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Old May 10, 2013, 04:30 AM
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Roey Haque Roey Haque is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gowza
My revised 1st and 2nd XI All Time

1st XI:

1 Jack Hobbs
2 Barry Richards
3 Don Bradman
4 Graeme Pollock
5 Viv Richards
6 Garry Sobers
7 Adam Gilchrist
8 Mike Procter
9 Imran Khan
10 Malcolm Marshall
11 Shane Warne

if you've ever researched jack hobbs you'll know why he's the #1 pick opener for me, some consider him the best after bradman, though it's very subjective and there are a few contenders he's the only opener with significant test experience to be given this honour, a pretty great close in fielder to. barry richards is the other opener who might be grouped in with those that are considered to be best after bradman though he gets discounted quite often as he didn't play many tests, unfortunate as it is i still rate him as one of the 2 best openers of all time. also was a great slipper.

bradman, no need to say anything really, averages nearly 100, from what was recorded his strike rate was around in the mid 70s in tests. pollock, another one that by some is considered the best after bradman, like barry richards didn't get to play much because of circumstance but boy was he a sight, amazing brilliant batsman and for me the best #4 of all time, another one who was a good fielder even in the slips. viv richards, so dominant, has an aurora about him, could take on the very best bowlers and succeed, also considered by some the next best after bradman and yes like the others above him a great fielder especially in the slips. garry sobers, he's in my team purely for his batting but adds with his fielding and 3 different types of bowling plus the left arm. garry is amazing, and what he adds to a team is amazing, one of the best batsmen of all time, one of the best fielders of all time, a really good left arm swing bowler, also bowled SLA and chinaman, you don't get many left arm chinaman bowlers and this adds to my all time XI attack.

gilchrist, incredible batsman, but also an incredible keeper. personally i rate him above healy as a keeper and healy is rated one of the best of all time so for me that puts his keeping ability right there up in the top echelon of all time keepers, purely on the keeping level. add to that his batting ability.

mike procter, very classy looking with the bat and very powerful, scored tons of FC runs, 48 tons, also scored 6 consecutive tons as well which not many have ever done. again he didn't get to play much but i still rate him as the best. bowling wise got a truckload of wickets at a strike rate in the mid 40s in FC cricket, was even better in the few tests he played. as a bowler he was fiery, tremendous pace, great bouncer and a wicket taker. he also bowled some decent offspin and could take wickets with it.

imran is there for his ATG bowling and really solid batting. the fact that i put procter above imran in the batting order isn't discounting imran but just saying how great of a cricketer mike procter truly was. imran's batting was very good and batting at #8, well he'd have to be the best #8 of all time...bowling wise he performed consistently across the globe, bowled conventional swing, reverse swing, good bouncer and at certain points in his career was very rapid (said to be the 3rd fastest at one time behind thomson and holding and they were both 160km/h bowlers). he also tore through quality batting attacks almost single-handed.

malcolm marshall, complete bowler, swung it both ways at express pace, a very dangerous bouncer, strike rate in the mid 40s, performed like imran across the globe. on top of that he could bat quite well with an FC batting average of 24 including 7 tons.

shane warne, considered by many the greatest spinner ever, a great strike rate for a spinner, great variations with his googly, top spinner, flipper, zooter, wrong'un, bouncer (yes he had a bouncer, no it wasn't by accident, though it was very rarely used). also a decent batsman with a couple of FC centuries and 26 FC half centuries, top test score of 99. he was a great slipper as well.

so overall the batting consists of very consistent but aggressive, attacking batsmen who dominated the best attacks across the world. bowling wise there is good variation with conventional swing, good bouncers, express pace, reverse swing, the leg spinner plus the left arm pace of sobers his SLAs and chinaman bowling combined with procters offies means this bowling attack has pretty much every style of bowling and variation that there is to offer.

2nd XI:

1 Len Hutton
2 Sunil Gavaskar
3 George Headley
4 Greg Chappell
5 Sachin Tendulkar
6 Wally Hammond
7 Les Ames
8 Wasim Akram
9 Joel Garner
10 Waqar Younis
11 Muttiah Muralitharan

an explanation to the 2nd XI. i think the batsmen speak for themselves, ames the keeper was picked ahead of guys like flower and knott because he was a high quality keeper but also a decent batsman averaging 40 in tests with 8 centuries (and more than 100 tons in FC cricket average of 43). flower isn't a good keeper and knott although a decent bat wasn't as good as ames, ames was a top quality keeper and one of the best keeper bats of all time (and in his time the best there ever had been).

the bowlers i picked on both quality and variation that's why i have wasim akram who could bowl express pace swing it both ways conventionally, reverse it and also seam it (sometimes doing all that in the same ball). waqar is there for his incredible strike rate, blistering pace and his style of bowling, he attacked the stumps more than other batsmen and it shows as he has a lot more bowled and LBW than fast bowlers usually get. garner is in there because of his nippy pace, incredible height and ability to get the ball on an awkward length with sharp bounce making it almost impossible to score off him, also had a great yorker (just as waqar did). murali there as he can spin it both ways and a great strike rate for a spinner.
Love reading all these "all time XI" lists. Especially when they are backed up by justifications for the selections as in your posts. You should make a 3rd team.
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