Teams of the decade (1950s to 2000s)

[War]

I had an idea of selecting the Best XI's over various decades starting from the 1950's:

1950's:

1.Len Hutton*
2.Arthur Morris
3.Neil Harvey
4.Everton Weeks
5.Dennis Compton
6.Gary Sobers
7.Keith Miller
8.Godfrey Evans+
9.Ray Lindwall
10.Freddie Trueman
11.Jim Laker

Unlucky to miss out are May,Worrell, Walcott, Gupte, Hazare, Bedser, Tayfield, Mankad, Bailey



1960's:

1.Conrad Hunte
2.Bob Simpson
3.Rohan Kanhai
4.Graeme Pollock
5.Ken Barrington
6.Gary Sobers*
7.Denis Lindsay+
8. Richie Benaud
9.Allan Davidson
10.Wes Hall
11.Freddie Trueman


worthy mentions Dexter, Barlow, H Mohammad, Lawry, Goddard, Gibbs, P Pollock



1970's:

1.Sunil Gavaskar
2.Barry Richards
3.Viv Ricards
4.Greg Chappell*
5.Graeme Pollock
6. Mike Procter
7.Allan Knott+
8.Andy Roberts
9.Michael Holding
10.Dennis Lillee
11.Dereck Underwood

Worthy mentions Greenidge, the Indian spin quartet, Llyod, Barlow, Snow, Abbas, M Mohammad



1980's:

1.Sunil Gavaskar
2.Gordon Greenidge
3.Viv Richards
4.Javed Miandad
5.Allan Border*
6. Ian Botham
7.Imran Khan
8.Jeffery Dujon+
9.Richard Hadlee
10.Malcolm Marshall
11.Joel Garner


worthy mentions Dev, Qadir, Holding, Gower Richardson, Le Roux, Rice



1990's:

1.Graham Gooch
2.Saeed Anwar
3.Brian Lara
4.Sachin Tendulkar
5.Steve Waugh
6.Inzamam-ul-Haq
7.Ian Healy+
8.Wasim Akram
9.Shane Warne
10.Curtly Ambrose
11.Allan Donald

worthy mentions McGrath, Pollock, Waqar, Dravid, Muralitharan, Flower, Kirsten



2000's:

1.Justin Langer
2.Matthew Hayden
3.Ricky Ponting
4.Brian Lara
5.Jacques Kallis
6.Adam Gilchrist/Sangakkara
7.Andrew Flintoff
8.Shane Warne (c)
9.Shoaib Akhtar
10.Muttiah Muralitharan
11.Glenn McGrath

worthy mentions Tendulkar, Gillespie, Sehwag, Dravid, KP, Steyn, Bond

 

[pcfan123]

Shoaib Akhtar over Bond/Steyn?

 

[King Pietersen]

Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Bond and Dale Steyn over Shaun Pollock?

1950's

1. Len Hutton
2. Arthur Morris
3. Neil Harvey
4. Garfield Sobers
5. Everton Weekes
6. PBH May
7. Keith Miller
8. Godfrey Evans +
9. Jim Laker
10. Fred Trueman
11. Ray Lindwall

1960's

1. Bill Lawry
2. Bob Simpson
3. Ken Barrington
4. Graham Pollock
5. Garfield Sobers
6. Rohan Kanhai
7. Alan Knott +
8. Alan Davidson
9. Fred Trueman
10. Derek Underwood
11. Wes Hall

1970's

1. Sunil Gavaskar
2. Barry Richards
3. Greg Chappell
4. Viv Richards
5. Graham Pollock
6. Mike Proctor
7. Alan Knott +
8. Ian Botham
9. Dennis Lillee
10. Andy Roberts
11. Jeff Thomson

1980's

1. Gordon Greenidge
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Viv Richards
4. David Gower
5. Allan Border
6. Ian Botham
7. Imran Khan
8. Jeffrey Dujon +
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Dennis Lillee
11. Malcolm Marshall

1990's

1. Graham Gooch
2. Saeed Anwar
3. Brian Charles Lara
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Steve Waugh
6. Martin Crowe
7. Ian Healy +
8. Wasim Akram
9. Shane Warne
10. Allan Donald
11. Curtley Ambrose

2000's

1. Matthew Hayden
2. Graeme Smith
3. Ricky Ponting
4. Rahul Dravid
5. Brian Lara
6. Jacques Kallis
7. Adam Gilchrist +
8. Shane Warne
9. Shaun Pollock
10. Muttiah Muralitharan
11. Glenn McGrath

 

[War]

Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Bond and Dale Steyn over Shaun Pollock?

Definately. Pollock had declined significantly in the 2000s era, compared to the bowler he was between 1995/96 - 2001/02 (after the series vs AUS when he suffered his second career injury - a shoulder injury).

Then between BANG 2001/02 to PAK 03/04 (the faisalabad test when he took his last 5 wicket haul), was his last decent/quality period as a test bowler. Then from 03/04 to 07/08 he was very average, his had become medium pace, all his zip had gone. In a test in Sri Lanka 06 i remember he was reduced to bowling off-spin even.

I would even pick Lee & Ntini at their best over Pollock in the last decade.

 

[Dare]

1950s:
Lenn Hutton *
Arthur Morris
Neil Harvey
Clyde Walcott
Everton Weekes
Garry Sobers
Keith Miller
Godfrey Evans +
Jim Laker
Ray Lindwall
Fred Trueman

1960s:
Bill Lawry
Conrad Hunte
Ken Barrington
Garry Sobers*
Greame Pollock
Rohan Kanhai
Alan Knott+
Fred Trueman
Lance Gibbs
Wes Hall
Derek Underwood

1970s:
Sunil Gavaskar
Roy Fredericks
Greg Chappell *
Geoff Boycott
Alvin Kallicharran
Mike Proctor
Alan Knott+
Ian Botham
Andy Roberts
Denis Lille
Bhagwath Chandrasekhar

1980s:
Gordon Greenidge
Sunil Gavaskar
Viv Richards
Allan Border
Javed Miandad
Imran Khan*
Jeff Dujon +
Richard Hadlee
Malcolm Marshall
Joel Garner
Abdul Qadir

1990s:
Graham Gooch
Saeed Anwar
Mark Waugh*
Sachin Tendulkar
Brian Lara
Aravinda de Silva
Ian Healey+
Shane Warne
Wasim Akram
Curtly Ambrose
Allan Donald

2000s:
Matthew Hayden
Graeme Smith
Ricky Ponting *
Jacques Kallis
Inzamam-ul-Haq
Brian Lara
Kumar Sangakkara+
Shane Warne
Shaun Pollock
Glenn McGrath
Muttiah Muralitharan

 

[Owzat]

Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Bond and Dale Steyn over Shaun Pollock?

My sentiments exactly. Shoaib was an irregular, obviously brilliant bowler but only 46 Tests even if he took his wickets at 25.70. Bond likewise, good bowler but injury prone so only EIGHTEEN Tests with a better average than Shoaib of 22.09. Steyn is more of a johnny come lately contender, although for me his 38 Tests and average of 23.52 makes him an equally borderline contender.

Between 01/01/2000 and 10/01/2008 Pollock took 260 wickets at 24.77 and scored 2377 runs at 32.56. Only Bond in his short career can boast a much better average in bowling terms, add to that a handy batting average and surely the case is closed?

Owzat added 7 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...

Definately. Pollock had declined significantly in the 2000s era, compared to the bowler he was between 1995/96 - 2001/02 (after the series vs AUS when he suffered his second career injury - a shoulder injury).

Then between BANG 2001/02 to PAK 03/04 (the faisalabad test when he took his last 5 wicket haul), was his last decent/quality period as a test bowler. Then from 03/04 to 07/08 he was very average, his had become medium pace, all his zip had gone. In a test in Sri Lanka 06 i remember he was reduced to bowling off-spin even.

I would even pick Lee & Ntini at their best over Pollock in the last decade.

Regardless of injury, Pollock still took 260 wickets in the 2000s and scored a shedload of runs - doesn't say he has to be picked on bowling alone

 

[War]

Regardless of injury, Pollock still took 260 wickets in the 2000s and scored a shedload of runs - doesn't say he has to be picked on bowling alone.

Stats dont tell the whole truth of how he bowled in the 2000s. The best of Pollock was for about 1.5 years of the 7 he played in the 2000s. The best of Lee, Akhtar, Ntini was better than Pollock.

Plus i dont think Akhtar being irregular due to being injury proned is an issue at all. Tthe team of the decade is hypotetical scenario - its not a team that will actually play. We picking best players based on who was the best at their respective peaks.

Akthat at his best when he played was wayyyy better than Poloock in the 2000s. The combination of McGrath metronomical greatness & Akhtar pace (which owned England in 2005 & Australia in 2002), in the hypotetical "Team of 2000s" is the best new-ball pair for sure.

 

[sifter132]

Stats dont tell the whole truth of how he bowled in the 2000s. The best of Pollock was for about 1.5 years of the 7 he played in the 2000s. The best of Lee, Akhtar, Ntini was better than Pollock.

Plus i dont think Akhtar being irregular due to being injury proned is an issue at all. Tthe team of the decade is hypotetical scenario - its not a team that will actually play. We picking best players based on who was the best at their respective peaks.

Akthat at his best when he played was wayyyy better than Poloock in the 2000s. The combination of McGrath metronomical greatness & Akhtar pace (which owned England in 2005 & Australia in 2002), in the hypotetical "Team of 2000s" is the best new-ball pair for sure.

Well S.pollock must have been a wizard to average under 25 over 7 years when he was only bowling well for 1.5 of them The pitches in SA aren't THAT good for the quicks.

Just wanted to mention that if you are going who was best at their peak then there are 2 batsmen who need to be picked: Mohammad Yousuf and Mike Hussey. Both were unstoppable for 12-24 months and peaked higher than Lara did IMHO (this decade anyway).

And it makes Clyde Walcott a lock for the 50s team. He had 3 years where he averaged over 70 and against the 2 best sides. His 827 runs in the series v Aus in 1955 is still in the top 5 series aggregates ever and that was the year straight after he scored about 700 in a series v England.

 

[War]

Well S.pollock must have been a wizard to average under 25 over 7 years when he was only bowling well for 1.5 of them The pitches in SA aren't THAT good for the quicks.

Yea its interesting that his average is indeed is't 30+ for example. But thats what i say just watching him bowl, its was fairly obvious that he wasn't the Pollock of between England 95/96 - AUS 2001/02.

I would just use the times he played againts Australia & England that i saw mainly:

- When England toured SA in 04/05. Pollock clealry was passed it.

- When SA tour Australia in 05/06. It was the same case, Ntini & Nel where the only threats to Australia. I remember Gilchrist tearing Polly apart in the SCG test.

- After 2006 Pollock in a test vs SRI Lanka was reduced to bowling off-spin. It was quite embarrassing for such a great bowler. Read this article

Shaun Pollock on the decline

Shaun Pollock and Chaminda Vaas have both lost considerable pace over the last couple of years, but while Vaas continues to be a force as a bowler, Pollock's numbers have declined alarmingly

S Rajesh

August 11, 2006

Text size: A | A

Shaun Pollock tries his hand at offspin. Over the last 15 Tests, Pollock the bowler has struggled to be a potent force AFP




The second Test between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Colombo was among the most exciting matches in recent times - wickets and runs came at a brisk rate, and neither team dominated for long stretches - but in the midst of all that excitement, a little side story that got ignored completely was the performances of two aging stars who are battling to shine like they did in their pomp.

Shaun Pollock is 33 years old, while Chaminda Vaas is just five months short of 33; both missed the first Test due to various reasons, and both returned remarkably similar figures in the second: Vaas bowled 37 overs, and managed meagre returns of 1 for 124; Pollock bowled two fewer overs and got a solitary wicket for 112 (though more than just the figures, what was a telling sign of Pollock's decline was to see him resort to offspin after being tonked over his head for six by Sanath Jayasuriya). With the bat, though, both had more success, indicating perhaps the direction in which both their careers might be headed - Pollock scored 71 runs in the match to Vaas's 68, with each getting to a half-century.

In the most recent four Tests - including the tour to England earlier this year and the Test against South Africa - Vaas only has a tally of six wickets at 64.83, but generally over the last couple of years his bowling has been fairly incisive. Easily the more alarming decline has been Pollock's - in his last 15 Tests the bowling average has ballooned to 37, more than one-and-a-half times his career average, which itself has gone up from 21.79 to 23.42 during this period. While he took a wicket every 56 balls in his first 87 matches, in his last 15 that figure is a less-than-distinguished 82, with no five-wicket hauls. Pollock's career summary in his last 15 Tests also reveals one other shocking number - an overseas average of 73, with a strike rate of a wicket every 141 balls.

Vaas's recent numbers, on the other hand, stand up to scrutiny much better - the batting average touches 30, while with the ball too he has been a handful, averaging 25.44 with a strike rate which is ten balls lesser than his career stat. (Click here for Vaas's career summary over his last 15 Tests.)

Vaas and Pollock as batsmen Last 15 - Runs Average Career Average Difference
Chaminda Vaas 550 30.55 22.75 7.80
Shaun Pollock 515 28.61 31.95 -3.34


Vaas and Pollock as bowlers Last 15 - Wickets Average Career average Difference
Chaminda Vaas 52 25.44 29.51 4.07
Shaun Pollock 42 37.16 23.42 -13.74



It's also interesting to compare the numbers of Vaas and Pollock with the performances of the great allrounders of the past in their last few matches. Among the four great ones in the 1980s, Ian Botham was easily the one with the most undistinguished last 15 matches: both his batting and his bowling stats dipped to far below their usual normal. Kapil Dev became a less potent force with the ball towards the end, taking only 30 wickets in his last 15 matches, but he still managed a bowling average of 29.33. However, the number of overs he bowled per Test came down drastically from 36 in his first 116 matches, to just 27 in his last 15. Imran Khan's hardly bowled much in his sunset days, but became a giant of a batsman, averaging nearly 73, while Richard Hadlee's skills with both ball and bat remained virtually untarnished with age. And the greatest of them all, Garry Sobers, averaged more than 50 with the bat and less than 30 with the ball in his last 15 Tests. You can't argue with numbers like those.


A half-century of hundreds
The other veteran bowler in the Sri Lankan side, though, has been wheeling away over after over, and adding bucketfuls of wickets to his tally every match. With his 12-wicket haul in the second Test, Murali equalled his own record of taking ten or more wickets in four consecutive Tests. However, had he conceded three more runs in the second innings, Murali would have achieved another first - he would have become the first bowler in the history of Test cricket to concede 100 or more runs in an innings 50 times. Murali has so far taken 175 wickets in the 49 innings in which he has gone for more than 100, with only Anil Kumble anywhere close to him. In fact other than Murali, only three other bowlers - Kumble, Shane Warne and Botham - have had a three-figure number in their runs column more than 30 times. The table below gives the top eight, and it's interesting that Danish Kaneria already has 26 such instances in 39 Tests - that's as many as Abdul Qadir managed in his entire career - and the ratio of Tests to 100-plus innings is far lesser than any other bowler who has given away more than 100 at least 16 times.

Bowlers who've conceded 100 or more runs most number of times Bowler Innings Wickets Average Tests/ 100+ innings ratio
Muttiah Muralitharan 49 175 37.21 2.20
Anil Kumble 43 132 43.62 2.56
Shane Warne 37 117 38.15 3.78
Ian Botham 31 88 42.31 3.29
Danish Kaneria 26 76 43.03 1.50
Abdul Qadir 26 74 42.51 2.58
Kapil Dev 25 70 44.10 5.24
BS Chandrasekhar 22 74 36.84 2.64

- After thes eries Pollock was no longer a regular in the test team. Morkel emerged & SA regularly played an attack of Steyn/Ntini/Morkel.

His declined was significant. Unfortuantely he can be nowhere near to the team of 2000s era.

Just wanted to mention that if you are going who was best at their peak then there are 2 batsmen who need to be picked: Mohammad Yousuf and Mike Hussey. Both were unstoppable for 12-24 months and peaked higher than Lara did IMHO (this decade anyway).

And it makes Clyde Walcott a lock for the 50s team. He had 3 years where he averaged over 70 and against the 2 best sides. His 827 runs in the series v Aus in 1955 is still in the top 5 series aggregates ever and that was the year straight after he scored about 700 in a series v England.

When i say picking the "best players at their peaks". Generally the accepted standard would be 5-10 years of conistently performances like what Ponting, McGrath, Murali accomplished for lenghtly periods of the 2000s era.

But concessions can be made for players like Akhtar & Flintoff who where injury proned. Their peaks although short & injury proned where amongst the best & most lethal of the 2000s era. Flintoff was the all-rounder of the decade & some of the spells Akthar bowled vs NZ & AUS in 2002 (im sure as an aussie fan you haven't forgotten that spell in Colombo) & vs ENG 2005 where super destructive.

This is why Akhtar & Flintoff like Cairns, Frank Tyson, Bond, S Jones & to a degree (Brett Schultz) before them, are the special cases & we unfortunately can only judge on their short peaks since injury robbed us of seeing them at their best for an extended period. Since its safe to presume if they would have lasted longer - they would have accomplished more or at minimum continue to maintain those high standards.

 

[sifter132]

Fair enough. For Pollock, it's good when guys base their selections off what they see with their eyes and not just rely on the stats. That's a good article about his stats though. But conversely it also reflects how solid he was in the first half of the decade. I think the concern is not that he is some massive oversight, but that there hasn't really been many dominant bowlers in this decade so even half a decade of decent-good work has him close to selection. And it shows when we are reminiscing about Akhtar's 5 good spells in Test cricket to try and justify his spot :laugh Nah I kid, it's probably a few more than 5 but you get the idea.

And for career peaks. I think you've touched on it with the injury factor, but a batsman is obviously going to need a longer peak to qualify as a selection than a bowler.

 

[War]

Fair enough. For Pollock, it's good when guys base their selections off what they see with their eyes and not just rely on the stats. That's a good article about his stats though. But conversely it also reflects how solid he was in the first half of the decade. I think the concern is not that he is some massive oversight, but that there hasn't really been many dominant bowlers in this decade so even half a decade of decent-good work has him close to selection. And it shows when we are reminiscing about Akhtar's 5 good spells in Test cricket to try and justify his spot :laugh Nah I kid, it's probably a few more than 5 but you get the idea.

And for career peaks. I think you've touched on it with the injury factor, but a batsman is obviously going to need a longer peak to qualify as a selection than a bowler.

Yea in most cases. Since i dont recall any great batsman in test history whose career was affected with injury like some fast-bowlers.

But even if some have a issue with picking Akhtar. Dale Steyn for sure should be picked. Steyn form with the ball between NZ 2006 - ENG 2009 has been Waqar Younis (1990-1994) like. Off my head i think in this period Steyn has like 190+ wickets in about 35 tests.