T20's Born To Early XI

Paul Harris says he would have loved to played 20/20 Cricket.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/586096.html

What other players do you feel would have succeeded in this format?

My coulda/woulda/shoulda XI is.

Greenidge
Srikanth
V Richards
D Jones
C Lloyd
Dev
Beefy
Hadlee
I Smith (wkt)
Kumble
Garner

Chris Harris, you mean

I imagine Paul Harris has been the victim of a few sixes in the format!

Decent side!

That's him!

some names I think are worth a mention:

Bradman: this guy was such a great batsman I believe he'd have excelled in any format.

Compton: the first great innovator? very possibly. I believe he'd had loved the challenge.

O'Reilly: his brand of fast leg-spin/top spinners/googlies would have been well suited to this format I think.

As a rule I think your XI has too many seamers in it, with the success spinners have had in T20s I'd want more in there.

Thinking Viv could bowl a few but yes, another spinner, one that could bat, would be a bonus.

I'd go something like:

Greenidge
? not sure
Bradman
Viv Richards
Compton
Sobers
Kapil Dev
Knott
? looking for a second quality spinner
O'Reilly
Garner

Sobers

I was thinking of players that I've seen but he would no doubt be a raging success.

Trumper
Jessop
Bradman(c)
Sobers
Miller
Botham
Constantine
Knott(wk)
Proctor
Barnes
Underwood

Based purely on players I have seen:

Barry Richards
Adam Gilchrist (yes I know he played IPL - but so long after his prime I want to include him at his best)
Viv Richards
Neil Fairbrother
Gary Sobers
Clive Lloyd
Mike Proctor
Imran Khan
Derek Underwood
Abdul Qadir
Joel Garner

1.Greenidge
2.Jessop
3.Richards
4.Sobers
5. Miller
6. Botham
7. Constantine
8. Akram
9. Kapil Dev
10. Dujon Wkt
11. Underwood

This above is the dream team! You are looking at 6 genuine all rounders! Not bits and pieces players.

All of whom can clear the boundary by miles.

Imgine Beefy and sobers or any of the others at wicket going beserk!

It was a tough choice to leave out Imran Khan.

good grief: just realised I left out Miller, Akram and Imran Khan!!!

tough tough choices. Jessop a good shout for the second opener's spot though.

Think WG Grace would have adapted. Might have been involved in a few run outs though

Kumble played some IPL also.

To be honest all the all-rounders of years gone by (Miller, Kapil Dev, Botham, Imran Khan and of course Sobers) would have loved T20 cricket.

Not sure about Underwood - deadly on a turning pitch, but on a flatter one feel he would have just fired it in, and we've seen recently that that's not enough in the modern game.

O'Reilly would have gotten by as he had more variety.

Gilbert Jessop is an excellent shout to open the batting I think. I also agree with MfC that Bradman was so much ahead of everyone else he would have probably done well at T20s as well.

Knott is a must as a keeper - brilliant behind the stumps and highly unorthodox with the bat, perfect to come in at no 7 or 8 if need-be.

Let's also not forget that T20 is not purely about big-hitting, the odd player like Hussey (or Collingwood for a time) who can nudge and nurdle as well as clear the boundary are very valuable. So Bevan, who was the best ever at that is a must. Also a brilliant fielder.

Something like:
Viv Richards (he would have been fine opening to T20, get your best players in early)
Jessop
Bradman
Sobers
Bevan
Miller
Botham
Knott
Akram
Barnes
O'Reilly


Good as Garner's yorkers were I have gone for the magic of Akram. Even yorkers nowadays can go to the boundary, whereas with Wasim you'd have some reverse swing in the final few overs as well, and more variation.

Collingwood was pretty average as a T20 batsman from what I can remember?

Bevan is a good call. A decent chinaman bowler as well as the best finisher in 50 over Cricket.

Perhaps Lance Gibbs as a spinner? Incredible economy, granted that was in Tests but he clearly knew where to put the ball.

Cracking thread and many wonderful names already mentioned above.

The one world class player I immediately thought of who appears to be missing so far is Graeme Pollock.

Others who immediately came to my mind were Richards (x2), Sobers, Procter, Knott, Garner, Underwood and Gibbs.

I noticed Mike wasn't so sure about Underwood. As always, I believe he would have been tremendous in partnership with Knott and that many opposition wickets would have fallen in t20 to stumpings from their combo.

To throw in a couple of other names.

Farouk Enginner, former Lancs and India wicket keeper / batsman. Not in the class of Knott behind the stumps but still a capable keeper. A hard hitting and cavalier middle order batsman who sometimes opened in limited overs matches.

Jack Simmons - a left field choice as younger posters seem to say . A highly economical off spin bowler, he never played international cricket but was an integral members of the Lancs side - along with Engineer - that dominated the English county one day game in the early 1970s. He spent his early cricket years playing in the Lancashire leagues, largely with Blackpool, before debuting for Lancs at the age of twenty-seven circa 1968. He quickly established himself as a regular in the side and kept his place for the next twenty years. His tidy bowling - often fired in low - earned him the nickname of 'Flat Jack' and almost 500 one day wickets. Despite having a large girth from an infamous appetite for fish and chips, he was a surprisingly reasonable fielder with a large and safe pair of hands. He was also a useful batsman, normally at number eight, who could tonk or hold up an end as required.

If he had come into the full time game earlier and if England hadn't persisted through the 1970s with picking the same side for ODIs as Tests, he might well have gained some international recognition. Although never a great spinner of the ball, he probably would have outfoxed many batsmen in t20 cricket and really taken to it. He would though have had to cut back on his fish suppers! I believe he's currently the Chairman of Lancs.

guildfordbat wrote:
I noticed Mike wasn't so sure about Underwood. As always, I believe he would have been tremendous in partnership with Knott and that many opposition wickets would have fallen in t20 to stumpings from their combo.

My worry about Underwood is his (well-established thanks to the hoF thread) tendency to fire the ball in on flat pitches. I just think with the modern bats and short boundaries the time of spinners bowling exclusively "darts" is gone, batsmen now know they have enough power at the toe-end to get under the darts and clear the ropes. Of course, Underwood was probably skillful enough to adapt, and would probably have flighted more deliveries, but the doubt remains. So much T20 bowling nowadays is about variation as well as accuracy (but variation is no substitute for quality as Dernbach has shown).

guildfordbat wrote:
if England hadn't persisted through the 1970s with picking the same side for ODIs as Tests

In fairness to England this is what everyone did around then pretty much. Partly for financial reasons (ODIs were often strapped on at the end of tours if they happened at all, and few, so shipping out a team of experts would have been very expensive for not much return) of course. Partly because nobody really knew better.

Aside from that, thank you for the detailed left-field nomination. Another cricketer I admit to being totally ignorant about.

When did sides start playing ODI specialists? The 90's, perhaps. Australia had a few in Law, Moody and Lehman.

I guess Australia would have been first - from the 70s they held lengthy ODI triangular tournaments at the end of each season, and so I assume they'd have found it easier to justify playing non-Test players.

For England probably not until the late 80s/ early 90s and even then, Fairbrother aside, it appears to me that our definition of one-day specialist was often 'jack of all trades - master of none'.

I wouldn't have minded seeing Adrian Kuiper having a go at it.

Biltong wrote:I wouldn't have minded seeing Adrian Kuiper having a go at it.

Er, wrong website, Biltong.

huh?

I would love to have seen Lance Cairns wielding a modern bat (yes I know he'd come off less often than Afridi. But someone who could hit a ball into the stands at the MCG one-handed with an early '80s bat ...). And his mix of leg cutters and off cutters plus a lot of swing would have been an interesting prospect.

Kiwi

Was it Martin Crowe who came up with the T20 idea?

Didn't Crowe come up with something else (I can't remember what it was called now) in the late 90s, which was just a bit too whacky.

The ECB were the first to implement a professional T20 competition, but of course 20 over cricket was nothing new. Indeed, this match was played on India's 1989-90 tour of Pakistan after an ODI had been called off due to rain in an attempt to give the crowd some cricket to watch: http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/142/142787.html

Note how despite the short notice the best players - Anwar and a young Sachin - were still able to score at a fantastic rate.

Stella wrote:Kiwi

Was it Martin Crowe who came up with the T20 idea?

Yep, Cricket Max - he never actually played it, but he came up with the idea and persuaded Sky NZ to pay for it - that's why he's in charge of Sky NZ's sport operations nowadays.

Originally Max had each side batting 2x10 overs, but with just 1 innings each - so team A batted 10 overs for say 72/3, team B batted 10 overs for 68/4, then team A resumed their innings, ... but that was dropped pretty early on in favour of a straight 20 overs each. Each team's final 10 overs was also played with 4 stumps rather than 3 in the 1st season.

Crowe also rewarded hitting in the "V" with the gimmicky "max zone" behind the bowler that gave double runs (so a straight hit for 6 was worth 12). From memory it was only a couple of years after SkyNZ got tired of Max (mainly as it hadn't taken off internationally) that England brought in T20.

In terms of the concept of a 20-over-a-side league competition at 1st class level Crowe gets the credit. And personally the Max zone was less annoying than strategic ad breaks time outs.

Biltong wrote:huh?

Sorry Biltong, 'going at it' can mean something else, if you get my meaning. Kuiper could hit it though. Did Kluesner play 20/20?

Junior games were always 20/20 when I was a young lad.

I wanted to add Klusener but then couldn't remember if he ever played T20.

I tghought you were going on a tangent with "having a go" but I am a bit slow on the uptake today.

PS, I played in a Max tournament (2 games a day over a bank hol weekend) at club level in around 2000. It was great fun, except that as the batting team you had to provide 4 umpires at a time (1 to monitor each end's max zone) - so by the time you had a couple of batsmen at the crease, 2 padded up, and a couple keeping scorebooks you only had 1 man left to give throwdowns.

Stella wrote:Junior games were always 20/20 when I was a young lad.

We played 25/25 up until age 11 or so.

Mike Selig wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:
I noticed Mike wasn't so sure about Underwood. As always, I believe he would have been tremendous in partnership with Knott and that many opposition wickets would have fallen in t20 to stumpings from their combo.

My worry about Underwood is his (well-established thanks to the hoF thread) tendency to fire the ball in on flat pitches. I just think with the modern bats and short boundaries the time of spinners bowling exclusively "darts" is gone, batsmen now know they have enough power at the toe-end to get under the darts and clear the ropes. Of course, Underwood was probably skillful enough to adapt, and would probably have flighted more deliveries, but the doubt remains. So much T20 bowling nowadays is about variation as well as accuracy (but variation is no substitute for quality as Dernbach has shown).

guildfordbat wrote:
if England hadn't persisted through the 1970s with picking the same side for ODIs as Tests

In fairness to England this is what everyone did around then pretty much. Partly for financial reasons (ODIs were often strapped on at the end of tours if they happened at all, and few, so shipping out a team of experts would have been very expensive for not much return) of course. Partly because nobody really knew better.

Aside from that, thank you for the detailed left-field nomination. Another cricketer I admit to being totally ignorant about.

On the Underwood front, my view was that he would have been skillful enough to adapt - plus Knott would have helped him!

I completely accept that all countries tended to play the same sides in ODIs as Tests in those days. My earlier post reads more anti England than intended.

My personal view is that cricket is complicated enough already, and so bonus zones and different amount of stumps aren't exactly a great idea for a game being geared towards new spectators.

However, all credit to Crowe for trying, and I have no doubt that after a few years his game would have developed into something resembling modern day T20.

Notts fans might argue the case for Franklyn Stephenson. A terrific death bowler, well bowler and could hit a ball.

A few have said Imran but from my recollection he was never a big hitter or clever enough to nudge it around. A great bowler of course.

Stella wrote:When did sides start playing ODI specialists? The 90's, perhaps. Australia had a few in Law, Moody and Lehman.

I remember back in '81, England picked both Jim Love (Yorks batsman) and Geoff Humpage (Warks' wicket keeper / batsman) to play ODIs against Australia. I think that was the first time non-Test players had been selected (by England) but don't put your house on it!

Plenty of good big hitting all-rounders named so far.

Franklin Stevenson is an excellent call - possessor of probably the finest slower ball of the time.

I suspect Botham might have gone for a few runs, although of course being Beefy he'd probably have taken more than his share of wickets from skied pull and hook shots, and his batting power would be a big asset.

How about this line-up:

Richards V
Richards B
Pollock
Sobers
Bevan
Botham
Kluesner
Knott
Akram
Emburey (decent economical offy whose unorthodox batting could be useful)
Garner

4.5 seam bowlers (Garner and Akram to bowl at the death), 3.5 spinners (including Viv, Sobers able to do either), lots of power in the batting but also a bit of cleverness with Bevan and Knotty, and the basis of a good fielding side (I'm a bit worried about athleticism in the outfield, but Bevan and Viv were great cover fielders, Botham and Sobers great catchers, and I'm pretty sure Wasim was good in the deep)

Bevan was a great outfielder (incredibly quick)...

MfC

I know Bevan was an outstanding 'saving one' fielder, as was Viv (at least compared to his contemporaries). My concern was more with deep fielders and a bit of a lack of athleticism around the boundary. It's probably the area of the game that has improved most in the last 15 to 20 years though, so maybe an unfair point.

Ian Austin

Boycott

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Boycott

I know you put him down as a joke, but as a more serious point I do wonder whether, in the world that we now live, even Sir Geoffrey would have worked on his game to the point where he could play T20 very well.

The only thing inhibiting him might have been the English system - in general English Test players seem to have had less opportunities to adapt than their counterparts from elsewhere.

Boycs reputedly started off in the leagues as a good strokeplaying batsman, and initially got picked for Yorkshire on the strength of that. Over the next few years he adapted his style to be more conservative and was probably more effective for it (given the nature of the game he was playing).

One thing Boycs would perhaps have struggled with in T20 is the concept that your wicket has relatively little value, and that run rate matters perhaps more than runs overall (from an individual batsman's perspectve) - a rapid innings of 25-30 is probably better for the team than a run a ball 40.

I'd love to have seen Glenn Turner and Martin Crowe play - Turner (when he was available for NZ - he spent several years preferring to play for Worcs) completely changed his game for limited overs, adopting a "hit on length" strategy, I'd like to see what else he could come up with today.

And Crowe is simply the finest batsman (sorry Martin Donnelly) that NZ has produced.

Crowe was quite innovative as a captain in the 1992 world cup also. He may have enjoyed captaining in this format.
Mark Greatbach? He liked to give it a thump.