2000s debutant test XI

[BazBall21]

Watling for AB and Younis Khan for Root. Also there are question marks about Cook especially as he was poor against left armers.

Sehwag v Cook is very close, but I just can't look past Sehwag's record in countries where the ball moves laterally. An important examination for opening batsmen because they are assigned to see off the new ball and those conditions are where the new ball is at its most challenging. As an opener, he averaged 21 in England, New Zealand and South Africa.

Cook was no great player in seaming conditions himself, but he did a stable job there; and was very good in Asia where Sehwag excelled.

 

[Majestic]

Watling for AB and Younis Khan for Root. Also there are question marks about Cook especially as he was poor against left armers.

Watling is a quality keeper batsman and can be picked but I want to include a player of AB calibre. Sanga also keeps so workload can be shared.

I think Root is a better choice than Younis who was a master only on slow dry wickets. He also gives an additional bowling option if required.

 

[Majestic]

Younis Khan get overrated on this forum. He has poor record in South Africa, West Indies and against Australia, he was lucky to improve his average in his final test he played there with the 175 not out in Sydney on a dry wicket where Australia themselves went with two pacers and two spinners.

No Cummins at that time and Australia themselves scored tons of runs in that test, they scored 538/8 in 1st innings with three centurions and then 250 odd for 2 wickets in 2nd innings. It was not a typical pacy Australian wicket and their bowling attack improved a lot with Cummins inclusion alongwith Starc and Hazelwood the very next year.

 

[BazBall21]

With the exception of Newlands 2013 (and doesn't have a good overall record in SAF) - the general theme of his big scores outside Asia is capitalising on flat wickets and/or against ordinary attacks. While that ability is still very valuable as it sets games up which he was very good at, I think his quality on bouncy and seaming wickets gets overestimated as a result.

In Babar Azam's tests, Younis would suffer a fall-off in his raw numbers outside Asia.

 

[Thala_0710]

World A

Smith (c)
Cook
Sanga (wk)
Smith
Root
ABD
Jadeja
Ashwin
Cummins
Steyn
Bumrah

World B

Khwaja
Sehwag
Williamson
Kohli (c)
Younis
Pant (wk)
Stokes
Rabada
Lyon
Asif
Anderson

World C

Warner
Katich
Amla
Clarke (c)
Pietersen
Watling (wk)
Shakib
Philander
Shami
Broad
Hazelwood

World D

Strauss
Vaughan (c)
Bell
Taylor
Hussey
QDK (wk)
Matthews
Swann
Starc
Johnson
Boult

World E

Gayle
Rohit
Pujara
Labuschagne
Azhar Ali (c)
Rizwan (wk)
Watson
Wagner
Maharaj
Harris
Morkel

World F

Gambhir
Karunaratne (c)
Samaraweera
Babar
Head
Prior (wk)
Axar
Holder
Southee
Zaheer
Bond

 

[Johan]

on the matter of Sehwag vs Cook,

Cook is way better against any and every lateral movement, his stats in NZ and SA are a bit misleading but he did well against Steyn/Morkel in SA in a 2009 (?) series and was decent statistically in NZ too until his final series there, Aus and Eng he did very well and led England to a series win in Australia.

Sehwag averages 57 in Asia, Cook averages 53. Really, it's an Elite ATG player of Spin vs an ATG player of spin and a horrible player of movement vs a good enough player of movement, feel like Cook should get the nod over Sehwag as brilliant as the latter was as well