Magrat Garlick
Global Moderator
McGrath
Lee
Lillee
Starc needs another year or so.
Lee
Lillee
Starc needs another year or so.
Has already had a legendary world cup.McGrath
Lee
Lillee
Starc needs another year or so.
Why? Pollock was born in the same year as Clive Lloyd who I expect to make the West Indian team. Glen Turner, Greg Chappell and Zaheer Abbas who should all go close to their respective teams are all only 3 or 4 years younger and retired from 1st class and list a cricket before Pollock did.If we're picking Graeme Pollock then we might as well be picking Bradman in Australia's side.
Isn't this a little backwards? West Indies and England's AT test XI's would be pretty close to Australia's, but in ODIs they're comfortably the best on paper. That top order of Gilchrist-Waugh/Hayden/Watson-Ponting-Jones-Bevan-Symonds/Hussey is more stacked than any combination you can put together from West Indies.
Of course...And let's be honest, that's all that counts.....
Australia's AT team would beat WI's AT XI 6-7 times out of 10, and others even more frequently. They were incredible. 3 consecutive WC's and 28 consecutive WC matches or whatever it was, and a couple of ICC CT's on top of that, doesn't lie. One more point in their favour is that their best team played together for most of their dominant era, and won things together (this is something that goes against Pakistan and SA's AT XIs, lots of great players, but distributed across eras). At their peak, they were able to consistently win everywhere, even in bilateral series in India, SA etc.
Agreed, I would even go one step further and say each of the Top 8 ATG ODI teams could beat any other ATG ODI on their day.I agree with the bolded whole heartedly, but I just dont think they are far and away better than some of the other teams' ATG ODI XIs.
The trouble for the WI vs Aus is that they don't have a keeper-batsman to match Gilly, or a spinner to match Warne, while South Africa do in QDK and Tahir. Dujon wouldn't score lots of runs at 7 and a combination of Hooper and Viv (i reckon Gayle would miss to Haynes btw) isn't a great spin attack. Also Hooper, Dujon, Marshall is perhaps the weakest 6-8 of all the top 8'teams.But the Windies bowling is better and Greenidge, Gayle, Lara, Richards, Lloyd is as good a top order as any side's.
Yeah, but this doesn't really mean anything. I mean it's ODIs we're talking about. Of course anyone can beat anyone. Guppy can single-handedly beat the Aus ATXI on his day.Agreed, I would even go one step further and say each of the Top 8 ATG ODI teams could beat any other ATG ODI on their day.
Nice pick.Mitchell Starc will open the bowling with Glenn McGrath.
Nathan Bracken will come as 1st change (if I'm not allowed to pick Hazlewood).
Apologies for going on a tangent about the Windies now, but they'd need to drop an elite quick bowler and go Hooper 6, Andre Russell 7 (finisher), Dujon 8 + 3 quicks. Then they could compete with AustraliaThe trouble for the WI vs Aus is that they don't have a keeper-batsman to match Gilly, or a spinner to match Warne, while South Africa do in QDK and Tahir. Dujon wouldn't score lots of runs at 7 and a combination of Hooper and Viv (i reckon Gayle would miss to Haynes btw) isn't a great spin attack. Also Hooper, Dujon, Marshall is perhaps the weakest 6-8 of all the top 8'teams.
The bowling really isn't far better if at all. In the shorter format, McGrath Lee and Starc are as good as any of the windies quartet except garner. Not to mention they have Warne too.But the Windies bowling is better and Greenidge, Gayle, Lara, Richards, Lloyd is as good a top order as any side's.