T2M2 Draft

[stephen]

To the contrary: the higher level the side, the more stress is placed upon the main bowlers - meaning a fifth bowler is more needed.

Would Kallis really trouble the likes of Tendulkar and Sobers if McGrath and Garner haven't had any success against them? I think it unlikely personally. So you're basically picking Kallis as a guy to get through a few overs with the old ball to give the mainline quicks a rest. But if those mainline quicks are McGrath, Marshall and Ambrose, they won't need a rest because they'll take 10 wickets before the new ball most of the time. Especially bowling to batsmen who are averaging in the 30s.

Stokes is going to help a rubbish team way more than Lara or McGrath. But I'd take Lara or McGrath over Stokes in an AT side. It's the same for virtually every all rounder, except Sobers, Kallis, Hadlee and Miller who all have a shot at an AT side on their primary discipline alone.

Of course all I'm doing is talking in hypotheticals and giving my opinion. But I think history tends to back the theory up - sides who run 6/1/4 team balances are the norm unless they have a truly exceptional all rounder available, or need to compensate for having rubbish bowlers.

 

[StephenZA]

@stephen I would include Faulkner it that on primary discipline. And Kallis was as dangerous as anybody when he got the ball swinging.

 

[stephen]

@stephen I would include Faulkner it that on primary discipline. And Kallis was as dangerous as anybody when he got the ball swinging.

Yes, Faulkner definitely was a strong enough batsman to be considered on that alone. His era adjusted bowling average is a little deceptive though. Noble and Rhodes fall into the "not on primary discipline alone" camp though.

Kallis was a good bowler. But one would assume if the ball was swinging the three ATG pace bowlers in his side would do the majority of the bowling. In an ATG side he'd do most of his bowling on roads with no movement.

 

[anil1405]

Would Kallis really trouble the likes of Tendulkar and Sobers if McGrath and Garner haven't had any success against them? I think it unlikely personally. So you're basically picking Kallis as a guy to get through a few overs with the old ball to give the mainline quicks a rest. But if those mainline quicks are McGrath, Marshall and Ambrose, they won't need a rest because they'll take 10 wickets before the new ball most of the time. Especially bowling to batsmen who are averaging in the 30s.

Stokes is going to help a rubbish team way more than Lara or McGrath. But I'd take Lara or McGrath over Stokes in an AT side. It's the same for virtually every all rounder, except Sobers, Kallis, Hadlee and Miller who all have a shot at an AT side on their primary discipline alone.

Of course all I'm doing is talking in hypotheticals and giving my opinion. But I think history tends to back the theory up - sides who run 6/1/4 team balances are the norm unless they have a truly exceptional all rounder available, or need to compensate for having rubbish bowlers.

You've picked the wrong example in Tendulkar there who had the tendency of being troubled by the likes of Cronje and Razzaq.

 

[StephenZA]

Yes, Faulkner definitely was a strong enough batsman to be considered on that alone. His era adjusted bowling average is a little deceptive though. Noble and Rhodes fall into the "not on primary discipline alone" camp though.

Interestingly enough his bowling is considered his primary discipline and he was considered as good as any during the era. He became a better batsmen over time from what I understand.

 

[anil1405]

Former South Africa skipper Hansie Cronje is the man we are talking about; the middle-order batsman who rolled his arms – 43 wickets in 68 Tests; 114 wickets in 188 ODIs – got the precious wicket of Tendulkar five times in Tests and thrice in limited-overs.

Tendulkar handled the likes of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram and Allan Donald but didn’t know what to do with Cronje.

Once, in an interview with The Guardian, he said: “Honestly. I got out to Hansie more than anyone. When we played South Africa he always got me out more than Donald or Shaun Pollock. It wasn't that I couldn't pick him - it's just that the ball seemed to go straight to a fielder.

I was going great guns in Durban one year and played some big shots against Donald and Pollock. Hansie came on and I flicked his first ball straight to leg-slip. I never knew what to do with him.”

 

[trundler]

The 90s SA sides regularly punched above their weight by stacking on all rounders. I don't have any argument as such but the value Dexter or Hadlee add with their secondary skill can be immense. A guy like Stokes gives your side plenty of options. Plus, him and Kallis take game-changing wickets. If my plan A hasn't worked I'd rather throw the ball to Stokes than to Waugh. Faulkner, Miller and Botham are basically unicorns. A similar thing happens with keepers like Watling and De Kock. You look at a high 30s average and go meh even though you can count better wicket keeper bats on one finger (-tip). It's clichéd but averages don't accurately measure the value of genuine all rounders.

 

[srbhkshk]

Yeah, In a sense the utility of a 5th bowler is less about him running through the side and more about taking the right wicket at the right time. Having 5 bowlers also makes follow-on decisions quite a bit easier for the captain.

I like stephen's point about WI and Australia not having any real all-rounder in the stokes mold but Marshall could bat and Australian lower order folks have always known how to hold a bat. Even more importantly, these teams never played against teams their own strength, being a fair bit better than the second best teams. It is to be remembered though that the second best team in Oz era were SA who were stacked with all rounders and the greatest challenge to WI came from Pak who had Imran.

 

[Himannv]

Marshall just had so much stamina. He bowled quite long spells and typically bowled many overs in a test match. The West Indies team of that era didn't really need the extra bowling and mostly had batsmen who could bowl a bit to fill out the overs. When you have a bowler as great as that paired up with others who are also of similar caliber, you really wouldn't need an extra bowler all that much IMO.

Edit: If we take spinners into consideration, someone like Murali would just bowl non stop for ages from one end while the others sort of rotated in and out of the attack. Pair him up with better bowlers and the 5th bowler is redundant.

 

[anil1405]

Time for next round of voting?

 

[Teuton]

Pretty busy atm so may not get to this for a couple of days. I think there were 2 or 3 who hadn't voted

 

[JOJOXI]

@mr_mister and @AndrewB I think from the prior list of those who hadn't yet voted

 

[AndrewB]

1: mr_mister, srbhkshk
3: Teuton, Michaelf7777777
4: Fuller Pilch, anil1405

 

[stephen]

I'm still in shock that so many votes went to a team who has two of their top six with batting averages in the 30s over a side with four batsmen who average 50+.

It's honestly made me change my strategy in the current draft to focus entirely on bowling in the first 4 rounds. Even though I personally believe quality batting is more important than slightly better bowling.

 

[Teuton]

Final tallies. The bolded teams will progress to the semifinals:

Group	Drafter	Votes
1​	kingkallis	7​
1​	JOJOXI	6​
1​	mr_mister	5​
1​	srbhkshk	5​
1​	honestbharani	1​
2​	StephenZA	9​
2​	trundler	6​
2​	AndrewB	5​
2​	ataraxia	4​
3​	Teuton	10​
3​	Michaelf7777777	7​
3​	Line and Length	7​
3​	Magrat Garlick	0​
4​	Fuller Pilch	12​
4​	anil1405	8​
4​	stephen	3​
4​	himannv	1​

 

[Teuton]

I was going to do semi finals too but since we have 9 teams I think we can go to a straight top 3 vote. will do it in this thread though as a I don't have time to set up a new thread with vote.

Please vote for the top 3 teams not including your own.

kingkallis	trundler	Teuton
Bob Simpson / o ©	Bill Lawry	Archie Jackson
Arthur Morris /	Sunil Gavaskar	Cyril Washbrook
Rohan Kanhai /	Everton Weekes	Steve Smith
Joe Root /	Phil Mead	Graeme Pollock
Stan McCabe /	Angelo Mathews	Damien Martyn
Jack Gregory / o	Warwick Armstrong*	MS Dhoni c
Jeff Dujon + /	Alan Knott+	Kapil Dev
Amar Singh o /	Fazal Mahmood	Wilfred Rhodes
Tich Freeman o	Bill O'Reilly	Jim Laker
Joel Garner o	Allan Donald	Waqar Younis
Glenn McGrath o	Jack Ferris	Frank Tyson
JOJOXI	StephenZA	Michaelf7777777
Stewie Dempster (10)	Len Hutton	WG Grace (6)
Gordon Greenidge (108)	Victor Trumper	Herbert Sutcliffe
Kane Williamson (80) (C) (7)	Jacques Kallis (5)	Richie Richardson
Vijay Hazare (30) (6)	Duleep	Martin Crowe
Aravinda de Silva (93)	Dudley Nourse*	Charles Macartney (7)
Ben Stokes (67) (5)	Stuart Law (6)	Les Ames (+)
BJ Watling (70) (WK)	Bert Oldfield+	Ian Botham (2)
Mike Proctor (7) (3)	Harold Larwood (2)	Richie Benaud (*) (4)
Mitchell Starc (57) (2)	Michael Holding (1)	Charles Turner (3)
Stuart MacGill (44) (4)	Morne Morkel (3)	Dale Steyn (1)
Sydney F Barnes (27) (1)	BS Chandrasekhar (4)	Bob Appleyard (5)
anil1405	Line and Length	Fuller Pilch
Sid G Barnes	Herschelle Gibbs	Glenn Turner
Ian Redpath	Eddie Barlow	Mark Richardson
Brian Lara (C)	Neil Harvey	George Headley
Mohammad Azharuddin	Walter Hammond ©	Mohammad Yousuf
Keith Miller (3)	Eddie Paynter	Steve Waugh *
Andrew Flintoff (5)	Tony Greig	Andy Flower +
Lee Irvine (Wk)	Ben Foakes (wkp)	Shakib Al Hasan
Ravi Shastri (6)	Vernon Philander	Ravi Ashwin
Alan Davidson (1)	Muttiah Muralitharan	Malcolm Marshall
Hugh Tayfield (4)	Shoaib Akhtar	Jack Cowie
Neil Adcock (2)	Colin Blythe	Jasprit Bumrah

 

[Teuton]

I'll say a please vote within 1 week (but hopefully sooner)

 

[Teuton]

I'm voting Fuller Pilch, trundler and JOJOXI

 

[honestbharani]

FP, Teuton, JoJo

 

[JOJOXI]

Fuller Pilch, Teuton, Michaelf7777777 - the reasons for each aren't all that dissimilar - like that all of them have quality depth of bowling without comprimising much on the batting. Some very strong middle orders for all of them too whilst Michaelf7777777 also has an impressive opening partnership of Grace/Sutcliffe. Think I prefer the bowling and of Teuton and especially Fuller Pilch but I do think Michaelf7777777 remains competitive with most other sides in this area and has a strong looking batting lineup.