Yearly World XIs since WWI [theoretical]

[TheJediBrah]

Hope this clears you up.

Thanks but it wasn't really necessary to clear anything up, your methodology was pretty clear.

 

[AndrewB]

Something I was wondering recently: if you were picking the World XI for any moment in time, when (and what) would be the strongest team? I guess most people would go for a pretty recent team simply because you have more players to choose from than in (say) the 1930s.

 

[trundler]

Something I was wondering recently: if you were picking the World XI for any moment in time, when (and what) would be the strongest team? I guess most people would go for a pretty recent team simply because you have more players to choose from than in (say) the 1930s.

Only the top 11 matter, really. So if you had 2 or 3 teams going through a particularly strong era you could form a pretty good team. Some point in the 50s would've had the 3 Ws, Lindwall-Miller and all the great English players. Gets tricky when you're picking on form though. We remember how good Clarke and Amla were in their purple patches but only have numbers to guide us for the older players.

 

[Red]

Something I was wondering recently: if you were picking the World XI for any moment in time, when (and what) would be the strongest team? I guess most people would go for a pretty recent team simply because you have more players to choose from than in (say) the 1930s.

2002 calender would give you access to the best of the Australians, plus plenty of other guns (only performances in that year count):

Hayden
Langer
Ponting
Kallis
Moyo
Gilchrist
Pollock
Warne
Murali
Shoaib
McGrath

This team is leaving out Dravid, Sachin, Sanga, Chanderpaul, Laxman. All of them averged 50 + in the calender year.

Pollock at 7 is a bit cheeky, but he averaged over 70 with the bat that year.

 

[Red]

1948, the year of the Invincibles:

Morris
Barnes/Hutton
Bradman
Weekes
Compton
Hazare
Miller
Evans +
Lindwall
Laker
Johnston

 

[AndrewB]

Only the top 11 matter, really. So if you had 2 or 3 teams going through a particularly strong era you could form a pretty good team. Some point in the 50s would've had the 3 Ws, Lindwall-Miller and all the great English players.

Yes, a 1953 team along the lines of

Len Hutton*
Vinoo Mankad
Frank Worrell
Everton Weekes
Neil Harvey
Clyde Walcott+
Keith Miller
Ray Lindwall
Alec Bedser
Fred Trueman
Alf Valentine

is pretty decent.

 

[TheJediBrah]

2002 calender would give you access to the best of the Australians, plus plenty of other guns (only performances in that year count):

Hayden
Langer
Ponting
Kallis
Moyo
Gilchrist
Pollock
Warne
Murali
Shoaib
McGrath

This team is leaving out Dravid, Sachin, Sanga, Chanderpaul, Laxman. All of them averged 50 + in the calender year.

Pollock at 7 is a bit cheeky, but he averaged over 70 with the bat that year.

Funny that the 00's are known more for being a strong batting decade but this team's bowling would be nearly impossible to top for any other year I would have thought

 

[Fuller Pilch]

1948, the year of the Invincibles:

Morris
Barnes/Hutton
Bradman
Weekes
Compton
Hazare
Miller
Evans +
Lindwall
Laker
Johnston

Call me a biased Kiwi but Donnelly for Hazare and Bond for Shoaib imo.

 

[stephen]

Honestly anyone trying to pick a side that doesn't have Bradman in it is a waste for this exercise. It becomes a lot more interesting if you ban that hax boss.

 

[aussie tragic]

Honestly anyone trying to pick a side that doesn't have Bradman in it is a waste for this exercise. It becomes a lot more interesting if you ban that hax boss.

And yet the OP had Bradman as captain in 1928, just after he got dropped from his first test failure...don't agree with selecting best ever players from debut year to final test year which is what this is

 

[trundler]

Going by the Bradman must play rule, I was looking at yearly averages for 1946-48. Problem there was that guys like Mitchell, Nourse, Donnelly, Cowie, Hazare etc didn't get to play more than 3-5 tests a year and there was no single year where you could fit them all together. Yet they were obvious contenders for the world XI based on when they did get to play. If you take a ~2 year period from when cricket resumed to before the 1948 Ashes you get:

Mitchell/Merchant
Hutton
Bradman
Compton
Nourse
Edrich
Miller
Evans/Tallon+
Lindwall
Bedser
Toshack


Edrich especially and Compton had the most prolific season ever in that timeframe. Balance looks a little weird but with Bedser bowling from 1 end all day Edrich and Miller would combine to do the 3rd seamer role well.

 

[bagapath]

85-89 Martin Crowe should be in the middle order
89 onwards Steve Waugh is allowed in place of Viv Richards

Miandad would make it to most teams in the 80s...