Ultimate Ashes challenge

[chickenfeet]

Just for fun, an ultimate Ashes line up. My best England and Australia teams. Qualification is that each player must have played at least one test post WW2. See if you can do better.

England

Hutton
Boycott
Hammond
Compton *
Barrington
Botham
Flintoff
Knott +
Laker
Statham
Tyson

Australia

Hayden
Gilchrist +
Bradman
Ponting
Chappell (GS)*
Waugh
Miller
Warne
Davidson
O'Reilly
Lindwall


Unluckiest not to be selected: Trueman, Higgs, Dexter, McGrath, Walters, Marsh

Comments

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I've always had a soft spot for Ales Stewart. Probably not borne out by the numbers. I saw him a couple of times, and it was excellent to see him hook shot after shot to deep square leg. That might have been because I was sitting there at the time (at Trent Bridge) (them being the cheap seats), and it being about the only delivery you can make sense of when you're sitting square to the wicket.

Jardine would liven things up, ;).

[kaet.livejournal.com]

Though, damn, didn't play post WWII. ;)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Yes. That rules out a lot of good players.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Stewart vs Knott is worth consideration (Stewart isn't close to making it as a specialist batsman). Stewart averaged about 5 more than Knott but, IMO, Knott was far superior as a wicket keeper and his skill with the gloves more than outweighs 5 runs/innings, especially as this keeper has to keep to Laker nd Barrington.

[atpotch.livejournal.com]

Would that be Steve Waugh? I'm assumin'. I'm pretty much with you- I don't know enough about your older Australian seamers to know if they merit inclusion above Lillee and Thomson, and I'm happy to see a few current players represented- particularly Flintoff and Warne who seem to be the figureheads of this series on each side.

That Hayden could really do with some form though.

TCH

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Yes, Steve Waugh.

Hayden may be having a bad trot but he and Gilchrist are head and shoulders above other potential openers in the career stats department.

The Australian seamers are an interesting case. Lilley and Thomson were very formidable but so were Lindwall and Miller and they have the edge in that Miller was a fully fledged allrounder. He also gets bonus points for his famous answer when asked whether he felt under pressure from the formidable England bowling in the 1948 series; "Cricket isn't pressure. Pressure is a Messerschmidt up your arse." He had a distinguished war record as a fighter pilot. Davidson is a different kind of seamer, a Statham/McGrath type rather than a genuine quick.

On the England side, I came across the results of a similar exercise by a panel of experts about 3 years ago. They preferred Gooch and may to Boycott and Hammond which I can only put down to personal dislike (entirely understandable) in the first case and lunacy in the second. They also preferred Trueman to Tyson and bedser to Flintoff which I find easier to understand though ultimately wrong. I used to be coached by a chap who had opened for kent in the 50s. He said Tyson was far and away the most intimidating bowler he ever played against.

I found it interesting that my England seletion ended up heavily biased to the 1950s and the Australians to much more recent players but, on reflection, that seems about right.

[atpotch.livejournal.com]

Certainly the 50's was the last time England could claim to have been the best side in the world, (hopefully the next time will be in the next decade at some point), whereas Australia's achievements in the last ten years are, when they're not thoroughly irritating, fantastically inspiring, so yeah, it does make good sense.

Gotta love people who have some perspective on sport.

TCH