Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
In a true moment of starting as we mean to go on, @Ed Smith was otherwise detained. First pick therefore falls to @VC the slogger
All-Time ODI Scrubs XI
- Thread starter Aislabie
- Start date
VC the slogger
PlanetCricket Forever
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2010
The ultimate ODI scrub of them all, Sir Garfield Sobers!! ODI cricket came into existence towards the very end of his glittering career and so he ended up playing just 1 ODI, incidentally West Indies' first ever and recorded a duck whilst claiming only 1 wicket. He had initially hoped to correct that during the 1975 World Cup which was meant to be his farewell tourney, but it all ended in anti climax when he was ruled out due to injury and replaced by Rohan Kanhai who went on to play a key role in his team's historic triumph.
@blockerdave
@blockerdave
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ahmedleo414
The Butcher
@blockerdave missed his time, so I will go with my first pick.
Lance Gibbs
Playing XI:
Lance Gibbs
Playing XI:
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
Lance Gibbs
Ed Smith
Gaffer
Mluleki Nkala for my missed pick. Man with no 4fer and no 50 despite batting and bowling. You'll do for me son.
qpeedore
SOTM Winner - July 2014
Let's do this.
There are times when you support your team. Because you sort of have to. Whether you believe in your team is a truly different matter altogether. For years they have been saying that this team has finally been turning the corner. Well, to be honest, you make four corners, you end up right where you started. Might as well be a roundabout, for all the corners that the team has been making recently. Take a damn exit already, for good or for bad.
So you can see why it was with trepidation when I watched my team play their games. And then the last game. All to play for. We'd fielded first. Would it be a good choice? I didn't know. Long gone were the days of the Awesome Foursome, or I should say the Fearsome Fivesome, since all five would never be able to play together. Now we were looking for the next big thing in our fast bowling. And who we have? A bunch of fast-medium guys.
(NOTE: I'm using the Cricket Captain designation here, fast-medium means the guy is medium at base, he's just a little faster. Medium-fast means he's fast at base, and almost up there. Anyways.)
But the pitch was not that bad for bowling first. And so we did. For some reason, the conditions were almost tailor-made for our type of bowling, even if in my thoughts it wouldn't have made for particularly thrilling cricket.
Was I ever wrong. The guys bowled and fielded the hell out of their skins. Three run outs, five catches, and a stumping. Nowadays, run outs are slightly more common, usually in the later overs, when the team is pushing for quick runs at the death. Back then, the death consisted of the odd slower ball and not everyone could even bowl one. It consisted of setting the field deep and just letting the batsmen run the singles. There was no heavy bats, no acrobatic fielding efforts. The fielder saw the ball running to the rope, nope, not diving, sorry. Take a boundary. Sorry, cap. Not my fault. It was a different era of the game.
And yet, we bowled and fielded so well. 217. That's a score that would be so easy to chase. If we didn't let that guy get to a century, it would have been much less.
But we made it look hard. See, by then the pitch had done a bit of drying out. Their bowlers, objectively faster than ours, kept bowling the right lines and lengths. Bouncers were used sparingly to excellent effect. Yorkers were common. And there was the best balls of them all, those on just a good length, maybe fourth or fifth stump. Wickets tumbled. Only one man in the middle order gave a bit of resistance. Else the scorecard was almost a phone number.
My heart sank lower and lower.
I won't lie, I cursed at the TV when that last resistance got out. He was our last batting prospect. Now number 9 would have to bat with number 10. Game over, I figured. The opposition had so many good bowlers left, bowlers who had troubled the top order. What chance did a number 10 have?
The run rate was increasing. The two batsmen were playing it like a Test. Maybe they wanted to save face by not being bowled out, I thought. We had over 70 runs to go, and 2 wickets in hand, overs rapidly decreasing. And then one of them hit a four.
And another boundary quickly followed.
My heart, already somewhere else in my body from where it's supposed to be, started fluttering. Still didn't believe. But maybe we could make this something of a fight. That roundabout, maybe we'd finally turn off from it and go forward. Yeah, we'd lose this, but we could take positives from being a fighting team. I'd take that. They were keeping out the good balls and running the singles and twos. Almost seemed like proper batsmen for a moment. And we kept on chipping away. With every ball, I'd figure the striker would be out. But they wouldn't. Somehow the bouncers, yorkers, and uncertain corridors weren't working anymore. Not that the opposition didn't try. They damn well tried, I guarantee you that. And as my heart slowly returned to it's normal position just centre left of my chest, I began to believe. Truly believe. But there was one problem.
The light.
See, this was before the days when the umpires are the deciders of what's dangerous light. The light used to be offered to the batting team only. And we soldiered on. This game was too important to lose. I believed even more when that happened. But in all honesty, it was dark. Still, the runs were now gettable. Two overs to go and twelve to get. It was definitely gettable. Would take some batting, but it was gettable.
The bowler ran in. No run. Ah, damn, I thought. We needed a run a ball. What's going on?
He ran in again. Number 8 hit it and we got - wait what's that from the umpire? No-ball? That's an extra run, that's three!
Even the opposition fans were cheering us on.
Bowled a good ball again next one. Damn you.
To the bowler's credit, he bowled a decent delivery the next one, but the batsman just hoiked it. He was not aiming for behind square on the off side. But that's where it went. For four. Suddenly we needed five from 9. We were in the driver's seat.
Quick single to mid on. Ah crap, I thought. Despite how well number 10 has been batting, you really want to expose him to the bowler for two balls in the over?
And then the cover drive. The cover drive. Oh. My. God. The cover drive.
Yeah, I'm taking Ian Bradshaw for my very first pick. Day job as an accountant. Bowled military medium, the guy might probably have been able to overtake the ball if he had a long follow through. But he was reliable. Not penetrative, but reliable. Saw the guy bowl a 10-over spell for 11 runs, 1 wicket and 1 run out in that same 2004 Champions Trophy tournament.
Plus, it helps that he has over 60 ODI games.
However tags don't work in edits so I'm tagging @ddrap14 one time. However you're not to pick until it's officially your time.
There are times when you support your team. Because you sort of have to. Whether you believe in your team is a truly different matter altogether. For years they have been saying that this team has finally been turning the corner. Well, to be honest, you make four corners, you end up right where you started. Might as well be a roundabout, for all the corners that the team has been making recently. Take a damn exit already, for good or for bad.
So you can see why it was with trepidation when I watched my team play their games. And then the last game. All to play for. We'd fielded first. Would it be a good choice? I didn't know. Long gone were the days of the Awesome Foursome, or I should say the Fearsome Fivesome, since all five would never be able to play together. Now we were looking for the next big thing in our fast bowling. And who we have? A bunch of fast-medium guys.
(NOTE: I'm using the Cricket Captain designation here, fast-medium means the guy is medium at base, he's just a little faster. Medium-fast means he's fast at base, and almost up there. Anyways.)
But the pitch was not that bad for bowling first. And so we did. For some reason, the conditions were almost tailor-made for our type of bowling, even if in my thoughts it wouldn't have made for particularly thrilling cricket.
Was I ever wrong. The guys bowled and fielded the hell out of their skins. Three run outs, five catches, and a stumping. Nowadays, run outs are slightly more common, usually in the later overs, when the team is pushing for quick runs at the death. Back then, the death consisted of the odd slower ball and not everyone could even bowl one. It consisted of setting the field deep and just letting the batsmen run the singles. There was no heavy bats, no acrobatic fielding efforts. The fielder saw the ball running to the rope, nope, not diving, sorry. Take a boundary. Sorry, cap. Not my fault. It was a different era of the game.
And yet, we bowled and fielded so well. 217. That's a score that would be so easy to chase. If we didn't let that guy get to a century, it would have been much less.
But we made it look hard. See, by then the pitch had done a bit of drying out. Their bowlers, objectively faster than ours, kept bowling the right lines and lengths. Bouncers were used sparingly to excellent effect. Yorkers were common. And there was the best balls of them all, those on just a good length, maybe fourth or fifth stump. Wickets tumbled. Only one man in the middle order gave a bit of resistance. Else the scorecard was almost a phone number.
My heart sank lower and lower.
I won't lie, I cursed at the TV when that last resistance got out. He was our last batting prospect. Now number 9 would have to bat with number 10. Game over, I figured. The opposition had so many good bowlers left, bowlers who had troubled the top order. What chance did a number 10 have?
The run rate was increasing. The two batsmen were playing it like a Test. Maybe they wanted to save face by not being bowled out, I thought. We had over 70 runs to go, and 2 wickets in hand, overs rapidly decreasing. And then one of them hit a four.
And another boundary quickly followed.
My heart, already somewhere else in my body from where it's supposed to be, started fluttering. Still didn't believe. But maybe we could make this something of a fight. That roundabout, maybe we'd finally turn off from it and go forward. Yeah, we'd lose this, but we could take positives from being a fighting team. I'd take that. They were keeping out the good balls and running the singles and twos. Almost seemed like proper batsmen for a moment. And we kept on chipping away. With every ball, I'd figure the striker would be out. But they wouldn't. Somehow the bouncers, yorkers, and uncertain corridors weren't working anymore. Not that the opposition didn't try. They damn well tried, I guarantee you that. And as my heart slowly returned to it's normal position just centre left of my chest, I began to believe. Truly believe. But there was one problem.
The light.
See, this was before the days when the umpires are the deciders of what's dangerous light. The light used to be offered to the batting team only. And we soldiered on. This game was too important to lose. I believed even more when that happened. But in all honesty, it was dark. Still, the runs were now gettable. Two overs to go and twelve to get. It was definitely gettable. Would take some batting, but it was gettable.
The bowler ran in. No run. Ah, damn, I thought. We needed a run a ball. What's going on?
He ran in again. Number 8 hit it and we got - wait what's that from the umpire? No-ball? That's an extra run, that's three!
Even the opposition fans were cheering us on.
Bowled a good ball again next one. Damn you.
To the bowler's credit, he bowled a decent delivery the next one, but the batsman just hoiked it. He was not aiming for behind square on the off side. But that's where it went. For four. Suddenly we needed five from 9. We were in the driver's seat.
Quick single to mid on. Ah crap, I thought. Despite how well number 10 has been batting, you really want to expose him to the bowler for two balls in the over?
And then the cover drive. The cover drive. Oh. My. God. The cover drive.
Yeah, I'm taking Ian Bradshaw for my very first pick. Day job as an accountant. Bowled military medium, the guy might probably have been able to overtake the ball if he had a long follow through. But he was reliable. Not penetrative, but reliable. Saw the guy bowl a 10-over spell for 11 runs, 1 wicket and 1 run out in that same 2004 Champions Trophy tournament.
Plus, it helps that he has over 60 ODI games.
However tags don't work in edits so I'm tagging @ddrap14 one time. However you're not to pick until it's officially your time.
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Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
That's certainly a big step towards your cap count
Ed Smith
Gaffer
Yep. Definitely considered that when picking him...
qpeedore
SOTM Winner - July 2014
Edited the post.
YES MY PICK DIDNT GET TAKEN LETS GO
Kiran More please. Because 1) his wicketkeeping is actually relatively good, and 2) 94 CAPS. Ten one cap wonders incoming...
@Till Valhalla
Kiran More please. Because 1) his wicketkeeping is actually relatively good, and 2) 94 CAPS. Ten one cap wonders incoming...
@Till Valhalla
Till Valhalla
BCCI President
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2011
- Profile Flag
- Papua New Guinea
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
My first pick is,
Clive Rice ODI stats: 26 runs @ 13.00 (SR: 70.27, best 14) and 2 wickets @ 57.00 (econ: 4.95, best 1/46) in 3 matches
List A stats: 13,474 runs @ 37.32 (SR: unknown, best 169) and 517 wickets @ 22.64 (econ: 3.95, best 6/18) in 479 matches
The legendary South African all-rounder was 42 years of age by the time he was able to play a one-day international, the tenth oldest debutant of all time and well past his best. As a result, he managed no better than a best score of 14 and two wickets across his three matches, which do scant justice to one of the best all-rounders of his era. Capable of batting in the top four (48 first-class centuries at over 40) and opening the bowling (930 wickets at 22.5 apiece), he will be my captain and he will do the job well.
My second pick is a little trickier, but I'm going with...
Sylvester Clarke ODI stats: 13 wickets @ 18.84 (econ: 2.80, best 3/22) in 10 matches
List A stats: 364 wickets @ 18.77 (econ: 3.18, best 6/31) in 250 matches
In any normal team, and in any other era, Sylvester Clarke would have been one of the first names on the team sheet. But this was not a normal team: it was the West Indies in the days of Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and the rest. As a result, Sylvester Clarke (whose bowling average and economy put him right at the top of the pile in the entire history of one-day international cricket) played only infrequently and had to share his wickets around when he did, hence the oddity of him never managing a four-wicket haul in the format.
Aislabie's XI so far:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Clive Rice 5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Sylvester Clarke10.
11.
@Till Valhalla has the next pick, @blockerdave still has one late pick to make
Till Valhalla
BCCI President
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2011
- Profile Flag
- Papua New Guinea
I am a bit confused so all the players should have atleast minimum 100 caps between them or at max 100 caps between them?
blockerdave
ICC Chairman
Sorry I was late.
Obviously would have got Rice or Clarke if I wasn't late, but as I was I'll go for Dean Headley. A sensational bowler with unfortunately too many injuries.
Obviously would have got Rice or Clarke if I wasn't late, but as I was I'll go for Dean Headley. A sensational bowler with unfortunately too many injuries.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
A minimum of 100 caps total
The idea is to force people to pick players with a proven record of failure
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
I feel as if this could be one of those drafts where I pick up a bunch of your favourite players
