Another draft!-Test players of the 90s and later - FINISHED!

[sifter132]

Well Aoun/send2yaari has had more than 24 hours, but has yet to pick (but was on criticising others picks ) Yudi you are free to pick now, you do not have to wait for him. And you can make 2 choices too, because that will finish your XI off.

Fair point you have made there. Ganguly might not be a wicket taking bowler but his bowling stats on cricinfo show that he was a bowler who didn't give away too many runs. Ganguly's economy in test matches is of 3.23 which shows that he's a bowler who had the ability to stop the runs. I've got him in my team so if the need be, he can bowl at least 10 overs. Surely a more than useful player to have in your team - a great player for the balance of your side.

This is true, averages are easily blown out by poor strike rates, but that is not why you've picked him. I was looking at Guy Whittall as my allrounder in the Zimbabwe round, who is similar. His bowling average is just over 40, but his economy was 2.7 or something like that. So I was thinking perhaps of going KP + Guy Whittall instead of Flintoff + Murray Goodwin. As a 5th bowler, Whittall would have been fine, but I think bowling will probably be my weaker suit, so I went for Flintoff to try and reinforce the attack.

 

[Aoun13]

TM Dilshan is my pick.

 

[Aditya]

This is true, averages are easily blown out by poor strike rates, but that is not why you've picked him. I was looking at Guy Whittall as my allrounder in the Zimbabwe round, who is similar. His bowling average is just over 40, but his economy was 2.7 or something like that. So I was thinking perhaps of going KP + Guy Whittall instead of Flintoff + Murray Goodwin. As a 5th bowler, Whittall would have been fine, but I think bowling will probably be my weaker suit, so I went for Flintoff to try and reinforce the attack.

Well, Whittall looks to be a good player but the thing with players from Bangladesh and Zimbabwe is that, if a player is averaging in 40's with the bowl (like Whittall) then his average will get more worse because he has had played more matches against teams like Bangladesh who when compared to other strong teams are obviously not the best but then that's not what I think. It's not a player's fault if he is not made to play against the best sides in the world. He's giving away his best for his team and at the end of the day, according to me, it doesn't really matter for which team a player played or against which team he played. You cannot say that Andy Flower didn't get to play strong oppositions in comparison to Sachin who more often than not plays the stronger oppositions. It's not like good players will turn into bad when playing against good oppositions. They obviously tend to give their best whenever they're playing against strong oppositions.

Kevin O'Brien was remarkable against England in the 2011 world cup, Bangladesh team vs India in 2011 and even Ireland in 2007 WC against Pakistan. How would the players from weaker oppositions be judged when they're not playing much against strong oppositions? A player should be fairly judged no matter for which team he played/played against. If you ask me, you did the right thing by going for Flintoff rather than Whittall. Flintoff was a better player going by averages or even generally talking. Flintoff was a team man and he was a very very fine batsman and obviously a very good bowler. My point here is, we need to be fair to the weaker team players, which most of us here are and I'm glad to see that. We've picked the players by not only judging them by their averages or for the teams they played but we judged them on the basis of their potential. Whether or whether not they played well against whichever opposition they played.

 

[sifter132]

Geez this has really ground to a halt in a last 2-3 days Yudi has around 1 hour to make his Sri Lanka pick before Aditya can jump ahead.

Come on people, lets finish it off strongly

 

[shravi]

Adi's turn now, I'm guessing?

 

[cricket_icon]

Geez this has really ground to a halt in a last 2-3 days Yudi has around 1 hour to make his Sri Lanka pick before Aditya can jump ahead.

Come on people, lets finish it off strongly

haha yeah, it's gone to a snails pace. but some pretty good selections in place. There're a few teams here that could challenge all time XIs

 

[Gaurav_7]

Oh come on please. Aditya please select your player. I guess Shravi can start the Aus round then?

 

[Aditya]

Sri Lanka round pick : Marvan Atapattu

I'll do the write up soon.

 

[sifter132]

Oh come on please. Aditya please select your player. I guess Shravi can start the Aus round then?

Nah, Yudi only loses his spot in the SL round, not the Aus one. Yudi 24 hours for his Aussie pick will start as soon as shravi makes his SL pick.

Chaminda Vaas

I feel a smidge bad because Yudi probably wanted this guy, but he's had 48 hours to claim him, and the show must go on.

So, what to say about Chaminda...:
*He's Sri Lanka's 2nd highest wicket taker, with a huge gap on either side.
*He averaged just a smidge under 30 over his career, great for a subcontinent bowler
*Left arm swing bowler will bring that added variety to my XI, good with new and old ball
*Pretty good lower order batsman too, with an average of just under 25.

Debut: vs Pakistan, 1994
Tests: 111
Runs: 3089
Average: 24.32
Wickets: 355
Average: 29.58

1 Gautam Gambhir
2 Graeme Smith
3 Younis Khan
4
5 Andy Flower (wk)
6 Murray Goodwin
7 Andrew Flintoff
8 Daniel Vettori
9 Chaminda Vaas
10 Shane Warne (c)
11 Merv Dillon

So the 5 man attack is complete, Warne the rock around whom the others will bowl. I envision about 25 overs a day from Warne, 15-20 from Vaas and Flintoff, with Dillon and Vettori filling in the rest depending on the conditions.

 

[shravi]

Well, with pretty much everybody else out of the picture, I have only one logical choice that I can make as both De Silva and Hashan Tilakaratne debuted before 1990 and I already have a wicket keeper. Lasith Malinga is Sri Lanka's third highest wicket taker in their cricketing history. He had a short test career but he was lethal on some very unresponsive pitches. I'm not going to say he was one of the greatest bowlers ever, because he wasn't but he had the potential to be one of the better bowlers of this era. He is also probably Sri Lanka's second greatest fast bowler after Chaminda Vaas. However, his body couldn't handle the rigors of test cricket due to the stress that his slingy action puts on his body. He has a virtually identical average, strike rate and economy rate both at home and away from home. In 30 matches (59 innings as a bowler) he took 101 wickets at an average of 33.15 and a strike rate of 51.5, with 3 five-fors. I'm really not sure who I could have picked if both Yudi and Aoun made their picks on time .

Gary Kirsten
Tamim Iqbal
Ian Bell
Brian Lara
VVS Laxman
6
+ Ridley Jacobs
Dale Steyn
Shane Bond
Lasith Malinga
Mushtaq Ahmed

 

[sifter132]

Mendis perhaps? He's about the only other guy I could find with a decent record, it's pretty lean at the bottom otherwise. I was hoping not to get stuck with Russel Arnold or Dilhara Fernando And now you've ended up with a serious trio of strike bowlers

Anyway, Yudi's time has come to start the Aussie round, and of course he can make his SL pick at the same time.

 

[AbhishekS]

Oh snap, Vaas was gonna be my pick!

On Plan B now, my two picks are Prasanna Jayawardene (as a batsman) and Brett Lee.

Yudi's XI:

1. Alastair Cook
2. Virender Sehwag
3. Stephen Fleming
4. Kumar Sangakkara
5. Jimmy Adams
6. Prassana Jayawardene
7. Mark Boucher (wk)
8. Brett Lee
9. Danish Kaneria
10. Mashrafe Mortaza
11. Javagal Srinath

So that completes my team. Looks pretty strong imo.
The write-ups and the overall team summary will be done soon.

 

[Aditya]

Shravi to make his pick and then I can make the last pick for my team.

 

[sifter132]

If you count Jimmy Adams, Yudi you've got 4 guys who could keep Easy to say now, but if you'd taken Darryl Cullinan or maybe Amla instead of Boucher, that might have helped.

Also, love Brett Lee - one of my favourite cricketers, so that will always get a thumbs up from me

 

[cricket_icon]

Flintoff and Vaas definitely add depth to your team sifter but what a pace attack by shravi, Bond, Steyn and Malinga. Although Malinga in test cricket is not as useful as in ODIs.