I’m trying to come up with an Australian all-time ODI eleven, but running into some problems.
As a preview, here’s where I am at the moment (you’ll notice, most notably, Dean Jones and Glenn Maxwell missing):
Let’s start with the certain picks:
As a preview, here’s where I am at the moment (you’ll notice, most notably, Dean Jones and Glenn Maxwell missing):
- Gilchrist
- Warner
- Ponting
- Hussey
- Bevan
- Symonds
- Watson
- Starc
- Warne
- Lee
- McGrath
Let’s start with the certain picks:
- Warne and McGrath are your best bowlers
- Gilchrist takes the gloves
- Ponting and Bevan bat in the middle order
- Starc is probably the next-best ODI bowler, and offers a left-arm option with a load of swing
- For the remaining ODI bowler, do you pick Brett Lee or Dennis Lillee? I’m inclined to pick a bowler with more variations, who can bowl at the death if required.
- Dean Jones was the best batter in the world for a fair amount of time, so should he take Hussey’s, Symonds’s, or Watson’s spot? At the same time, he wasn’t a very quick-scoring player – and in my view, while shorter boundaries and flatter pitches have helped, the modern norm of quick-scoring batting leads to better ODI batting and would have made players successful back in his time (of course, he could score quickly, but on the whole), so I’m inclined to prefer Hussey; and Symonds and Watson are allrounders.
- Glenn Maxwell has immense potential to be high-impact. He’s not nearly as consistent as someone like Symonds, and a worse bowler, but with a generally consistent team, maybe you want a player who is inconsistent but, at their best, can produce one of the all-time best ODI knocks. There’s maybe a case to make Watson open instead of Warner, then, to accommodate Maxwell (or to do the same thing for Dean Jones); or even replace Symonds. But Warner feels far too strong as on opener.
- Should we be trying to accommodate Steve Waugh or Greg Chappell for allround options in the middle?
