T20 Teams from History

England are playing Australia in the final tomorrow - but who would make the T20 teams if you had to pick an all-time side from before the T20 era began? Here are my teams:

England
Gooch
Botham
Hammond
Jessop
Lamb
Greig
Randall
Close (c)
Knott +
Tyson
Barnes

Lots of power hitters up the order, plenty of depth in the batting and bowling options. Tyson with pace, Botham swing, Barned his fast leg breaks and Greig and Close can both bowl spin or medium pace based upon conditions.

Australia
Trumper
Bradman
McCabe
Miller
Walters
Bevan
Armstrong (c)
Marsh +
Davidson
Warne
Thomson

Bradman should open to be given full chance to take advantage of the fielding restrictions, Miller and Davidson are two top quality fast bowling all-rounders, and Warne sneaks in as he never played a T20 for Australia (unlike McGrath and Gilchrist).

I reckon O'Reilly would have been pretty grouse at T20. He loved batsmen attacking him.

And Jack Gregory should probably be there somewhere. Even Richie has one of the fastest test tons in history so maybe gets in ahead of Warne.

Charlie Macartney would also have strong claims - 345 runs in a day against a County team is pretty good.

How can one extrapolate though using information from tests? On Hussey's recent crabby test form who would have nominated him to be the one to take 24 runs off the last over needing 18 to win and having one ball up his sleeve? This was after an IPL where he could barely hit it off the square and didn't register one six.

Wasn't Bradman famous for not hitting the ball in the air?

Is Warner a hit in first class cricket?

Look at Punter.

Yardy's a T20 specialist but wouldn't be anyone's bet to be a test star.

Being a game of fluky nature it's hard to predict who will be a hit in it - it's random - it's often based on luck.

Maybe in days of yore there were Warners hidden in club and first class cricket who barely registered on the radar.

good thread.

india:

kris srikkant
saurav ganguly *
polly umrigar
ajay radeja
sandip patil
farookh engineer +
kapil dev
salim durani
srinath
bishan bedi
bapu nadkarni

subs:
mohammed azharuddhin
manoj prabhakar
robin singh

a dashing opening pair. ganguly in his pomp could go at run a ball in ODI.

an aggressive but solid middle order and some good lower order hitters.

three genuine wicket taking options, one of the most economical bowlers ever and lots of part time options.

all in all, a very dynamic side with batsmen who can hit sixes and bowlers who keep it tight. could replace durani with singh/prabhakar on a seamer. azhar could come in as a mainstay in place of patil.

I played a few games with Amay Khurasiya - he could smash the ball miles and was good at teeing off from ball one. Not in the class of those you've named Ash, but he did get the fastest ever ODI 50 for a debutant. He was especially good a punching length deliveries over long on and long off for six.

Graham Dilley might be a useful Twenty20 bowler.

opened a few games for india in the 90s. started promisingly, as you say, but was quickly found out against fast bowling. im guessing he played club cricket in england?

Ash wrote:good thread.

india:

kris srikkant
saurav ganguly *
polly umrigar
ajay radeja
sandip patil
farookh engineer +
kapil dev
salim durani
srinath
bishan bedi
bapu nadkarni

subs:
mohammed azharuddhin
manoj prabhakar
robin singh

a dashing opening pair. ganguly in his pomp could go at run a ball in ODI.

an aggressive but solid middle order and some good lower order hitters.

three genuine wicket taking options, one of the most economical bowlers ever and lots of part time options.

all in all, a very dynamic side with batsmen who can hit sixes and bowlers who keep it tight. could replace durani with singh/prabhakar on a seamer. azhar could come in as a mainstay in place of patil.

I know its a bit of a random selection but there is no way Jadeja should be ahead of Azhar...Jadeja in GENERAL was a limited player while Azhar was one of the classiest batsmen of the 90s decade

jadeja was more destructive though. better six hitting ability. both decent fielders but jadeja could bowl a bit. vvs is classy, vishwanath was classy but neither would get anywhere near this team.

a pak team would be interesting. waqar and wasim would be awesome at t20.

Jadeja again? It's Jadeja vu.

I don't think we've heard that before.

What an extraordinary thread ... attempting to adjudge T20 "specialists" from a long bygone era based on their test exploits alone, playing as they were then on uncovered strips of grass, carrying 2lb 4oz spindles they called bats and about as much momentum in the field as a steam roller going uphill !
Cute .....

Passes the time and hikes up the number of posts I guess!

Do you think Viv Richards might have been good at T20?

Personally no, Viv couldn't run to save his life ...
Clive Lloyd probably - he hit it further !

But that's purely guesswork ... whoda though Hussey senior capable of spanking a decent Pak spinner for 34 off an over - under pressure !

JGK wrote:Do you think Viv Richards might have been good at T20?

I reckon a Windies composite from Headley through to Crystal might be a hard one to top. Viv would be there, of course.

Crystal wouldn't make my team...

Righto, whack one up and let us critique it, man.

So Roy Fredericks? Greenidge or Haynes?

Greenidge
Lara
Viv
Headley
Sobers
Lloyd
Walcott (wk)
Harper
Maco
Garner
Amby

Kanhai would be my next choice as a batsman.

Aye, that XI would take some stopping.

I'd p!ss Harper off for Holding and let Sobers wheel some spin if necessary.

Hooper for Harper

Ash wrote:opened a few games for india in the 90s. started promisingly, as you say, but was quickly found out against fast bowling. im guessing he played club cricket in england?

Yeah, he did. Played a season and a bit for us, then India decided to call him up and ruin our season. He was picked to pinch hit in 2 ODI's against Sri Lanka, while the player he was competing with as Ganguly's partner got more games against the much weaker Kiwi attack. In the last of those games against the Kiwis, he hit a quickfire hundred. Sehwag has been opening the batting for India ever since.

Have no idea why India played Amay as an opener though. He didn't even open the batting in league cricket , much better in the middle order.

Merlin wrote:Personally no, Viv couldn't run to save his life ...
Clive Lloyd probably - he hit it further !

But that's purely guesswork ... whoda though Hussey senior capable of spanking a decent Pak spinner for 34 off an over - under pressure !

If you follow his ODI career and some of his knock in Tests its not that improbable. I remember him adding over 100 for the 10th wicket with McGrath against a strong South African attack. Even with 6 or 7 men on the boundary he managed to pick gaps and hit plenty of fours and sixes.


Viv Richards could also bowl some filthy off spin for the All-Time Windies side. I would definitely have Sonny Ramadhin in there too. A spinner who can turn the ball both ways would be invaluable. Collis King maybe in the XI too?

" Super-cat" Lloyd for sure. Possibly my all-time favourite cricketer. I was only a lad when he started, but his batting was just so effortless. Little more than a flick of the wrists at times - and to a fielder it would have been like catching a cannonball.

And his fielding ...... patrolling the covers with those giant strides and fast accurate throwing. There have been a few fielders as good, but I'm hard pushed to think of any as could be described as much better.

Will probably be shot down in flames by Taipan, but here's my Saffie XI

Richards
Ackerman
Irvine - doubling up as keeper
Pollock - that would be Graeme
Bland
Davison - (Rhodesia were still playing in the Currie Cup)
Proctor
Barlow
Rice
Van Der Bijl
Pollock - the Ginger one's dad