of Viv, Sachin, Abd and Kohli in some order.
The only difference to the cw poll was, Kohli at 3 and Abd at 4, whereas Kimber had them the opposite, perhaps because Wcs are given more weightage here (he gave some weight to wcs, though he didn't do a deeper analysis, ABD for reference has a lot of bashing weak teams). All in all, a good video though.

I personally hate purely statistical analysis of players, especially to this extreme.

It takes away so much from the nuance of the game.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

you're allowed to ignore it and give Lara points for averaging mid 30s against Pakistan and South Africa of 90s and getting no tons, but let's not just pretend Lara was some master player of pace, please.

Excuse me but Sachin is considered the 2nd best ever but even with his tons he too averaged mid 30s vs South Africa and Pakistan of the 90s. So what Sachin was a master vs pace but still had similar output.

 

[Johan]

Excuse me but Sachin is considered the 2nd best ever but even with his tons he too averaged mid 30s vs South Africa and Pakistan of the 90s. So what Sachin was a master vs pace but still had similar output.

much to the dismay of Subs, I point the exact same thing out with Sachin too everytime he's compared to other BAB candidates, so.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

much to the dismay of Subs, I point the exact same thing out with Sachin too everytime he's compared to other BAB candidates, so.

Subz's reasonings are convoluted so I'm not going down that rabbit hole. But regarding Lara vs pace, yes he was suspect and he came up distinctly 2nd best in the two away series vs Ws and Donald in the 90s. But against pace in general he does have some bright moments: '99 series, '03 series vs Lee and Gillespie at home, '05 away to McGrath and Lee. While Lee isn't great he's arguably easily top 3 fastest bowlers ever.

What always puzzled me regarding the Lara vs the Ws and Donald was the fact that in limited overs cricket, Lara had absolutely no issues making runs vs the above attacks. And he once made tons in back to back matches vs both attacks on fked up pacy South African wickets.

 

[govinda indian fan]

Viv is undisputed #1

 

[Coronis]

So I know people love to split things by era and we’re coming up to 150.

So how about splitting test cricket history in half - I’m going to cheat a little and add an extra year to the first half - I don’t think the second half XI will change by the time we get there (prove me wrong Bumrah?) (for crossover players they must have played either half their matches or half of the runs/wickets (depending on primary discipline) in that time period - yes this was to squeeze Miller and Lindwall into the first XI.

1877 @ Melbourne - 1952 @ Auckland

Jack Hobbs
Herbert Sutcliffe
Donald Bradman*
Walter Hammond
George Headley
Keith Miller
Les Ames+
Ray Lindwall
Bill O’Reilly
Sydney Barnes
Bill Johnston

Obviously, Hutton is another option which would be fine either way. I worried over the bowling attack for a bit but actually this seems pretty perfect. Barnes, O’Reilly, 3 genuine proven pacers, 1 of whom can also spin it when the occasion calls for it.

1952 @ Leeds - 2025 @ Bulawayo

Gavaskar
Boycott
Lara
Tendulkar
Smith*
Sobers
Gilchrist+
Hadlee
Marshall
Warne
McGrath

Murali, Imran, Chappell and Richards also considered.

 

[capt_Luffy]

So I know people love to split things by era and we’re coming up to 150.

So how about splitting test cricket history in half - I’m going to cheat a little and add an extra year to the first half - I don’t think the second half XI will change by the time we get there (prove me wrong Bumrah?) (for crossover players they must have played either half their matches or half of the runs/wickets (depending on primary discipline) in that time period - yes this was to squeeze Miller and Lindwall into the first XI.

1877 @ Melbourne - 1952 @ Auckland

Jack Hobbs
Herbert Sutcliffe
Donald Bradman*
Walter Hammond
George Headley
Keith Miller
Les Ames+
Ray Lindwall
Bill O’Reilly
Sydney Barnes
Bill Johnston

Obviously, Hutton is another option which would be fine either way. I worried over the bowling attack for a bit but actually this seems pretty perfect. Barnes, O’Reilly, 3 genuine proven pacers, 1 of whom can also spin it when the occasion calls for it.

1952 @ Leeds - 2025 @ Bulawayo

Gavaskar
Boycott
Lara
Tendulkar
Smith
Sobers
Gilchrist+
Hadlee
Marshall
Warne
McGrath

Murali, Imran, Chappell and Richards also considered.

Is Johnston really the best bet?? He was a very good bowler, but I would rather just go with Spofforth. If someone modern then Bedser. Another spinner allrounder in Rhodes also doesn't sounds bat, although probably Don and Ames makes up for that.

 

[Johan]

1877-1952

Len Hutton
Jack Hobbs
Donald Bradman
WG Grace
Walter Hammond
Aubrey Faulkner
Keith Miller
Les Ames
Ray Lindwall
Bill O Reilly
Sydney Barnes

1953-2025

Sunil Gavaskar
Geoffrey Boycott
Viv Richards
Sachin Tendulkar
Steven Smith
Gary Sobers
Adam Gilchrist
Richard Hadlee
Malcolm Marshall
Shane Warne
Glenn McGrath

if one doesn't agree with Grace, then Hammond goes a slot up and Headley comes at 5

 

[Coronis]

Is Johnston really the best bet?? He was a very good bowler, but I would rather just go with Spofforth. If someone modern then Bedser. Another spinner allrounder in Rhodes also doesn't sounds bat, although probably Don and Ames makes up for that.

I think Johnston gets really overlooked, because of Miller and Lindwall. Could almost consider him the Garner of that attack in a way. He was very consistent, and over the period that is the cutoff here, even better. He injured his knee just prior to the 53 Ashes (in fact @Johan he had cartilage removed by the same surgeon who worked on Compton).

Apparently was rated ahead of Miller and Lindwall and Bedser by the ICC in 3 consecutive years in the early 50’s.

pre 1953 Ashes
29 matches 132 @ 21.75 6 5’fers

From 1953 Ashes
11 matches 28 @ 34.10 1 5’fer

Despite the decline he still had a higher wpm than either Lindwall or Miller.

 

[Johan]

I think Johnston gets really overlooked, because of Miller and Lindwall. Could almost consider him the Garner of that attack in a way. He was very consistent, and over the period that is the cutoff here, even better. He injured his knee just prior to the 53 Ashes (in fact @Johan he had cartilage removed by the same surgeon who worked on Compton).

Apparently was rated ahead of Miller and Lindwall and Bedser by the ICC in 3 consecutive years in the early 50’s.

pre 1953 Ashes
29 matches 132 @ 21.75 6 5’fers

From 1953 Ashes
11 matches 28 @ 34.10 1 5’fer

those are some ***y numbers, was excellent in 1954-55 Ashes as well if I'm not mistaken

 

[capt_Luffy]

I think Johnston gets really overlooked, because of Miller and Lindwall. Could almost consider him the Garner of that attack in a way. He was very consistent, and over the period that is the cutoff here, even better. He injured his knee just prior to the 53 Ashes (in fact @Johan he had cartilage removed by the same surgeon who worked on Compton).

Apparently was rated ahead of Miller and Lindwall and Bedser by the ICC in 3 consecutive years in the early 50’s.

pre 1953 Ashes
29 matches 132 @ 21.75 6 5’fers

From 1953 Ashes
11 matches 28 @ 34.10 1 5’fer

Despite the decline he still had a higher wpm than either Lindwall or Miller.

Okay, so he basically was a Great and then an injury happens from which he never totally recovered. His peak is just of 29 matches though. I mean, there aren't many ATG options, but I do consider Spofforth one. And in context, I think he should make the cut.