A Leftie's draft concludes: Now the people must speak!!

[sifter132]

Citizens of Planet Cricket, as some of you may now a draft has been taking place over the last couple of weeks featuring 7 intrepid posters trying to create their best XIs, XIs full of left handed Test cricketers only. Details of the rules and a full account of the event can be found here: http://www.planetcricket.org/forums/cricket-discussion/lefties-draft-67773.html

Now we want your opinion. Who has constructed the best XI? Vote in the poll and then make a post stating why you voted the way you did.
Here are the final XIs, in alphabetical order:

Cricketman
1. Roy Fredericks
2. John Edrich
3. Kumar Sangakkara (wk)
4. Graeme Pollock*
5. Michael Hussey
6. Ashwell Prince
7. Wilfred Rhodes
8. James Franklin
9. Zaheer Khan
10. BS Bedi
11. Bill Whitty

Dare (and originally send2yaari)
1. Saeed Anwar
2. Gary Kirsten
3. Stephen Fleming
4. Larry Gomes
5. Clive Lloyd *
6. Hashan Tillakaratne
7. Ridley Jacobs +
8. Bobby Peel
9. Derek Underwood
10. Richard Collinge
11. Pedro Collins

Gazza
Matthew Hayden
Justin Langer
Gary Sobers(c)^
Alvin Kallicharan
Simon Katich^
Darren Lehmann^
Parthiv Patel(+)
Frank Foster^
Hedley Verity^
Bill Voce^
Tony Lock^

Iridium
Arthur Morris
Andrew Strauss
Trevor Goddard
Shiv Chanderpaul
Sourav Ganguly (c)
Jacob Oram
+Adam Gilchrist
Irfan Pathan
Daniel Vettori
Gary Gilmour
Ryan Sidebottom

mattfb
1. Mark Taylor
2. Marcus Trescothick
3. Bob Cowper
4. Brian Lara
5. Allan Border (c)
6. Lance Klusener
7. Shakib Al Hasan
8. Jack Russell+
9. Johnny Briggs
10. Iqbal Qasim
11. Bruce Reid

shravi
Graeme Smiith
Bill Lawry
Phil Mead
Eddie Paynter
Warren Bardsley
Frank Wooley
+ Rodney Marsh
Wasim Akram
Chaminda Vaas
Bill Johnston
Colin Blythe

sifter132
1 Gautam Gambhir
2 Chris Gayle
3 Neil Harvey
4 David Gower (c)
5 Andy Flower (wk & vc)
6 Graham Thorpe
7 George Hirst
8 Alan Davidson
9 Mitchell Johnson
10 Johnny Wardle
11 Ernie Toshack

 

[drainpipe32]

Shravi and Sifter have fantastic bowling line-ups, and mine probably follows theirs. Matt has the best batting line-up for sure, how he got both Lara and Border is beyond me!

 

[Cricketman]

Lara and Border are good but I was kind of surprised on why he chose Lance Klusener, that really kind of brings it down a bit. 32 with the bat and 37 with the ball in test cricket isn't all that great.

I like his openers, Lara, and Border. His bowling looks a little weak to me.

 

[Num]

Shravi's team just edging out sifter132's and Gazza's teams in my opinion after a bit of research. Hard to pinpoint exactly why, especially considering the different eras and conditions the players played in. The bowling attack being the most significant reason for me I guess.

 

[Iridium]

Gazza's team IMO. Very well balanced team. Strong opening pair of Hayden and Langer, solid middle order, and capable bowling attack. Nice job.

 

[drainpipe32]

And dirt draft picks!

I should really stop whining about that....

 

[Iridium]

Don't forget you had to wait years between picks...

 

[shravi]

Hmm, hard to say really. I really like the look of sifter's team. It's well balanced. The openers are perhaps a little iffy however he has a solid middle order and a bowling attack that can consistently take 20 wickets.

 

[Iridium]

It's hard to pick just one team and say "yes, this is the best team". Each team has it's pros and cons, great picks and ones which may seem a bit iffy. It's all opinion really.

 

[drainpipe32]

It's also a matter of how many test matches do you have to have played to justify your averages? And do FC stats work into it?

Uncovered pitches v covered. Technology v Zero technology.

 

[Iridium]

Plus games in the olden days were very bowler friendly. Batsmen scored at such a slow rate and the bowlers bundles teams out for insanely low scored and picks up incredible figures. Still I reckon a good draft overall. Mix of the old and the new.

 

[sifter132]

I think probably Gazza has the slight edge over matt, although it's certainly not a clear cut thing (disregarding my brilliant lineup of course). And I think it's Sobers that wins it for him. It makes his team well balanced, gives him probably the strongest batting and gives good depth to his bowling where only 4 old time bowlers might have had a few questions.

Shravi would have the best bowling lineup (again apart from me ), but I think there's a few too many risks taken with the middle order to match Gazza's overall lineup. I admire you though shravi for doing the research and picking some relatively unknown players, but I think you went a little over the top and it's looks a bit too 'old'. I can't imagine your team would be much good in the field, for example.

Special mention to Dare. If send2yaari had held off picking a keeper until the end, and nabbed a quick bowler in round 2 or even 3 like Chaminda Vaas, or Johnston or Bruce Reid and it would have made quite a difference to the end product. Because other than the pace attack I quite like his team.

 

[-D-S-B-]

The teams have all got their pro's and con's and I honestly can't separate them, but I do like the look of Shravi and Gazza's teams. I even tried finding the worst team out of the bunch but that's still difficult, no clear winner

 

[Cricketman]

No love for me then?

 

[Dare]

Shravi has the best bowling attack with Wasim, Vaas and Johnston but his batting has a whole bunch of guys that did really well in domestic cricket but didn't play as many test matches.
Cricketman has the best batting from 1-5 but the bowling is a little bit weak.
Gazza has the difference maker in Sobers.
Overall the best balanced team is probably sifters. Good batting all over and bowling is good too.