true. but i dont need his bowling in this team. and gilly and sachin are superior openers for sure. also sachin is not as effective at 4. the only way sanath can get in is if dhoni becomes an automatic replacement for gilly. otherwise it is too difficult to look beyond the dream combo of sachin and adam.
I've thought about that before - I've always been very open to having Tendulkar bat four in a composite ODI XI, but the argument that he is the best-ever ODI opener so thus should bat there has some merit.
I wouldn't have Ganguly anywhere near my all-time XI. Jayasuriya-Tendulkar for me, Anwar misses out by a hair's breadth.
not as much as some people who point out averages and numbers and act as if they have established something even more fantastically profound... I was replying generally to the posts quoted in my posts.
It is 2 ahead when you consider Dhoni out all the time. He would make more of he was not out, at least 5-6 runs more. So it is 8 ahead actually. I would still give the advantage to Dhoni purely based on average and S/R stats.
I'm frankly astonished anyone would pick Gilchrist ahead of Mark Waugh TBH given the two of them opened together for a number of years and Jnr. Waugh was always clearly the best of the two.
I see what you mean. I'll manually remove all not-out scores with less than 30 runs so the not-out innings where he comes in late on aren't counted unfairly for him.
Why not?
I think he scores too slowly. Not too slowly to be any good, obviously, just too slowly to be one of the best two openers ever to play the game.Why not?
Knowing you the fact that he spent most of his career being average-to-poor in Tests won't make any impact so I can't think why you don't consider him one of the best ODI batsmen ever.
Any composite ODI XI simply must have Tendulkar as one of the openers.
And that's all Gilchrist has done? Doesn't explain his prelim record then. In 03 and 07 he played well pretty much all the way through.
No, I'd not quibble massively with anyone who picked Anwar, Lara, Tendulkar, Mark Waugh, Smith, Jayasuriya or even Gayle ahead of Ganguly. But I'm far from sure he scored too slowly to be one of the best ODI openers ever. I've seen Ganguly smash the ball all over the place in the Powerplay, plenty of times, even if he never did it after returning to the side in 2007.
I don't neccessarily think so. I think there are others who could do as good a job as Tendulkar in the Powerplays and that the most important time to have him was in the middle overs, because there are precious few with his skill to a) work the ball around and b) manufacture (or pinpoint-place) boundaries with the field back.
This line of reasoning makes no sense, has never made any sense and will never make any sense. The best balance - in any ODI side - is achieved by having the best six batsmen available, one of whom must keep wicket. If you can get a better team by having a wicketkeeper who bats six, do it. If you can get a better team by having a wicketkeeper who opens (or indeed bats three, four or five), do it.
In ODIs you need 6 bowlers strong bowler though. Only if the keeper is opening you maximise the chances of having doing that. Not all teams in ODI hisotry have had that luxury, but surely the Greatest ever AT ODI XI should have it.
