Draft time: World Cup history - ALL FINISHED!!

[sifter132]

Hi gang!

Right now we are in the World Cup doldrums: the squads have been named and we've all had our chance to voice our approval/disapproval of the selectors choices. The India-SA series is done, and the Aus-Eng series is one sided, there is still more than 2 weeks until the warm-ups start and over 3 weeks until the first 'real' action. So what to do?

How about that 'ol favourite - a draft? This time to celebrate the history and diversity of the World Cup. The plan is to make an XI of the best players in World Cup history. The main catch for this draft: there is a limit of ONE player from each country (until the last round). Why? The World Cup is a tournament where all countries get a shot at glory and it'll be the same for your XI. To me a great part of the World Cup history is the minnows and hence they'll get at least some representation in the XI you pick.

Other rules:

1. Players you pick must have played 3 World Cup matches or more. So sorry for those Gary Gilmour fans (he only played 2 games).
2. For each pick you make, please add a little description of why your player should be cherished in World Cup history. If you are keen, add a picture and some stories. Remember, one of the purposes of a draft is not so much to 'win', it's to learn a bit more about the history of cricket and see players through the perspective of others.
3. There's a 24 hour limit on your picks, but I'm hoping that none of you will need that. Just check the thread everytime you visit Planet Cricket to see if it's your turn to pick. If you miss your 24 hours more than once, I reserve the right to have you replaced.

Now you know the rules, here's how it will run:

• There will be one round for each country, and I'll outline the order of those below. Bang/Kenya/Zim get paired because they've been the minnows who've qualified the most.
• The drafting order will be randomly determined every 2 rounds. It's every 2 rounds because the order will reverse for the 2nd round. So the order for the 2 rounds would be: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 then 7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Then we change your number for the next 2 rounds, repeat the 'snake-like' order and so on until we're done.

Here's order of the rounds (so you can do your long term planning ):
1. New Zealand

1. riz7khan12 - Martin Crowe
2. Papa_Smurf - Dipak Patel
3. User2010 - Shane Bond
4. mohit_dude10 - Stephen Fleming
5. AkshayS - Chris Harris
6. AngryPixel - Scott Styris
7. ZoraxDoom - Sir Richard Hadlee
8. sifter132 - Geoff Allott
9. shravi - Glenn Turner

2. Pakistan

1. shravi - Imran Khan
2. sifter132 - Abdul Qadir
3. ZoraxDoom - Saeed Anwar
4. AngryPixel - Wasim Akram
5. AkshayS - Waqar Younis
6. mohit_dude10 - Rameez Raja
7. User2010 - Shoaib Akhtar
8. Papa_Smurf - Zaheer Abbas
9. riz7khan12 - Javed Miandad

3. Sri Lanka

1. AkshayS - Muttiah Muralitharan
2. AngryPixel - Sanath Jayasuriya
3. ZoraxDoom - Chaminda Vaas
4. sifter132 - Aravinda de Silva
5. riz7khan12 - Lasith Malinga
6. Papa_Smurf - Arjuna Ranatunga
7. shravi - Marvan Atapattu
8. User2010 - Kumar Sangakkara
9. mohit_dude10 - Mahela Jayawardene

4. Australia

1. mohit_dude10 - Glenn McGrath
2. User2010 - Matthew Hayden
3. shravi - Shane Warne
4. Papa_Smurf - Adam Gilchrist
5. riz7khan12 - Ricky Ponting
6. sifter132 - David Boon
7. ZoraxDoom - Steve Waugh
8. AngryPixel - Mark Waugh
9. AkshayS - Andrew Symonds

5. Bangladesh/Kenya/Zimbabwe

1. sifter132 - Neil Johnson
2. ZoraxDoom - Steve Tikolo
3. AngryPixel - Andy Flower
4. AkshayS - Dave Houghton
5. User2010 - Heath Streak
6. mohit_dude10 - Maurice Odumbe
7. riz7khan12 - Grant Flower
8. Papa_Smurf - Paul Strang
9. shravi - Thomas Odoyo

6. Other minnows (Bermuda, Canada, East Africa, Ireland, Namibia, Netherlands, Scotland, UAE)

1. shravi - Boyd Rankin
2. Papa_Smurf - John Davison
3. riz7khan12 - Trent Johnston
4. mohit_dude10 - Klaas-Jan van Noortwijk
5. User2010 - John Blain
6. AkshayS - Gavin Hamilton
7. AngryPixel - Ryan ten Doeschate
8. ZoraxDoom - Jan-Berrie Burger
9. sifter132 - Niall O'Brien

7. India

1. AngryPixel - Sachin Tendulkar
2. AkshayS - Kapil Dev
3. mohit_dude10 - Anil Kumble
4. User2010 - Sourav Ganguly
5. ZoraxDoom - Rahul Dravid
6. sifter132 - Mohammad Azharuddin
7. shravi - Navjot Sidhu
8. riz7khan12 - Virender Sehwag
9. Papa_Smurf - Javagal Srinath

8. West Indies

1. Papa_Smurf - Sir Vivian Richards
2. riz7khan12 - Michael Holding
3. shravi - Courtney Walsh
4. sifter132 - Brian Lara
5. ZoraxDoom - Ramnaresh Sarwan
6. User2010 - Clive Lloyd
7. mohit_dude10 - Andy Roberts
8. AkshayS - Desmond Haynes
9. AngryPixel - Joel Garner

9. England

1. ZoraxDoom - Chris Old
2. sifter132 - Sir Ian Botham
3. riz7khan12 - Phil DeFreitas
4. Papa_Smurf - Bob Willis
5. shravi - Kevin Pietersen
6. AngryPixel - Andrew Flintoff
7. AkshayS - Graham Gooch
8. mohit_dude10 - Alec Stewart
9. User2010 - Allan Lamb

10. South Africa

1. User2010 - Jacques Kallis
2. mohit_dude10 - Lance Klusener
3. AkshayS - Gary Kirsten
4. AngryPixel - Allan Donald
5. shravi - Herschelle Gibbs
6. Papa_Smurf - Shaun Pollock
7. riz7khan12 - AB De Villiers
8. sifter132 - Jonty Rhodes
9. ZoraxDoom - Graeme Smith

11. Best of the rest - no country restriction, pick anyone you like

1. Papa_Smurf - Michael Bevan
2. ZoraxDoom - Brad Hogg
3. User2010 - Mushtaq Ahmed
4. shravi - Mark Boucher
5. mohit_dude10 - Andy Bichel
6. sifter132 - Craig McDermott
7. riz7khan12 - Shakib Al Hasan
8. AkshayS - Brett Lee
9. AngryPixel - Saqlain Mushtaq?

And just to make it clear, selections are to be based on WORLD CUP PERFORMANCES ONLY. So you may love VVS Laxman, but he'll be completely useless in any World Cup XI, because he's never played in one! Or you may think that Eoin Morgan is super awesome and should be in any ODI XI, but a quick glance at his World Cup record for Ireland will show you that picking Morgan would only drag your team down (91 runs in 9 innings, HS 28, S/R 50.8). And whatever you do don't pick NZ's Mark Gillespie who in his 2 World Cup games went for 0/109 in 12.1 overs. So let's celebrate the World Cup's rich history by finding the best performers - maybe not the biggest names, or maybe there are... Or perhaps the best choice may not be who has the most runs or the best average, it might be who turned up in the big moments and turned important matches. You decide.

Players so far:
sifter132
Cricketman
Papa_Smurf
shravi
AkshayS
riz7khan12
AngryPixel
mohit_dude10
ZoraxDoom
User2010

 

[Cricketman]

Sounds interesting, sign me up.

 

[Papa_Smurf]

I don't fully understand the rules, but sign me-up!

The way I understand it is, for each round, we each get a 24 hour window to give our name for that round + reasons why. Am I right? Either way, sounds fun! When do we start?

 

[sifter132]

Yep that's pretty right. You'll get the hang of it quickly

Have a look at King Pietersen's draft he ran last year: an all-time Test draft. It had a pretty similar structure to what mine will have, set up for one country per 'round'. Here's the thread for that one:
http://www.planetcricket.org/forums...raft-done-time-comments-discussion-65025.html

 

[shravi]

Can I join?

 

[AkshayS]

Sign me in, please.

 

[sifter132]

You're both locked in. I'll give a bit more time for some others to sign up and then we can rip into it.

 

[AngryPixel]

Sign me up...

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By the way, original idea of a country per round sounds good. That way discussion would be focused too.

 

[Papa_Smurf]

Yep that's pretty right. You'll get the hang of it quickly

Have a look at King Pietersen's draft he ran last year: an all-time Test draft. It had a pretty similar structure to what mine will have, set up for one country per 'round'. Here's the thread for that one:
http://www.planetcricket.org/forums...raft-done-time-comments-discussion-65025.html

Just read it, and I understand it now Man, picking those Test XI's sure looked fun - can't wait

 

[AngryPixel]

Yeah and Dutchad's squad was most entertaining to watch... Awesome firepower.

 

[riz7khan12]

i'm in and i think the country order seems fine.

 

[AngryPixel]

Nice... More people coming in. Lets hope it start soon.

P.S: just realized that the F* word is replaced automatically by "Cricket" instead of fling now

 

[Papa_Smurf]

How many ppl are you looking for stifler before we can get started? I'm amazed at how excited I am about this. "Isn't that a bit sad?" Who cares

 

[sifter132]

By the way, original idea of a country per round sounds good. That way discussion would be focused too.

Yep I like it too, better structure and it gets the minnows involved which will add more difficulty

i'm in and i think the country order seems fine.

Glad you approve Tried to pair countries together that are ROUGHLY equivalent with regards to stand out players so that having the #1 pick in a certain round will not be too huge an advantage.

How many ppl are you looking for stifler before we can get started? I'm amazed at how excited I am about this. "Isn't that a bit sad?" Who cares

Not sadd mate, you're just turning into a 'draftnik' I love em too.

I think 10 will be the best number of players because that way I can structure the picking order so that everyone gets a round where they have a #1 choice. Until the 11th round that is, there I'll see if anyone got a subtle advantage with the pick ordering in the first 10 rounds, and try to compensate a tiny bit. But it won't matter much because in the 11th round there is a wider choice of players and all the best players will have gone, so there's much less disadvantage if you pick last in round 11.

EDIT: Just updated the first post with the full drafting order for all the rounds (with player x instead of your names obviously). I don't see any huge advantage to any of them but you may particularly want the first choice in a given round, or maybe the last choice in a specific round. And since I'm a fair fellow I'll let you choose which of those 'players' you want to control eg. if you want the first pick for NZ then just make a post below saying that you want to be player 1. It's a first in, first served system ie, Once we have someone post and say they want to be player 1 then too bad, pick another. If you don't care, I'll just randomly assign you a 'player' once we have all our participants.

 

[AngryPixel]

I want player number 6