Draft: Best to never play Test cricket | Draft Part 2 underway...

[blockerdave]

I concur

 

[VC the slogger]

Alrighty, if you're keen then so am I.

Draft order:

1. @blockerdave
2. @CerealKiller
3. @Aislabie
4. @VC the slogger
5. @VC the slogger
6. @Aislabie
7. @CerealKiller
8. @blockerdave
9. @Aislabie
10. @blockerdave
11. @VC the slogger
12. @CerealKiller
13. @CerealKiller
14. @VC the slogger
15. @blockerdave
16. @Aislabie
17. @Aislabie
18. @blockerdave
19. @VC the slogger
20. @CerealKiller
21. @blockerdave
22. @Aislabie
23. @VC the slogger
24. @CerealKiller
25. @blockerdave
26. @Aislabie
27. @VC the slogger
28. @CerealKiller
29. @CerealKiller
30. @VC the slogger
31. @Aislabie
32. @blockerdave
33. @VC the slogger
34. @Aislabie
35. @CerealKiller
36. @blockerdave
37. @blockerdave
38. @CerealKiller
39. @Aislabie
40. @VC the slogger
41. @Aislabie
42. @VC the slogger
43. @CerealKiller
44. @blockerdave

Draft guidelines

I will post the ordered draft once I get the sufficient amount of signups. The same rules apply as in other drafts i.e the next person may pick if it's been more than 24 hrs and the person before hasn't picked their player, the player picked is invalid, and that you have to tag the person coming after you. It would also be appreciated if you can post a sentence or two about why you're picking a certain player - it doesn't have to be as detailed as this; something like the example posted below would more than suffice:

I assume you all know what to do, so..

 

[Aislabie]

Hell yes, weirdly pumped for this one

 

[blockerdave]

I'm obviously going to lose a lot of good players by being first and everyone else getting 2 picks before my next go, but it's worth it because I get to pick Clive Rice.

CLIVE RICE

Everyone talks about the great all rounders of the 80s, Beefy, Imran, Kapil and Hadlee. Rice was better. He was probably the lesser bowler - just - but he was well ahead on batting skills, and he was a truly inspirational tactically brilliant captain.

26,331 First Class runs at 40.95 including 48 hundreds. 930 First Class wickets at 22.49. He also led "the Mean Machine" of Transvaal to Currie Cup dominance, when the Currie Cup was one of the hardest most intense domestic competitions in the world. But for South Africa's isolation he'd be widely acknowledged as one of the greatest cricketers of all time.

And if all this wasn't enough, he helped get KP over to England.

Ricey - best player never to play test cricket. By a distance. There are gonna be some seriously good names in this list, you guys are gonna pick names I'm gonna be gutted I couldn't get, and hopefully I'm gonna discover some new ones too. They still aren't gonna be as good as Rice though.

@CerealKiller - your go

 

[CerealKiller]

Franklyn Stephenson
If it weren't for his participation in a rebel tour to South Africa in 1982-83, Franklyn Stephenson could've been an all-time great West Indian cricketer. He played for teams on four different continents, making his first-class debut for Tasmania, oddly enough, before plying his trade for his native Barbados before his ban for touring South Africa, where he later played for Orange Free State, and then for Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire and Sussex in England.
He was a hard hitting lower middle order batsman, and as a pace bowler he was genuinely fast when at his peak. He developed a phenomenal slower ball that often crashed into the base of the stumps while bewildered batsmen mistook it for a beamer and ducked for cover, and was the first to use this type of delivery regularly in one-day cricket.
In 1988, in his first season for Nottinghamshire, he completed the unique double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in the County Championship, and remains the last to have achieved this mark. He needed 200 runs in the last match to get to a thousand, and duly smashed 111 and 117, to go with 11 wickets.
In total, he scored 8622 runs at an average of 28, and took 792 wickets at 24 runs apiece.

CerealKiller's XI
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Franklyn Stephenson
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

@Aislabie

 

[blockerdave]

Franklyn Stephenson
If it weren't for his participation in a rebel tour to South Africa in 1982-83, Franklyn Stephenson could've been an all-time great West Indian cricketer. He played for teams on four different continents, making his first-class debut for Tasmania, oddly enough, before plying his trade for his native Barbados before his ban for touring South Africa, where he later played for Orange Free State, and then for Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire and Sussex in England.
He was a hard hitting lower middle order batsman, and as a pace bowler he was genuinely fast when at his peak. He developed a phenomenal slower ball that often crashed into the base of the stumps while bewildered batsmen mistook it for a beamer and ducked for cover, and was the first to use this type of delivery regularly in one-day cricket.
In 1988, in his first season for Nottinghamshire, he completed the unique double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in the County Championship, and remains the last to have achieved this mark. He needed 200 runs in the last match to get to a thousand, and duly smashed 111 and 117, to go with 11 wickets.
In total, he scored 8622 runs at an average of 28, and took 792 wickets at 24 runs apiece.

CerealKiller's XI
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Franklyn Stephenson
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

@Aislabie

Fantastic choice.

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #3: Vince van der Bijl
​

Profile
Vince van der Bijl was one of my top three choices for my bowling attack, but with the near-certainty that one of them will be picked before my next turn, I had to think hard. Ultimately though, there's no way around the frankly obscene quality of this giant South African. He's the sort of player who is often referred to as "probably" the leading bowler of his generation but let's be honest: at his very best, big Vince was peerless. All of this was in spite of the fact that he wasn't a cricketer by profession: he was a teacher. There wasn't much money in cricket in South Africa back then.

First-class statistics
2,269 runs @ 16.20 (best 87) and 767 wickets @ 16.54 (46 5WI, best 8/35) in 156 matches

Finest Performances
He was only a fully professional player for one year, but what a year it was. In 1980, he arrived in Middlesex to bowl them almost single-handedly to the double of County Championship and Gillette Cup triumph, finishing up with 85 first-class wickets at 14.71 apiece. Imagine what he'd have done in his peak years, and had he happened to be a professional.

Role in the Team
He's going to open the bowling for me and take wickets for fun.

Aislabie's XI so far:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. Vince van der Bijl (Pick #3)
10.
11.

Next pick:
@VC the slogger

 

[blockerdave]

I knew these 2 would go so quickly...

Fantastic picking. If I was picking an 11 with no draft, Stephenson and Vince are the next 2 names on my team sheet after Ricey

 

[Aislabie]

I knew these 2 would go so quickly...

Fantastic picking. If I was picking an 11 with no draft, Stephenson and Vince are the next 2 names on my team sheet after Ricey

Yeah, they'd be up there for sure. I don't know that they'd all be my first three, but my first pick out of up to about six or seven players depends quite literally on my mood. There are so many great players to choose from

 

[CerealKiller]

but my first pick out of up to about six or seven players depends quite literally on my mood.

Same. I had already written the profile for Van der Bijl, but there's something about Stephenson that made me change my mind and pick him

 

[VC the slogger]

Mighty impressed with your picks thus far, but at the same time glad you left alone the player I was aiming for. And his name is..

Spoiler

​

John Barton King, or Bart as he was often called, is to my mind the greatest bowler to have never played Test cricket in it's 142 years of existence. He was among the very first bowlers to deliberately swing the ball, possessing the skill to swing it both ways with an old or new ball, and bowled a mean inswinger which he called the "angler" that he would use quite sparingly to bamboozle some of the best batsmen of his day. Standing at above 6 feet tall with a strong build, he was described by his contemporary John Lester as being the perfect specimen for a fast bowler, and it's hard to disagree with his assessment if you have a look at the iconic picture of him bowling above.

While his bowling would have been enough to get him into any side in the world, he was also a skilled batsman - something not justified by a mediocre first-class batting average of 20.51, but one has to take into consideration the pitches of the time, the irregularity with which he played first-class cricket over a 19-year career, and the fact that he started his career as a No 11 in the Philadelphian side - remaining predominantly a tailender until their 1897 tour of England when he was first given an opportunity to bat in the top six. The latter half of his career saw him usually bat in the top four, opening both the batting and bowling for his teams on several occasions.

As a batsman, he was generally free scoring with the power and ability to strike the ball a long way - something he displayed in an exhibition match against Lincolnshire during the Philadelphians' 1903 tour of England, where he struck a brutish 178 containing 6 sixes in a match were no other batsman struck even one. This approach though often hampered his chances of putting up big scores in the first-class arena where he managed only 1 century from 65 matches. Nevertheless, none of that took away what a fine all-round cricketer he was, and remains to this day in the words of the incomparable Sir Donald Bradman "America's greatest cricketing son".


Playing role

The primary reason for me selecting Bart King in my XI is his unmatchable swing bowling. His batting the way I see it is nothing more than an added bonus, so I'll have him penciled down at No 8 in my lineup for now. I want him to really put all his energy into one thing and one thing only - obliterating the batting lineups of his opponents like he did with such panache during his 19-year first-class career between 1893 and 1912.

Stats and trivia

- King played a total of 65 first-class matches over the course of 19 years between 1893 and 1912, scoring 2134 runs at an average of 20.51 and claiming 415 wickets at an average of 15.65 respectively. His bowling statistics are even more impressive when one considers the first-class bowling averages of some of the leading Test wicket-takers of his day such as Wilfred Rhodes (16.72), Colin Blythe (16.81), Sydney Barnes (17.09), Aubrey Faulkner (17.42), Reggie Schwarz (17.58), "Old" Jack Hearne (17.75), Tom Richardson (18.43), Hugh Trumble (18.44) and Monty Noble (23.14). This in itself shows he was at least on par with if not better than most of those illustrious names.
- In all representative cricket, he scored 19808 runs at 36.47 with 39 centuries - the most by a North American player, and claimed 2088 wickets at 10.47 across 27 seasons between 1889 and 1916. Of these, he topped 100 wickets in a season on 8 occasions, 1000 runs on 6 occasions, and the rare double of 100 wickets and 1000 runs on 4 occasions.
- King ruthlessly dominated Philadelphia's Halifax Cup competition, winning the Childs Cup which was awarded to the best batsman and bowler of the tournament every season. He won it for a record 12 seasons between 1896 and 1914, including five years straight between 1904 and 1908 - 9 times for his bowling, 7 times for his batting and 4 times for topping both in the same season. It was an impressive feat considering the quality of cricket played in the competition in those days was considered to be on par with 2nd XI county cricket in England.
- He scored two triple centuries in the Halifax Cup, scoring 315 in 1905 and bettering it the next year with a mind-boggling 344* in 1906 - a North American batting record which stands to this day. He also claimed 10 wickets in an innings on at least 3 occasions during his career with a best of 10 for 53 at first-class level. There was also an instance of him bowling all 11 batsmen in an innings in a match against the Gentlemen of Ireland where he bowled 10 batsmen along with the last surviving not out batsman off a no-ball.
- King made three first-class tours to England with the Gentlemen of Philadelphia in 1897, 1903 and 1908 respectively. He scored 441 runs at 20.04 and claimed 72 wickets at 24.02 in 1897; 614 runs at 29.23 and 78 wickets at 16.06 in 1903; 290 runs at 16.11 and 87 wickets at 11.01 in 1908. His overall aggregate in the country being 1315 runs at 21.56 and 237 wickets at 16.63 from 37 matches.
- King also led the bowling averages for the 1908 English cricketing season with a record low 87 wickets at 11.01, which remained a record for another 50 years until Les Jackson beat him by claiming a marginally better 143 wickets at 10.99 in 1958.
- King played his final two first-class matches at the age of 39 against an Australian touring side in 1912, finishing with match figures of 9 for 78 in victory and 8 for 74 in defeat. It was one of three instances during his career - the first two being in 1893 and 1896 (he claimed five-fers in both matches), where the Gentlemen of Philadelphia had emerged victorious against a Test-playing team with him at the helm.
- He continued to play on in the Halifax Cup even after retiring from first-class cricket until 1916, and though his bowling had somewhat declined during this period, he continued to pile on the runs with the bat by scoring 752 runs at 47.00 with 1 century and 6 fifties from the last 17 innings of his career.

​

My other pick is George Patterson. Will do a more detailed writeup later, but for now just know that he is arguably the greatest opening batsman ever produced by an associate nation, and America's second greatest cricketer after Bart King. And not to mention, a dangerously deceptive medium pacer who's taken more than his fair share of wickets at first-class level. So..

VC's XI

1. George Patterson
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. Bart King
9.
10.
11.

Over to you, @Aislabie.

 

[Bevab]

Oh this draft could be good indeed!

 

[Aislabie]

Yeah, I knew you'd take Bart King. I just had to make the decision between him and van der Bijl

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #6: Frank Tarrant

Profile
Frank Tarrant was a nomadic all-rounder, denied Test opportunities by a combination of his predilection for emigration and by the First World War, but he was an objectively world-class cricketer well into the twilight of his career. Originally from Melbourne, he made his Sheffield Shield debut as a teenager before emigrating to England. He worked on the MCC ground staff whilst qualifying to represent Middlesex. He did so in 1905, and commenced his county career with a thousand runs and 91 wickets in his first full season. He then followed this by completing the double (1,000 runs and 100 wickets) eight years in succession until the outbreak of the War. As for why higher honours evaded him? Ironically, England did not consider him because of his connections with Australia, and Australia did not consider him because of his connections with England. His globetrotting career continued until his 58th year, and in his final match he scored 78 and took four wickets while opening the batting and bowling for the Europeans in India.

First-class statistics
17,952 runs @ 36.41 (33 centuries, best 250*) and 1,512 wickets @ 17.49 (133 5WI, best 10/90) in 329 matches

Finest Performances
There are too many to mention, but the entire 1907 season was an extended display of excellence as he finished with 1,552 runs and 183 wickets. But there was also the 1914 season, where he scored back-to-back double hundreds and followed them up with a sixteen-wicket match haul.

Role in the Team
For the time being, Tarrant will slot in at number six and function as one of what is likely to be a five-man, two-spin bowling attack (TBC).

Aislabie's XI so far:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Frank Tarrant (Pick #6)
7.
8.
9. Vince van der Bijl (Pick #3)
10.
11.

Next pick:
@CerealKiller

 

[Gaurav_7]

My gosh, sounds like a gun of a player this Frank Tarrant! Lovely picks and info thus far.