Draft: The All-Time One-Day Draft

[Aislabie]

Shouldn’t these be

I wasn't sure myself; on the one hand, clearly yes - but on the other hand it seems boneheaded to mark as wrong a section with Greg Chappell, Andy Flower and Michael Bevan in it so I just ended up letting it slide

 

[Aislabie]

Next up, we have the analysis of @AsadRM 's team:

1. Brendon McCullum
2. Saeed Anwar
3. Steve Smith
4. Inzamam-ul-Haq
5. Ben Stokes
6. David Hussey
7. David Miller
8. Wasim Akram
9. Adil Rashid
10. Waqar Younis
11. Ole Mortensen

12th man - Ray van Schoor

Strengths
The batting in this team is absolutely stacked: an explosive opening partnership leads into Steve Smith and Inzamam, only to then explode into action with Stokes and Miller in the middle-order. That is absolutely enormous.
Wasim and Waqar. An absolutely enormous coup to secure both of them in the same team without compromising your batting. Indeed, Wasim even adds to the batting given his oft-overlooked lower-order hitting. The greatest ODI bowling partnership in the format's history.

Weakness
Where this team suffers in particular is its bowling depth: you end up with Ben Stokes as a fifth bowler and David Hussey (31 first-class wickets at 60 in 192 matches) having to make do as a sixth bowler. An extra stock spinner would have been an enormous boon for this team, even if they only get asked to bat at seven or eight.

Missed Opportunity
This is another team that didn't make use of a pre-List A player, and with the batting already as stacked as it was in Round 11 of the draft, you could have picked pretty much any spinner in the history of the game. Somebody like Ray Illingworth, Trevor Goddard or Charlie Macartney would have really improved this team; Macartney in particular given his abilities as a savage hitter of a cricket ball in addition to an excellent left-arm spinner.

Roles
Top-Order Hitters (2) - McCullum, Anwar
Middle-Order Hitters (2+) - Stokes, Miller, Hussey
Accumulators (Max 2) - Smith, Inzamam
Firefighter (1) - Wasim
Gloveman (1) - McCullum
Express pace (1) - Waqar
Death bowler (1) - Wasim
Attacking bowlers (2) - Mortensen, Rashid
Stock bowlers (2) - Stokes

 

[Aislabie]

Time now for @ddrap14

1. Gordon Greenidge
2. Shai Hope
3. Ian Bell
4. Javed Miandad
5. Carl Hooper
6. Ryan ten Doeschate
7. Gilbert Jessop
8. Shaun Pollock
9. Brett Lee
10. Ryan Harris
11. Derek Underwood

12th man - Rudi van Vuuren

Strengths
Gilbert Jessop was one of the three top pre-List A players available in the entire draft alongside Bradman and Barnes, and picking him up was absolutely crucial to the balance of your team. Possibly the most explosive batsman in cricket history, I imagine that watching him would have been like watching Andre Russell, except in Test cricket.
This is an outstandingly balanced attack, featuring one of ODI cricket's forgotten legends: arguably the greatest of all stock seamers, Shaun Pollock. Having a player like him with whom you can bank 10 overs, one or two for 40 really does free up the rest of the bowling line-up to express themselves.

Weakness
Ian Bell and Shai Hope are incredibly similar players; if Gordon Greenidge gets out early in the innings, they're going to have a very real risk of getting stuck at about 120 for two after 30 overs. There was a time when that was a winning position, but against some of these teams, you'll be left way behind and asking Jessop to catch you up.

Missed Opportunity
Ian Bell was not the right pick to make in Round Nine of this draft, especially once you already had Hope in the side. I would have been looking at someone like Fakhar Zaman, KL Rahul or even Simon Katich; ideally a left-handed player so that bowlers can't settle into a groove against the two accumulators. However if I could pick only one, I would go with Marcus Trescothick and move Hope to three, even though Zaman's stats are undeniably better.

Roles
Top-Order Hitters (2) - Greenidge, Miandad
Middle-Order Hitters (2+) - Hooper, Jessop, ten Doeschate
Accumulators (Max 2) - Hope, Bell
Firefighter (1) - Pollock
Gloveman (1) - Hope
Express pace (1) - Lee
Death bowler (1) - Harris
Attacking bowlers (2) - Jessop, Underwood
Stock bowlers (2) - Pollock, Hooper

 

[Aislabie]

And the final team of the evening for me - @Neptune

1. Mark Waugh
2. Glenn Turner
3. Brian Lara
4. Kevin Pietersen
5. AB de Villiers
6. Chris Cairns
7. Clive Rice
8. Bart King
9. Shane Warne
10. Nathan Bracken
11. Bob Willis

12th man - Gareth Delany

Strengths
By putting AB de Villiers in your side to bat at number five, you have selected the player with the absolute best value against a replacement player of any player in the history of One-Day International cricket. Better even than Viv, and I don't say that lightly. Once you've got him in your side, it just gives you options.
The trio of all-rounders that follows AB gives you the deeply coveted foursome of dual-role cricketers that allows for you to properly balance a modern one-day team. Cairns and Rice are both players who could have gone under the radar, and would have been valuable additions to any side.

Weakness
Although you do have three fantastic one-day batsmen at the top of your order in Mark Waugh, Glenn Turner and Brian Lara, none of those is a player who is going to properly destroy the bowling in the fielding restrictions. An extra top-order hitter would have been ideal, possibly in place of Glenn Turner.

Missed Opportunity
Moments after you'd picked up Glenn Turner, I was able to pick up the batsman that, if I were you, I would have taken in his stead: Aaron Finch. Although I do not rate Aaron Finch as an outright better batsman than Glenn Turner was, I think he would make a better role-player in the modern one-day side.

Roles
Top-Order Hitters (2) - Pietersen
Middle-Order Hitters (2+) - de Villiers, Cairns, Rice
Accumulators (Max 2) - Waugh, Turner, Lara
Firefighter (1) - King
Gloveman (1) - de Villiers
Express pace (1) - King
Death bowler (1) - Bracken
Attacking bowlers (2) - Willis, Warne, Rice, Cairns
Stock bowlers (2) - any two of the above - although not their natural game, the above bowlers are all plenty good enough to cover these roles

And that will be that for this evening; six down, eleven to go over the rest of this week!

 

[qpeedore]

I thought I had an unbeatable team, with more than a couple picks falling my way. But you're absolutely correct, Aislabie, it does miss out on a left-armer, and that was a major oversight on my part. Still don't think that I made any wrong picks though, and on paper, at least, my team will give most anyone a good run for their money. Excellent analysis from you for everyone, as always. Shows just how valuable you are both as a participant in Drafts, and as an organiser of Drafts.

 

[qpeedore]

@Aislabie had an excellent thing about roles for different types of squads some time ago.

One-Day Internationals

If Test matches are the simple puzzle, then One-Day Internationals are by far and away the most complex. A perfectly balanced ODI side has to fill fifteen roles, which means either that you will have to find four dual-role cricketers, or you'll have to forego one or more of said roles. That was what made the England World Cup side so good: in Stokes, Buttler, Moeen and Woakes they had those four dual-role cricketers, although Stokes' bowling role was the least pronounced.

• Two top-order hitters - These are the sort of players who can score fast but also score big. The prototype of such a player is Rohit Sharma.
• One anchor accumulator - This is the sort of player who can score a run-a-ball hundred without anyone really noticing. Someone like Joe Root.
• One dynamic accumulator - This is a slightly more dynamic version of the last player - someone who runs fast but can also find the boundary if needs be. This is a very complex role, and is sometimes served for England by Ben Stokes. They often forego this to utilise him as an extra hitter though, which can backfire on challenging surfaces.
• Three middle-order hitters - These guys can find and clear the boundaries from the word go, even with five men out on the boundary. If they lose their wickets trying to do that, then so be it. Jos Buttler is one of the best in the world at this role.
• One firefighter - A player who can be promoted to stop a collapse, or held back to see that the last 30 or 40 runs are scored in a chase. They might not make big scores but do make big contributions. Even as his powers waned, MS Dhoni remained very good at this role.
  
  
• One wicket-keeper - In ODI cricket more than the other formats, the keeper should be able to fulfil one of the batting roles as well.
  
  
• Two stock bowlers - Usually, this will be one seamer and one spinner, but it varies depending on who is available in your team. The best in the world are/were Liam Plunkett and Mohammad Nabi.
• Two deceptive bowlers - Again, in an ideal world this would be one seamer and one spinner, but it varies depending on who is available. The best in the world are usually wrist spinners - Rashid Khan immediately springs to mind - but a good deceptive seamer is very valuable.
• One death bowler - Usually but not always a seamer who can hit their yorkers. Nobody is better at this than Jasprit Bumrah.
• One express pace bowler - Again, even in ODI cricket there's sometimes no substitute for outright pace, as Mark Wood showed throughout the World Cup.

So that's fifteen roles to fit into eleven players. Often it doesn't quite work, leading teams to forego one of their stock or deceptive bowlers, or one of their hitters or accumulators. This is the format with the most variables built into the template, which is what makes it so tricky for a team to get it right in all conditions.

This is the template that he's using to assess each team on, and I will say it's excellent.

Just posting it for reference. Nothing against anyone, or any of the analysis thus far.

 

[Aislabie]

Time for more analysis, this time of @Asham 's team

1. John Davison
2. Dennis Amiss ( - auto)
3. Joe Root
4. Wally Hammond
5. Jacques Kallis
6. Nicholas Pooran ( - auto)
7. Gerrie Snyman ( - auto)
8. Chaminda Vaas
9. Peter Pollock ( - auto)
10. Saeed Ajmal
11. Ajantha Mendis ( - auto)

12th man - Fabian Allen ( - auto)

Strengths
Joe Root and Wally Hammond are certainly accumulators in playing style, but both score so quickly that having so many accumulators in the team won't necessarily count against them.
Saeed Ajmal and Ajantha Mendis is a devastating duo of mystery spinners; indeed, they could possibly find their bowling used in the death overs, as it is difficult to hit a ball hard when you don't know which direction it's about to turn in (look at pre-bowling ban Sunil Narine), even before you consider having to put all of the pace on the ball yourself.

Weakness
Having to put this team together so late made it quite difficult to balance this time effectively. As a result, there's a distinct lack of hitters and no specialist death bowler in the team; this will ultimately put the team at its biggest disadvantage in the most high-pressure situations: the powerplay and the death overs.

Missed Opportunity
Of course, the biggest missed opportunity was the chance to take the Round Seven pick when Round Seven happened. There were still hitters available here: Kevin Pietersen, Aaron Finch and Paul Stirling spring to mind. Instead, I ended up picking Dennis Amiss - ostensibly an accumulator - which meant four consecutive accumulators in a row. Ultimately, this came at the cost of a player like Fakhar Zaman being able to clear the boundaries from ball one, which could be a Finch-esque case of a less-gifted overall batsman being the perfect role-player for a team.

Roles
Top-Order Hitters (2) - Davison
Middle-Order Hitters (2+) - Pooran, Snyman
Accumulators (Max 2) - Amiss, Root, Hammond, Kallis
Firefighter (1) - Vaas
Gloveman (1) - Pooran
Express pace (1) - Pollock
Death bowler (1) - Kallis - this is a pretty hot take, but Jacques Kallis had a stunning yorker and a good cutter when he chose to use them
Attacking bowlers (2) - Ajmal, Mendis
Stock bowlers (2) - Vaas, Snyman, Davison

This is a team that would play in a very different style to the modern ODI team; more of an Indian style team than an English style team, and that doesn't make it a bad one

 

[Aislabie]

Random.org has also chosen @Akshay.

1. Rohit Sharma
2. Sourav Ganguly
3. Alex Hales
4. Steve Tikolo
5. Michael Hussey
6. Jos Buttler
7. Andre Russell
8. Learie Constantine
9. Shane Bond
10. Shaun Tait
11. Glenn McGrath

12th man - Hayden Walsh Jr

Strengths
Rohit Sharma is a hitter who can occupy the crease like an accumulator. This double-threat has is why he is the purveyor of the very biggest innings in ODI history in a way no other player has been able to replicate. This sort of hitting is littered all the way through the batting order, including the absolute luxury pick of Andre Russell.
This is a bowling attack with a huge amount of high-pace fast bowling. Bond and Tait bowled some of the most astonishing gas the game has seen, with Russell and Constantine probably in the very next run down in pace terms. That latter pair are in fact extremely similar cricketers, several generations apart.

Weakness
Of course, having four right-arm fast bowlers and another right-arm fast-medium bowler (even if he is one of the all-time greats) is extremely samey. There's no left-arm option, and the only spinner who's likely to get any overs is Steve Tikolo with his darted off-breaks.

Missed Opportunity
In hindsight it might have been better to select a spinner in one of their stead; Mushtaq Ahmed, Amit Mishra or Mujeeb ur-Rahman might have been a better pick than Shaun Tait. But the thought of all that pace was just too exciting. Although I am absolutely baffled that Mujeeb never ended up in anybody's team; he's a truly elite One-Day International bowler.

Roles
Top-Order Hitters (2) - Sharma, Hales
Middle-Order Hitters (2+) - Buttler, Russell, Constantine
Accumulators (Max 2) - Ganguly, Tikolo
Firefighter (1) - Hussey - such a versatile batsman, and one of the two or three best ever Bevan-type batsmen
Gloveman (1) - Buttler
Express pace (1) - Tait
Death bowler (1) - Bond
Attacking bowlers (2) - Constantine, Russell
Stock bowlers (2) - McGrath, Tikolo

A fantastically well-balanced team here, with the exception of that samey bowling attack.

 

[Aislabie]

And lastly for tonight, @Bevab

1. Quinton de Kock
2. Barry Richards
3. Dean Jones
4. Garry Sobers
5. Clyde Walcott
6. Colin Bland
7. Andrew Flintoff
8. Franklyn Stephenson
9. Sarfraz Nawaz
10. Saqlain Mushtaq
11. Mustafizur Rahman

12th man - William Porterfield

Strengths
An extremely strong and well-balanced team, chock full of dual-role cricketers and covering all bases on a role-by-role basis. Most notable is that your two accumulators, Barry Richards and Dean Jones, stood apart from all similar players in their eras for being incredibly dynamic - in particular Jones who literally wrote the book on dynamic batting.
With all the roles covered, the next question is about how varied the bowling attack is. Well, this one has three right-arm seamers (one high-pace yorker bowler in Flintoff, one brisk-medium swing bowler in Sarfraz and one trickster in Stephenson). It also has a truly unique left-arm bowler (Fizz), a right-arm mystery spinner (Saqlain) and a left-arm everything bowler being used as a stock spinner here (Sobers). Quite literally all bases covered.

Weakness
It's hard to pick a weakness in such a complete team, but if I had to it might be the lack of outright pace in the team. Pace isn't always the be-all and end-all, but it's nice to have. Flintoff is the fastest bowler in this team, and while he wasfast on his day (especially towards the end of his career) he was usually only fast-medium.

Missed Opportunity
Sarfraz Nawaz is always a good pick, and a profoundly underrated bowler, but he was likely not the best role-player for a team that has only one player who even approaches express pace. Dirk Nannes, Brett Schultz or Shaun Tait would all have added that missing ingredient. Even the oft-dismissed Mohammad Sami (a chronic Test bowler, but far better with white ball in hand) might have fit into this side a little better.

Roles
Top-Order Hitters (2) - de Kock, Sobers
Middle-Order Hitters (2+) - Walcott, Flintoff, Stephenson
Accumulators (Max 2) - Richards, Jones
Firefighter (1) - Bland
Gloveman (1) - de Kock
Express pace (1) - Flintoff - was not an express pace bowler most of the time; usually tended to bowl at around 85 miles per hour.
Death bowler (1) - Fizz
Attacking bowlers (2) - Stephenson, Saqlain
Stock bowlers (2) - Sarfraz, Sobers

That will be all for this evening, I hope you enjoyed these again

 

[ahmedleo414]

Weakness
I don't know how often it's going to come up, but this team has a lot of accumulators. Had it just been Ponting alongside Gooch or Yousuf (or Joyce as one of your Associates) then it would have been no problem at all, but instead you've a few players here that never proved themselves to have an enormous change of gear. Not that that's necessarily ruinous, but it puts a lot of pressure on Gilchrist and Ponting.

I think you put my teams weakness on his

 

[qpeedore]

I often wonder if teams realise that in a limited overs match it doesn't quite matter about the wickets if you're setting a total. Too often there are teams 150/3 going into the final 10 overs. Hit out or get out.

Anyways, not quite sure about Dre Russ post injuries but if we're talking about before he had his injuries then yes, superb bowler.

Flintoff could turn it up when he was ready (and odd that my phone could actually predict Flintoff without any corrections. LG, you have English roots somewhere.) Not quite sure I rate him as a batsman but that's just me.

Tait is someone who I like in Drafts because he's devastating. 150kmph and change left over. At one time it was him and Fidel Edwards (I think that was another missed gem, if not picked) who were the absolute fastest in the world.

 

[Aislabie]

I think you put my teams weakness on his

Ah, I really shouldn't post while drowsy. Will fix it

 

[Bevab]

Yeah Tait was the really tempting one for me due to the sheer raw pace but I wanted to use Flintoff for raw pace in the end and opted to shore up the batting strength instead with Walcott.

 

[Aislabie]

Yeah Tait was the really tempting one for me due to the sheer raw pace but I wanted to use Flintoff for raw pace in the end and opted to shore up the batting strength instead with Walcott.

Tait is the kind of bowler where you really need to already have five good bowlers in the side, because he could also just go 2-0-28-0 (5 wd, 4 nb) on any given day

 

[qpeedore]

But he could give you 8-1-5-20 on a good day. (That's 8 overs 1 maiden 5 wickets for 20 runs. )