Best side for each decade.

Your selective shit is pretty dross-worthy, PJ.

Garry Sobers would make three if it was allowed, surely?

Brass Monkey wrote:Your selective shit is pretty dross-worthy, PJ.

O really? Just the same sort of thing that LLL did to try and detract from Ponting.

PearlJ wrote:

Henry wrote:

holcs wrote:

Henry wrote:No doubt De Silva was a fine, fine player, but I think there may have been a few middle order bats who were just a bit better than him.

Removing Lara, SRT and maybe Waugh. Who???

Azhar, Ganguly (Averaged mid 50's in the 90's), M.Waugh....

No he averged 50 including 20 the WI and 29 v SA.

Ganguly doesn't get into any best decade side apart from the fact that he's not good enough to Shine Boon, Malik and even moreso De Silva shoes. On the fact that he is a Qunut of the highest order!

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I just thought if we're picking the same player in two different decades it'd make it less interesting when judging them against each other at the end.

An aside - is there any player that would make 3 different decades? I doubt it but still.

Javed played test cricket in the 70's, 80's & 90's but is let down by his 90's stats I guess...

I doubt Sobers would, at all. Nor Javed.

Brass Monkey wrote:Well, I'd agree with you but I dont - it doesn't have to be a Wasim v Donald issue IMO.

Make your case for McGrath instead of both of these.

Quite simply, the best three fast bowlers I've seen in the last 20 years are Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Glenn McGrath.

McGrath hit his peak on the West Indies tour of 1995 and sustained it for the rest of his career. He wasn't any better in the 00's than he was in the 90's (not counting his first few test in 1993/4 when he was starting out).

It was McGrath who spearheaded Australia's dominance from 1995 onwards. He had by far the most influence on Australia's success. Warne helped, but they could get by without Warne. Australia couldn't keep their high standards without McGrath. He would consistently dismiss the opposition's best batsmen. Take Lara for example. Occassionally someone as talented as Lara would get his own back, but for the most part McGrath had his measure.

He was this bowler from 1995 onwards - which is half the decade. He is amongst the elite of the elite when it come to fast bowlers (as is Ambrose). Donald is a peg below in my opinion - he has to settle for being an all-time great.

Er... Sobers averaged 52 in the 1970s, and hit 5 tons in 17 matches. In the 1950s he averaged 58 in 27 matches and set a world record.

Apart from Viv and GSC, who is getting into the middle order ahead of him in the 70s? And in the 50s... does ANYONE get into spots 3-6 in front of him, given the additional value added by his bowling?

You could make a case for Bradman in the 1920s side...... maybe.

JGK wrote:Shouldn't the qualficatiob be the decade that the person made their debut. Otherwise it gets subjective as to which decade was their "best".

But that'd mean people like Tendulkar would be in the 80s side, which would be ridiculous.

Hass wrote:

Quite simply, the best three fast bowlers I've seen in the last 20 years are Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Glenn McGrath.

McGrath hit his peak on the West Indies tour of 1995 and sustained it for the rest of his career. He wasn't any better in the 00's than he was in the 90's (not counting his first few test in 1993/4 when he was starting out).

It was McGrath who spearheaded Australia's dominance from 1995 onwards. He had by far the most influence on Australia's success. Warne helped, but they could get by without Warne. Australia couldn't keep their high standards without McGrath. He would consistently dismiss the opposition's best batsmen. Take Lara for example. Occassionally someone as talented as Lara would get his own back, but for the most part McGrath had his measure.

He was this bowler from 1995 onwards - which is half the decade. He is amongst the elite of the elite when it come to fast bowlers (as is Ambrose). Donald is a peg below in my opinion - he has to settle for being an all-time great.

Fair enough Hass. Personally, when McGrath dropped in pace and became mainly a L&L bowler he went up a notch.

For me, Donald is up close to Marshall in his ability to get life from a spongey pitch and still get the ball to carry on a slow/low pitch. He deteriorated after '99 which is when Pidge took over. Curtley was IMO a better version of a 90's McGrath. Wasim was better with the old ball than any of them.

Career-wise, Donald is the least of them, but in the 90's he was head-to-head. Just to reflect how close all of their stats are:

Code:



Player      Mat Wkt Ave  Econ SR  5 10
CEL Ambrose  71  309 20.14 2.31 52.2 21 3
Wasim Akram  62  289 21.45 2.63 48.9 17 3
AA Donald    59  284 21.83 2.86 45.7 19 3
Waqar Younis 56  273 21.71 3.18 40.9 21 5
GD McGrath  58  266 22.87 2.61 52.4 15 1



Incredible set overall. Blessed to have grown up watching what proper bowling is.

Courney wasn't too bad shabby either. 300 wickets at 25.

Danny, how do you paste a players stats neatly like that? When I try to do it, it comes out a complete mess.

Brass Monkey wrote:

Hass wrote:

Quite simply, the best three fast bowlers I've seen in the last 20 years are Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Glenn McGrath.

McGrath hit his peak on the West Indies tour of 1995 and sustained it for the rest of his career. He wasn't any better in the 00's than he was in the 90's (not counting his first few test in 1993/4 when he was starting out).

It was McGrath who spearheaded Australia's dominance from 1995 onwards. He had by far the most influence on Australia's success. Warne helped, but they could get by without Warne. Australia couldn't keep their high standards without McGrath. He would consistently dismiss the opposition's best batsmen. Take Lara for example. Occassionally someone as talented as Lara would get his own back, but for the most part McGrath had his measure.

He was this bowler from 1995 onwards - which is half the decade. He is amongst the elite of the elite when it come to fast bowlers (as is Ambrose). Donald is a peg below in my opinion - he has to settle for being an all-time great.

Fair enough Hass. Personally, when McGrath dropped in pace and became mainly a L&L bowler he went up a notch.

For me, Donald is up close to Marshall in his ability to get life from a spongey pitch and still get the ball to carry on a slow/low pitch. He deteriorated after '99 which is when Pidge took over. Curtley was IMO a better version of a 90's McGrath. Wasim was better with the old ball than any of them.

Career-wise, Donald is the least of them, but in the 90's he was head-to-head. Just to reflect how close all of their stats are:

Code:



Player      Mat Wkt Ave  Econ SR  5 10
CEL Ambrose  71  309 20.14 2.31 52.2 21 3
Wasim Akram  62  289 21.45 2.63 48.9 17 3
AA Donald    59  284 21.83 2.86 45.7 19 3
Waqar Younis 56  273 21.71 3.18 40.9 21 5
GD McGrath  58  266 22.87 2.61 52.4 15 1



Incredible set overall. Blessed to have grown up watching what proper bowling is.

Also, if you were picking a bowling attack, you'd not want Curtley and Mcgrath in the same team IMO.

You'd go with the variation that the top three in that table provide. Raw pace, Unnerring accuracy and bounce, Left arm fast swing and the best use of an old ball ever!

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Courney wasn't too bad shabby either. 300 wickets at 25.

Danny, how do you paste a players stats neatly like that? When I try to do it, it comes out a complete mess.

When you copy them from a site, open up a new notepad file and paste the contents into it. You should then be able to tinker with the spacings to make it all line up. Then copy the contents again and paste them onto the forum between Code tags.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Courney wasn't too bad shabby either. 300 wickets at 25.

Danny, how do you paste a players stats neatly like that? When I try to do it, it comes out a complete mess.

I'm afraid it's painstaking process of guess and preview. It doesn't take me too long, what with me used to being a fiddly c*nt. I usually just post as quick as poss, but I'm home from work having a doobie and a can of cider, so...

Chas, yeah, that's a varied attack. For me 90's Pidge is a slower, less experienced version of Curtley.

Dello wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Courney wasn't too bad shabby either. 300 wickets at 25.

Danny, how do you paste a players stats neatly like that? When I try to do it, it comes out a complete mess.

When you copy them from a site, open up a new notepad file and paste the contents into it. You should then be able to tinker with the spacings to make it all line up. Then copy the contents again and paste them onto the forum between Code tags.

There you go you see. You're still needed.

For me, Donald is up close to Marshall in his ability to get life from a spongey pitch and still get the ball to carry on a slow/low pitch. He deteriorated after '99 which is when Pidge took over. Curtley was IMO a better version of a 90's McGrath. Wasim was better with the old ball than any of them.

Career-wise, Donald is the least of them, but in the 90's he was head-to-head. Just to reflect how close all of their stats are:

Imo Donald should be marked down a notch because he tended to go missing against Australia.

Henry wrote:
Imo Donald should be marked down a notch because he tended to go missing against Australia.

Yeah possibly, though he only really 'went missing' when he went into decline about 2000-01ish.

McGrath, of course, never had to play the Aussies. However, he bowled to probably the next best thing in SA and earlier on WI. I feel he probably would've faired pretty well though.

ambrose, wasim, donald, waqar and arguably even pollock would all be ahead of the 90s mcgrath. its only in 99 that mcgrath became the #1 fast bowler.

gooch didnt play after 95 so as good as his stats were, id give others who played through the decade preference over him.

Ash wrote:
gooch didnt play after 95 so as good as his stats were, id give others who played through the decade preference over him.

I understand what you're saying but on reflection he scored more runs than most. Under 300 less runs than Aravinda de Silva.

Against the three best attacks around at the time, WI, Aus and Pak, he averaged 55, 45 and 48 respectively. It was a cracking run of form for a sustained period.

I'm trying for a 1910's team. The History Of Cricket Vol I is pretty gay in it's adulation, but from other things I've read:

Hobbs
Rhodes
Faulkner
Trumper
Bardsley
Woolley
Armstrong
Foster
Smith(+)
Whitty
Barnes

Not sure how contentious my team is really. Don't hear many talk about this time.

Hobbs and Rhodes seems the obvious choice for me.

Aubrey Faulkner was a brilliant all-rounder - probably not discussed enough. Don't need to talk about Trumper.

The one that was hard to choose was probably Bardsley or Clem Hill. Hill was possibly slightly better in the 1900s, though still excellent I reckon Bardsley had a blinding enough decade to wrench him out.

Frank Woolley was another excellent all-rounder, as was Warwick Armstrong.

Foster and Whitty were livelyish left-handers - there wasn't much successful pace around at the time. It was debatable whether to include Ranji Hornby - he didn't play as many games though.

Barnes needs no explaining.

I went for 'Tiger' Smith maybe on reputation, Sammy Carter was a decent keeper though didn't play a great deal in the 10's. Furthermore, it was notoriously hard to keep in England - it was said that a good keeper caught one out of two.

Anyway, enough whimsical shit.

Good side that:but some people might try to make the case for the Hon F.S. Jackson

True Baz, as I say I'd like people's opinions as to who and why.

Anyway, here's a 1920's team:

Hobbs
Sutcliffe
Macartney
Taylor*
Hammond
Ryder
Gregory
Tate
Strudwick/Oldfield(+)
Geary
Freeman

The openers pick themselves, Hammond is reasonably obvious as is Macartney IMO. I've gone for Herbie Taylor - left out a lot of good ones for him: Hendren, Woolley, Woodfull, Tyldesley, Mead. He seemed to dig SA out of quite a bit of trouble, quite often. Ryder was more adept in the lower middle order, bit of an Ian Bell. Two quality all-rounders in Mo Tate and Jack Gregory.

Probably the more contentious decisions are George Geary and Tich Freeman. I only wanted one slow bowler and though Mailey and Grimmett are high profile exclusions I think Freeman, who should've played more that decade, warrants his place. Saying that, it was more difficult to bowl leggies in Aus than in England.

I daredn't choose a keeper - the two were greats by all accounts.

I only wanted one slow bowler and though Mailey and Grimmett are high profile exclusions I think Freeman, who should've played more that decade, warrants his place.

Freeman gets picked on potential?

Also, if you were picking a bowling attack, you'd not want Curtley and Mcgrath in the same team IMO.

WTF?