Draft: The Russian Roulette draft | Final - Return of the King..

[ddrap14]

That ball is suspiciously close to those stumps... not sure this is an image that reflects his greatness

 

[CerealKiller]

Decent team so far

 

[VC the slogger]

That ball is suspiciously close to those stumps... not sure this is an image that reflects his greatness

Coz he swept it past them for four here at 0:40, definitely a sign of greatness to me

 

[Aislabie]

Darron Reekers

Certainly not top of the wish list, but he definitely fits in as a powerplay hitter and stock bowler

 

[Fenil]

Craig McMillan

McMillan was a decent player. If you exclude the ODI stats, he scored 9 hundreds and 15 half centuries in 129 List A matches which is nothing short of gold coming from bowling friendly grounds of NZ.

It was possibly the lack of proper use of talent that had him far from justifying his talent. Plus the abundance of allround talents like Styris, Cairns, Harris, Oram, Astle, Vettori, Franklin etc meant he didn't get much opportunity to bowl as well.

While he isn't someone you would be thrilled to have in the team, he can be excellent as a utility player.

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

Not too thrilled, but it could've been worse. It could've been Wajahatullah Wasti.

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

Me when I pull Brian Lara next:

View attachment 277809

Brian Lara

Somebody did pull him, just not me. :/

 

[pillowprocter]

Not too thrilled, but it could've been worse. It could've been Wajahatullah Wasti.

This is the type of information that should be on Cricinfo profiles.

 

[VC the slogger]

Apologies for the delay guys, I quite suddenly got caught up in a couple of work related projects and simply couldn't find time. I would still like to keep this draft going and run a knockout tourney at the end to top it off as planned. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to skip your player writeups after this round coz as much as I love researching stats and stuff about players there is simply too much to do for me at the moment. Still, I managed to do one last for kicks and also entered in your players' batting positions in the XIs (which you can change as per your wishes obviously)..


@Fenil - (PG 14; 5, 5)

1. Neil Johnson
2.
3.
4. Neil Fairbrother
5. Craig McMillan
6.
7. Dwayne Bravo
8. Sam Curran
9.
10.
11.

Dwayne Bravo aka 'DJ' will certainly go down in history as one of T20 cricket's greatest legends with over 6000 runs and 600 wickets in the format, not to mention two T20 World Cup titles, a hit single to his credit, and countless other titles in basically every T20 franchise cricket league in existence thus far. He was among the first players to refuse a national contract in 2011 aged only 28 to prioritize T20 cricket as a freelancer, which would influence several others from the Caribbean such as Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, Dwayne Smith to do the same coming from a cricketing environment that had little regard for looking after it's players. This focus on T20s however hampered his chances of furthering himself in the two traditional forms where he displayed a lot of promise as a pace-bowling all-rounder with clever variations and good ball striking ability from the lower middle-order, falling only marginally short of being a select few to score above 3000 runs and 200 wickets in ODIs. He was in his prime in the year 2014, as West Indies' ODI captain and perhaps the leading all-rounder in the format with 415 runs at 46.11 and 20 wickets at 24.25, when made a scapegoat for his role in the walkout from the 2014/15 tour of India over yet another pay dispute with his cricket board. He never played ODIs again despite the odd comeback or two for West Indies' subsequent T20 World Cup campaigns, most notably in 2016 when he released his hit single whilst holding aloft the trophy.


@pillowprocter - (PG 3; 4, 2)

1.
2.
3.
4. Rishabh Pant
5. Grant Elliott
6.
7. Lewis Gregory
8. Khaled Mahmud
9. Rehan Ahmed
10.
11.

The fact that an 18-year-old English leggie was able to debut almost stress free, claim a five-fer on debut overseas, and then gleefully walk out to have a hit at No 3 whilst chasing 167 shows just how different this England regime is compared to previous ones. The time has arguably never been better to be a leg-spinner in England, and if Rehan Ahmed doesn't let his early successes get to his head he could really turn out to be a world beating player over the next decade.

@Neo 7 - (PG 7; 1, 6)

1. Wasim Jaffer
2.
3. Brian Lara
4.
5.
6. Asif Khan
7. Washington Sundar
8. Odean Smith
9.
10.
11.

It took Asif Khan nearly two decades to finally earn an international cap after having done so at U-19 level for Pakistan from the same batch that included future regulars such as Imad Wasim, Junaid Khan, Umar Akmal, Ahmed Shehzad and Shan Masood among others. Only, he did so for the UAE in 2022 rather than his native country where he played at domestic level between 2007/08 to 2014/15 with little success averaging only 23.92 at first-class and 22.67 at List-A level. Originally a solid top-order bat, he has since transitioned into an effective middle-order power hitter for the Emirates with 2 ODI centuries over the past month at breakneck pace - one of which was a brutal 101 off just 42 balls with 11 sixes against Nepal, taking advantage of the short boundaries at Kirtipur to bring up the 4th fastest ODI hundred till date behind AB de Villiers, Corey Anderson and Shahid Afridi off just 41 balls. He currently sits second on the lists for ODI runs this year with 620 at 47.69 behind only Shubman Gill.


@ddrap14 - (PG 82; 1, 3)

1.
2. Mike Brearley
3. Peter Kirsten
4.
5. Derek Randall
6.
7. Shaun Pollock
8.
9. Nikita Miller
10.
11.

Derek Randall was the kind of batter who could one day help his team almost chase down 477 in the fourth innings of a Test match, but then go through extended periods of middling scores, which pretty much explains his not too spectacular records of 2470 runs at 33.37 in Tests and 1067 runs at 26.67 in ODIs between 1977 to 1985. He had the elegance of David Gower with the bat, but at the same time possessed the unwanted record of having more Test ducks than any specialist batter over the course of his career - his 14 being level with the likes of Dilip Doshi, Rodney Hogg and Joel Garner. Randall never quite had the same impact in ODIs as he did in Tests with his occasionally brilliant batting; his 49 matches in the format yielded no centuries, and a highest of 88 in a match where he alone stood firm as his team-mates collapsed against Andy Roberts and Michael Holding. But his acrobatic fielding skills regarded as among the finest in his era meant he still found a place in the one-day lineup on most occasions on account of his being able to save around 20 runs per match notwithstanding his performances with the bat.


@CerealKiller - (PG 98; 5, 5)

1.
2. Richard Reid
3.
4. Scott Styris
5. Clive Lloyd
6.
7.
8. Brad Hogg
9.
10.
11. Henry Olonga

Scott Styris initially began his career as an archetypal Kiwi medium-fast bowler in the 1990s with the ability to biff a few from the lower-order, rarely ever batting higher than No 9 at the beginning of his international career. But following a knee injury and rethinking of his priorities, he transformed himself into one of New Zealand's most reliable middle-order batters in the ODI format good enough score a century of Test debut and also top their run charts in a World Cup campaign by a country mile - which he did in 2007 with a stunning 499 runs at 83.16 to finish as the competition's fourth highest run scorer. He starred in the previous edition too in 2003, where he had finally proven his credentials as a world class middle-order bat with 141 out of a total of 225 in a lone effort against Sri Lanka. In fact, he had a tendency to raise his game to an altogether different level for the 50-over World Cup, aggregating 909 runs at 53.47 at a strike rate of 88.59, as opposed to his career record of 4483 runs at 32.48 and a strike rate just below 80 - his record in the tournament putting him on par with the likes of Kane Williamson and Martin Crowe. Although after that knee injury early in his career his bowling was never more than military medium level, he still managed to keep himself effective in limited overs formats with tight wicket-to-wicket lines and rather surprisingly claimed 6 for 25 against West Indies - the best bowling figures by a New Zealander in ODIs until Shane Bond and Tim Southee went one better. He also smashed the then joint third-fastest T20 century by taking 39 off an over off a hapless James Fuller a year after quitting internationals.


@Ed Smith - (PG 73; 1, 1)

1. Bandula Warnapura
2. Max O'Dowd
3.
4. Kyle Verreynne
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. Johan Botha
10. Bob Massie
11.

Like many of the prominent names in Dutch cricket this century, Max O'Dowd too began his cricketing career in his native New Zealand but never made it higher than the Auckland 'A' side. During his time with the Netherlands though, he has proven himself one of the most consistent performers at associate level with his solidity at the top and not to mention Thor-like hair. In 25 ODIs he has scored a very respectable 859 runs at 37.34 with half-centuries against England and West Indies among others, but it is his performances in the T20 World Cup that have been most eye-catching with a return of 365 runs at 36.50 from the 2021 and 2022 editions. In the most recent one, he helped the Dutch come very close to chasing down Sri Lanka's 162 against the likes of Wanindu Hasaranga with an unbeaten 71 off 53 balls, and also starred with a fifty in an upset victory over a resurgent Zimbabwe who had just come off from beating a star-studded Pakistan. His performances finally earned him a place in the same Auckland team that had rejected him almost a decade ago for the 2022/23 Super Smash.


@ahmedleo414 - (PG 51; 3, 5)

1.
2. Shikhar Dhawan
3.
4. Neil Broom
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. Arshad Ayub
10. Fred Klaassen
11. Gary Kidd

Fred Klaassen played cricket in four different countries namely England, New Zealand, Australia and Scotland before finally using his Dutch passport to good effect by making himself eligible to represent the Netherlands. Since his debut in 2018, he has proved one of their most reliable quicks with his left-arm angle bringing added variety to a predominantly right-handed bowling attack making them one of the most potent bowling outfits among associates when at full strength. He already has an impressive ODI record with 32 wickets at 23.53 from 19 matches whilst conceding at only 4.31 per over, and his isn't also a record bolstered by dominating associates as with most players from that level - he has 10 wickets at 26 apiece against the likes of South Africa and New Zealand in the ODI Super League. That along with his recent performances for the Dutch in their run to the Super 8s in the 2022 T20 World Cup, where he starred in their upset for the ages that knocked out South Africa by claiming the wickets of Quinton de Kock and Aiden Markram in a very tight spell, have also made him one of associate cricket's sought after players for T20 leagues.


@RUDI - (PG 67; 3, 3)

1. Geoff Boycott
2. Craig Kieswetter
3.
4.
5.
6. Kapil Dev
7.
8.
9. Geoff Miller
10.
11. Chris Mpofu

In recent times Chris Mpofu has somewhat unexpectedly gained recognition for his performances in retired players' T20 tournaments, far more than he ever did during an international career for Zimbabwe spanning almost 16 years where he often toiled hopelessly as they went from one debacle to another. He was an honest trier, but ultimately not someone you'd want opening the bowling for your club side let alone an international one, and the stats pretty much back it up too. Overall, he claimed 93 wickets at 38.50 conceding at 5.42 from 84 ODIs, but water it down to performances only against the top eight ranked sides in ODI cricket over the course of his career and his figures swell to an eye-watering 29 wickets at 68.17 whilst conceding at 6.17 per over from 41 matches. And the less said about his batting the better.

@Till Valhalla - (PG 99; 5, 2)

1.
2.
3.
4. Mushfiqur Rahim
5. Andrew Symonds
6.
7. Luuk van Troost
8.
9.
10. Maheesh Theekshana
11. Wayne Daniel

One of cricket's most tragic losses in recent times, Andrew Symonds was the complete package in limited overs formats with his aggressive middle-order ball striking, electric fielding and the ability to alternate between tidy offbreaks or seam-up as the match situation demanded - making him a truly three-dimensional player in the dominant Australian team of the 2000s. At his dreadlocked best between 2004 and 2007, he scored 3187 runs at 47.57 whilst striking at 95.82 - easily the best for a player with a 40 plus average during that time, and also claimed 133 wickets overall at 37.25 from 198 matches. Although predominantly regarded as a limited overs specialist, his Test career also reached new highs during the last few years of his career where he managed to raise his batting average from 10 to 40 after finally gaining a berth in that all-conquering outfit following Damien Martyn's retirement. What should have ideally been his greatest moment in Test cricket when he scored a game-changing unbeaten 163* against India in early 2008 was instead marred by shambolic umpiring and the Monkeygate saga. His career never truly recovered from that and he soon drifted out of international cricket far too early aged only 34 by 2009, playing out the rest of his career as a T20 specialist.


@Aravind. - (PG 88; 2, 6)

1.
2.
3. Kumar Sangakkara
4. Marlon Samuels
5. Roland Butcher
6.
7. Axar Patel
8.
9.
10. Shane Bond
11.

For all their T20 superstars over the last decade, West Indies could not have become world champions in the format if it were not for one man who stepped up when it mattered most. Marlon Samuels helped them recover from precarious positions in both the 2012 and 2016 finals with two sublime knocks of 78 off 56 and 85* off 66 under pressure, even if it was Carlos Brathwaite whose name was immortalized instead by Ian Bishop. He was by no means a T20 superstar however, never managing to bag a decent IPL contract akin to some of his team-mates, but was nevertheless a useful all-round player in limited overs formats and occasionally in Test cricket when the mood struck him. Despite some impressive career highlights such as those two finals' knocks, a Test batting average of nearly 70 in England, a high score of 260 in the same format, a 73-ball ODI ton aged just 21 against India, 133 out of a mammoth partnership of 372 with Chris Gayle in a World Cup match among others - he averaged a rather disappointing 32 with the bat in both formats. His usually economical off-spin also did not quite deliver on the same level as promised in his first full year of ODI cricket where he had 25 wickets at under 30 apiece, due to his bowling action often coming under scrutiny and not being quite as effective after remodeling.

@mohsin7827 - (PG 68; 4, 4)

1. Marcus Trescothick
2.
3.
4.
5. Bas de Leede
6.
7. Rashid Latif
8.
9.
10. Mushtaq Ahmed
11. Howard Johnson

Prior to the emergence of Shane Warne, it was Mushtaq Ahmed who could have perhaps been considered as the world's foremost leg-spinner being good enough to usurp Abdul Qadir's mantle while the latter was still an active player, and then play a starring role in Pakistan's victorious 1992 World Cup campaign. He picked 16 wickets at an average of 19.43 from 9 matches in that tournament where he also had the best figures of 3 for 41 off 10 overs for Pakistan in the final against England, claiming the crucial wickets of Graham Gooch and Graeme Hick. Mushtaq was still second best behind only Warne in Test cricket in the '90s, but was never again quite as consistent or threatening in ODIs after that triumph finishing with rather ordinary figures of 161 wickets at 33.29 from 144 matches. His form fell away drastically as the 2000s began, with his Test bowling average ballooning to almost 73 which caused him to be dropped for good after 2003 in favor of the far less talented Danish Kaneria. Despite picking 411 wickets at under 25 at first-class level after his last international appearance, including some magical feats for Sussex who won all three of their Championship titles till date in his presence, he was never given a national recall save as assistant coach in 2007.


@Verified Enigma - (PG 21; 3, 6)

1.
2. Kris Srikkanth
3.
4. Mohammad Hafeez
5.
6. Najibullah Zadran
7.
8.
9. Pat Cummins
10. Abdul Qadir
11.

With a body even more brittle than Shane Bond at the beginning of his career, Pat Cummins spent more time on the recovery bed than he did on the field after emerging as arguably the most talented fast bowler of his generation. Even as an 18-year-old, he proved too hot to handle for the likes of Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers in peak form on Test debut, but had to wait another 6 years to finally play another Test. He returned stronger and much more durable in 2017, finally realizing his potential as the world's top Test bowler and easily among the very best from any era with a bowling average under 22 after having claimed more than 200 wickets. He took a lot longer to finally find his radar in ODIs though, bowling well only in patches until 2019 since when he has been one of the world's best all-format bowlers with 59 wickets at 25.27 in ODIs as well. And he's no mug with the bat either, owing the record for second fastest IPL fifty off just 14 balls; indeed it has been his lower-order hitting that has often outshone his bowling in a tournament where great Test bowlers have rarely thrived.

@Umair7 - (PG 24; 1, 3)

1. Quinton de Kock
2.
3. Kirk Edwards
4. Franklyn Dennis
5.
6.
7. James Franklin
8. Vernon Philander
9.
10.
11.

A player whose most noteworthy achievement at the top level was falling onto his own stumps after painfully grinding out 21 off 99 balls as Canada limped to 45 all out off 40.2 overs against England at the 1979 World Cup. Still, Franklyn Dennis was one of the more technically correct players in an amateur outfit that was thrown to the wolves, and four years previously actually put on a world class performance against Australia in an unofficial match scoring an unbeaten 57 for Eastern Canada who quite unfathomably beat an XI containing the Chappell brothers, Dennis Lillee and Max Walker among others.



@Aislabie - (PG 82; 4, 3)

1. Darron Reekers
2. Mohammad Shahzad
3.
4.
5. Paul Collingwood
6.
7.
8. Krunal Pandya
9. Rashid Khan
10.
11.

Although Sandeep Lamichhane is just one wicket away from usurping him, Rashid Khan is still for now statistically the greatest ODI bowler of all time among those with a minimum of 100 wickets - his 163 wickets at 18.55 is just marginally ahead of the great Joel Garner's tally of 146 wickets at 18.84 on the all-time list. What makes this stat even more impressive is that his wickets have come from just 81 innings, which makes him alongside Mitchell Starc one of the only two bowlers to average 2 wickets per innings in ODIs with the disgraced Lamichhane still waiting in the ranks. As with everything though, one cannot just blindly follow these numbers without context given that Afghanistan rarely get to play the top-ranked ODI nations outside of World Cups, and so after watering Rashid's down to performances against the top eight ranked ODI sides as of 2023 (which means West Indies don't count) we get a still decent but perhaps not world beating 32 wickets at 26.40 from 22 matches without a single five-fer. He's a far better bowler than those numbers suggest judging by his brilliant performances in the IPL and various T20 leagues, including a career best 7 for 18 against West Indies whilst they were still in the top eight, and may yet set right his record later this year at the World Cup.

@VC the slogger - (PG 87; 6, 1)

1.
2. Abdul Jabbar
3.
4. Darren Lehmann
5.
6. Wriddhiman Saha
7.
8.
9. Nehemiah Perry
10. Nixon McLean
11.

With his superb agility behind the stumps and batting averages in the 40s for both first-class and List-A cricket, Wriddhiman Saha could have played far more had his career not coincided with both MS Dhoni and Rishabh Pant. Still, he did a rather decent job in the chances he was given in Test cricket in the period between Dhoni's retirement from the format and Pant's coming of age in 2021, scoring 1353 runs at 29.41 with 3 centuries and effecting 104 dismissals. Dhoni kept on playing in the ODI format till the 2019 World Cup however, which meant Saha never got to properly showcase his white ball prowess in the meagre 9 ODIs he got, out of which he batted in only five aggregating just 41 runs. That was far more evident in the IPL where he became the first player to bring up three figures in an IPL final in 2014, and till date remains one of only two Indian wicket-keepers to do so alongside Pant.


@Na Maloom Afraad - (PG 32; 6, 1)

1.
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3.
4. Haider Ali
5. Basit Ali
6.
7.
8.
9. Atul Wassan
10. Bruce French
11.

As a keeper alone, Bruce French was good enough to keep Jack Russell out of the English Test side for a good period of 2 years between 1986 and 1988. But he was not good enough with the bat to hold onto his place for longer than that, averaging just 18 with the bat in Tests, and a dreadful 6.80 in ODIs where he rarely batted higher than No 10. He wasn't the most fortunate player going around too getting knocked over by a car whilst going to hospital, bitten by a dog, hit by a spectator, contracting chickenpox on the eve of a Test, and to top it all England never won a single one of the 16 Tests he played although that was not entirely his fault.

 

[CerealKiller]

Styris isn't a bad result

 

[Till Valhalla]

Symonds is good to have

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

He wasn't the most fortunate player going around too getting knocked over by a car whilst going to hospital, bitten by a dog, hit by a spectator, contracting chickenpox on the eve of a Test, and to top it all England never won a single one of the 16 Tests he played

Oh dear...

 

[Aislabie]

8. Krunal Pandya
9. Rashid Khan

Nice, this is definitely an IPL approved bowling attack

 

[VC the slogger]

@Fenil - (PG 25; 6, 3)

1. Neil Johnson
2.
3.
4. Neil Fairbrother
5. Craig McMillan
6. MS Dhoni
7. Dwayne Bravo
8. Sam Curran
9.
10.
11.


@pillowprocter - (PG 92; 1, 5)

1. Rohit Sharma
2.
3.
4. Rishabh Pant
5. Grant Elliott
6.
7. Lewis Gregory
8. Khaled Mahmud
9. Rehan Ahmed
10.
11.


@Neo 7 - (PG 106; 1, 4)

1. Wasim Jaffer
2. Mark Vermeulen
3. Brian Lara
4.
5.
6. Asif Khan
7. Washington Sundar
8. Odean Smith
9.
10.
11.


@ddrap14 - (PG 53; 3, 3)

1.
2. Mike Brearley
3. Peter Kirsten
4.
5. Derek Randall
6.
7. Shaun Pollock
8.
9. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
10. Nikita Miller
11.


@CerealKiller - (PG 16; 6, 1)

1.
2. Richard Reid
3.
4. Scott Styris
5. Clive Lloyd
6. Jos Buttler
7.
8. Brad Hogg
9.
10.
11. Henry Olonga


@Ed Smith - (PG 101; 5, 3)

1. Bandula Warnapura
2. Max O'Dowd
3.
4. Kyle Verreynne
5. Ryan ten Doeschate
6.
7.
8.
9. Johan Botha
10. Bob Massie
11.


@ahmedleo414 - No pick made


@RUDI - (PG 35; 1, 2)

1. Geoff Boycott
2. Craig Kieswetter
3.
4. Mark Greatbatch
5.
6. Kapil Dev
7.
8.
9. Geoff Miller
10.
11. Chris Mpofu


@Till Valhalla - (PG 57; 3, 4)

1.
2.
3.
4. Mushfiqur Rahim
5. Andrew Symonds
6.
7. Luuk van Troost
8.
9. Craig McDermott
10. Maheesh Theekshana
11. Wayne Daniel


@Aravind. - (PG 44; 5, 3)

1.
2.
3. Kumar Sangakkara
4. Marlon Samuels
5. Roland Butcher
6. Ravindra Jadeja
7. Axar Patel
8.
9.
10. Shane Bond
11.


@mohsin7827 - (PG 106; 1, 2)

1. Marcus Trescothick
2.
3.
4.
5. Bas de Leede
6. Mike Veletta
7. Rashid Latif
8.
9.
10. Mushtaq Ahmed
11. Howard Johnson


@Verified Enigma - (PG 16; 3, 5)

1.
2. Kris Srikkanth
3.
4. Mohammad Hafeez
5.
6. Najibullah Zadran
7.
8.
9. Pat Cummins
10. Abdul Qadir
11. Andy Caddick


@Umair7 - No pick made


@Aislabie - (PG 48; 3, 3)

1. Darron Reekers
2. Mohammad Shahzad
3.
4.
5. Paul Collingwood
6.
7.
8. Krunal Pandya
9. Rashid Khan
10.
11. Kabir Khan


@VC the slogger - (PG 19; 3, 5)

1.
2. Abdul Jabbar
3.
4. Darren Lehmann
5.
6. Wriddhiman Saha
7.
8.
9. Nehemiah Perry
10. Sylvester Clarke
11. Nixon McLean


@Na Maloom Afraad - (PG 55; 3, 3)

1.
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3.
4. Haider Ali
5. Basit Ali
6.
7.
8. Chris Lewis
9. Atul Wassan
10. Bruce French
11.

 

[CerealKiller]

Couldn't have asked for a better player than Buttler