The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[watson]

Mohammad Nissar and Amar Singh deserve to be in the bowling debate.

Amar Singh seems like an interesting character. Only 7 Tests but still gets big rap from Hutton and Hammond;

Amar Singh | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

Still hard to leave out Javagal Srinath/Zaheer Khan though because of their proven, although not brilliant, track records.

 

[kyear2]

Who are the three contenders Monk, to me the only middle order batsmen who can be seen as a legitimate contender for the title of best after Bradman are : Wally Hammond, Sachin Tendulkar, George Headley, Brian Lara, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Graeme Pollock, Greg Chappell.

 

[morgieb]

Australian XI with a twist:

Gilchrist
M Waugh
Ponting
Jones
Hussey
Bevan
Symonds
Warne
Lee
Lillee
McGrath

 

[smash84]

Australian XI with a twist:

Gilchrist
M Waugh
Ponting
Jones
Hussey
Bevan
Symonds
Warne
Lee
Lillee
McGrath

This is twisting them out of shape

 

[LongHopCassidy]

Incoming heresy.


M.A. Taylor*
D.G. Bradman
R.T. Ponting
G.S. Chappell
A.R. Border
S.R. Waugh
A.C. Gilchrist+
A.K. Davidson
S.K. Warne
D.K. Lillee
G.D. McGrath

Let's address the controversial picks one by one in descending order of crazy.

Why the **** is Bradman opening?

Because nobody can decide who should open in this Australian side, and we have we far, far, too many middle order ATGs to leave out, especially in light of the insistence on two specialized non-ATG openers and the forum-wide hard-on for Miller.

Here's a flimsy argument by anecdote, by no less than The Don's well-known BFF Jack Fingleton:

'It was said of Bradman that he could not bat on a sticky. That is of course nonsense. Bradman could bat better than anyone on any sort of wicket.'

In that same vein, why would Bradman batting one position higher not still make him the best batsman, and by extension the best opener, of all time? It might shave 5-10 runs off his average, but 89.94 is regardless a heckuva lot more than his closest rival Barnes, and closest feasible rival Hayden.

Look at it this way: would you prefer Simpson batting for your life in his preferred position, or Bradman doing the same while out of position?

Why the **** did you pick Taylor as his partner?

He played in the era of the most vicious and diverse pace bowling of all time, even from England in Gough, and still averaged 44 despite a spectacular form slump (three less than Morris). I think that merits a little sympathy to his average on his part.

Moreover, at the risk of sounding English, he was tactically the best Test captain Australia has ever had, and that's worth far more to a team than people give it credit for (England won matches with Brearley batting FFS).

Why Border and Waugh over more talented players like Harvey and Trumper?

Their personal record of partnerships together was utterly jawdropping, and considering Border's decade long spell of being Australia's one-man act and Waugh facing the same bowling as Taylor while doing even better, it would be horribly demoralizing to any side to try and break that partnership, or even see one of them still there - given their records of marshalling the tail to score more runs than they otherwise would is also exemplary. Their respective records against the West Indies go without saying.

Why Davo over Lindwall?

Davidson offers variety to the attack as a left-armer, was an utter miser with his economy rate (giving Lillee and Warne license to bowl constantly aggressive Iines and capitalise on pressure built) and obviously could bat a bit. A secondary consideration: bowling stump-to-stump as a left armer would create a lot of footmarks right outside off-stump, which makes Warnie's job much more fun in the second innings - as opposed to him aiming for normal foot marks two meters outside leg where he almost always got padded away.

Where's Miller?

He's a liability in the middle order, averaging a good twenty less than everyone else, and I have absolute trust in the four front liners to take 20 wickets (it's also worth noting that Davidson had exceptional stamina bowling long spells, which was noticed during a tour of India). He can play at 12, I'm feeling magnanimous.

Other notes:

- Tremendous slip cordon with Taylor at first, Ponting at second and Chappell at third.
- High standard of sledging with Waugh, Warne, Chappell and Lillee (assuming mental disintegration is factored into simmed matches).

 

[Jager]

@watson saying that the WI quicks would destroy Bradman or Hobbs almost as a guarantee on a green wicket is definitely overkill to be honest - I think we, as a forum, tend to overrate the impact of the legendary quicks overall. Sure they'd be bloody good, but even the WI quartets played together and lost test matches/failed to bowl sides out, and that was against sides with one or two great batsmen instead of five or six.

@kyear I rate Chappell and Harvey up there for sure. Sobers second in my eyes though.

@Monk I could never place Lindsay as SA's keeper - either Cameron or Waite for me, toss of a coin really.

 

[kyear2]

Who are the three contenders Monk, to me the only middle order batsmen who can be seen as a legitimate contender for the title of best after Bradman are : Wally Hammond, Sachin Tendulkar, George Headley, Brian Lara, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Graeme Pollock.

Ponting, Harvey, Miandad, 3 W's comes awful close as well.

 

[kyear2]

Yes Jager, forgot Chappell. Edited in.

 

[NUFAN]

It's true that they all bowl across the RH batsman, but the techniques are all different. Gupte was a leg-break googly bowler, Chandra bowled at medium pace, and Mankad was a left-armer. Hence the ball would be pitching on different areas of the wicket and have different trajectories. I don't think that any batsman could settle into any sort of routine easily with 2-3 of those bowlers operating.

Yeah the techniques are different, but why not include a genuine match winning off spinner in Prasanna who is arguably as good a bowler as either Gupte or Chandra.

Just on Chandra I'm not sure that he was medium pace. Bowled quickly for a spinner, skidding the ball on looking for lbw's and bat pad catches, but at a guess I would think he'd be bowling at around 90-95 kph.


Longhop, I like your team from 4 down to 11, I've been thinking about omitting Miller from my XI recently as being the seventh best batsman and fifth best bowler in a team makes his value questionable.

Expecting Miller fans to be seething..

 

[Jager]

Reading that was like a dagger through my heart, Nuf

 

[NUFAN]

Reading that was like a dagger through my heart, Nuf

Yeah, it was either out of the team or Miller batting at 6.

In some ways I'm not sure what to do with him. He did seem like a cricketer who could rise to the situation and I feel as though he was better with the bat then what his average suggests (I wonder what his standardized average is) and his bowling was awesome too. Tough decision - I'm not 100% made up mind.

 

[Jager]

Yeah, it was either out of the team or Miller batting at 6.

In some ways I'm not sure what to do with him. He did seem like a cricketer who could rise to the situation and I feel as though he was better with the bat then what his average suggests (I wonder what his standardized average is) and his bowling was awesome too. Tough decision - I'm not 100% made up mind.

Agreed on the batting especially - people compare his batting with Imran (6 centuries from 88 tests) but Miller was far better (7 from 55). He is a genuine top order bat with the mercurial magic only he and a few others possess.

I know what you're saying though, but think about it this way - if you've got Bradman averaging 40 more runs than anyone else on the other side, Miller averaging 10-15 runs less is not going to make a huge difference, and that is the only negative - his positives include his bowling brilliance, in which he had an alarming ability to get the best batsmen out (10 dismissals of Hutton and 6 of Compton being the most notable), his captaincy which is rivaled only by Benaud/Taylor in Australia, and his all-time standard slips fielding. Not to mention he's gun for team morale

 

[Jager]

Oh and don't even think about putting him at 6

 

[Red]

Yeah, it was either out of the team or Miller batting at 6.

In some ways I'm not sure what to do with him. He did seem like a cricketer who could rise to the situation and I feel as though he was better with the bat then what his average suggests (I wonder what his standardized average is) and his bowling was awesome too. Tough decision - I'm not 100% made up mind.

I suspect Miller would have averaged 50+ with the bat quite easily had he not been a bowler, which is why I pick him.

Who are the three contenders Monk, to me the only middle order batsmen who can be seen as a legitimate contender for the title of best after Bradman are : Wally Hammond, Sachin Tendulkar, George Headley, Brian Lara, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Graeme Pollock, Greg Chappell.

I'd say G.Chappell, Ponting and Border can all be included in that bunch, with Neil Harvey not undeserving as well.

Hammond and Sobers the sliiiiiightest bit ahead of the rest of the pack for me. Viv not far behind them, then a cluster of the rest.

* Headley and G.Pollock are difficult to rank as test cricketers due to limited opportunities. Pollock may well have been the second best ever (B.Richards too).

 

[watson]

Oh and don't even think about putting him at 6

The more I think about it the more I believe that No.5 is the natural position for Miller in an ATG Australian team.

In the middle order I see him as a 'pinch hitter'. In others words, a batsman that can hit the team out of trouble if there have been early wickets, or accelerate the innings if there are plenty of runs on the board.

Also, if Miller's 'pinch hitting' doesn't come off then there is little harm done because you're still got Border to follow at No.6 who can absorb the pressure and steady the innings again.

 

[kyear2]

I suspect Miller would have averaged 50+ with the bat quite easily had he not been a bowler, which is why I pick him.



I'd say G.Chappell, Ponting and Border can all be included in that bunch, with Neil Harvey not undeserving as well.

Hammond and Sobers the sliiiiiightest bit ahead of the rest of the pack for me. Viv not far behind them, then a cluster of the rest.

* Headley and G.Pollock are difficult to rank as test cricketers due to limited opportunities. Pollock may well have been the second best ever (B.Richards too).

As I had said earlier I thought I had included Chappell and edited him in. When I look at some one to say that he is a legitimate contender for best after Bradman, they are all batsmen you can say is the second best batsman ever or at their best was the equal to the Don, as great as Border was, and he is in my AT Australia XI, I dont think that anyone can make the argument that he was the best ever or place in in an all time xi or the second team. Ponting is closer to that list and could make it. Again:

Greg Chappell, Graeme Pollock, Wally Hammond, George Headley, Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Garry Sobers, Sachin Tendulkar, Jack Hobbs, Barry Richards

The next level would include:
Ricky Ponting, Neil Harvey, Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott, Javed Miandad, Kumar Sagakarra, Frank Worrell, Allan Border, Jacques Kallis, Ken Barrington, Sunil Gavaskar, Len Hutton.
Would also include the likes of Rohan Kanhai, Steve Waugh, Denis Compton, Clive Lloyd, Peter May, Rahul Dravid, Bobby Simpson, Gordon Greenidge and Inzamam Ul-Haq with this group.

One feature of the top tier is that they were all match winners, attacking batsmen that could destroy an attack and often did. As I said, Ponting, Harvey, Weekes, Walcott and Gavaskar are the closest to the top tier, but just (for me) missed out as it's harder to say unequivically that they were the second best ever. Border, Kallis, Barrington and Hutton though great, were not always attacking enough and had to lower their rate of scoring to be effective or that was just their natural speed (Hutton, Kallis) and were not natural match winners.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

India XI

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Hazare
Mankad
Kapil
Kirmani
Amar
Prasanna
Gupte

For me although Dhoni is a brutal OD player, as wicket keeper in Tests he is certainly not better than Kirmani who was more than outstanding to spinners and India's bowling will be always spin heavy so Kirmani is infact an auto choice but I think many will disagree with me.

For spinners' choice as Mankad is there, with Subhash Gupte I want to revive the two prong spin attack partnership i.e. Mankad and Gupte operating together; may be not a good idea in ATG XI but that's a tie breaker for me. Now with Gupte there, Prasanna over Chandrasekhar for variation in the attack. This might be spin over-kill but I like the attack, it has legspin-googly-offspin-sla.

 

[smash84]

that is a pretty decent India XI.

I was thinking to include mohinder amarnath on fast bouncy pitches

 

[smash84]

that is a pretty decent India XI.

I was thinking to include mohinder amarnath on fast bouncy pitches

 

[Jager]

Agreed with Monk that Miller was a 50+ batsman - unfortunately he was also an ATG fast bowler which was bloody handy to the team