NZ All Time XI
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@Chris-B said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@Crucial said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@Crucial said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@Rapido said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
Didn't realise JF Reid had passed away.
Neither, he would have been quite young still.
64 apparently. Cancer.
And I have to disagree with @crucial. Can't see JFR on Mt Rushmore. I'm struggling to see him in the 1st XI.
I can understand that we never really watched him but his batting stats are right up there if you were assembling a lineup. Would you really not select a player with our second highest batting average (over 30 innings). Higher than M Crowe and only below KW? Centuries playing away in Oz, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Yes. He batted 3. He's behind KW, Crowe bats at 4, Roscoe has to drop to 5.
Reid was good, but not great.
And your openers are? Richardson? and ?
Sutcliffe?
Not Reid.
You'll note I purposely avoided naming openers.
I'm inclined to nominate Latham, but feel I'm influenced by recency bias.
I think the point I was making in my initial post was that we as a nation only have what I’d consider two all time legends of the game. A host of “very good” players would make up the rest of our all time XI.
Our neighbours across the ditch on the other hand would have to leave out some legendary batsmen. How do you get Bradman, Ponting, Smith, G Chappell, Border and S Waugh in the same side ?
England, Australia and the Windies would, at a guess, have about 15-20 of that talent level in their history.
India ? There’d be a few batsmen but fuck all bowlers.
Pakistan and SA would have a few.
Sri Lanka ? Murali, Sangakarra, Jayawardene would be about it.
I think Jayawardene would only rank the next level down - especially if that's where you're slotting Marty Crowe.
South Africa - Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock would make the top level, I think - which makes me wonder whether Bondy should as well. What's the line from Bladerunner about burning very bright?
Shaun Pollock, Kallis, Donald, Mike Proctor, ABdV, Dale Steyn - all would go close - Kallis a certainty.
Possibly debatable. The career average of a shade under 50 doesn’t help his cause.
For the Windies off the top of my head and kind of in chronological order you’d have Weekes, Worrell, Walcott, Sobers, Richards, Garner, Holding, Roberts, Marshall, Ambrose and Lara as the Mt Rushmore players. Feel free to add any glaring omissions
Others possibly borderline would be Lloyd, Croft, Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson, Bishop, Walsh, Chanderpaul and Headley ( short career )
The current team don’t have anyone close to that level
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@MN5 said in NZ All Time XI:
@Chris-B said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@Crucial said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@Crucial said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@Rapido said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
@booboo said in Blackcaps v Sri Lanka:
Didn't realise JF Reid had passed away.
Neither, he would have been quite young still.
64 apparently. Cancer.
And I have to disagree with @crucial. Can't see JFR on Mt Rushmore. I'm struggling to see him in the 1st XI.
I can understand that we never really watched him but his batting stats are right up there if you were assembling a lineup. Would you really not select a player with our second highest batting average (over 30 innings). Higher than M Crowe and only below KW? Centuries playing away in Oz, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Yes. He batted 3. He's behind KW, Crowe bats at 4, Roscoe has to drop to 5.
Reid was good, but not great.
And your openers are? Richardson? and ?
Sutcliffe?
Not Reid.
You'll note I purposely avoided naming openers.
I'm inclined to nominate Latham, but feel I'm influenced by recency bias.
I think the point I was making in my initial post was that we as a nation only have what I’d consider two all time legends of the game. A host of “very good” players would make up the rest of our all time XI.
Our neighbours across the ditch on the other hand would have to leave out some legendary batsmen. How do you get Bradman, Ponting, Smith, G Chappell, Border and S Waugh in the same side ?
England, Australia and the Windies would, at a guess, have about 15-20 of that talent level in their history.
India ? There’d be a few batsmen but fuck all bowlers.
Pakistan and SA would have a few.
Sri Lanka ? Murali, Sangakarra, Jayawardene would be about it.
I think Jayawardene would only rank the next level down - especially if that's where you're slotting Marty Crowe.
South Africa - Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock would make the top level, I think - which makes me wonder whether Bondy should as well. What's the line from Bladerunner about burning very bright?
Shaun Pollock, Kallis, Donald, Mike Proctor, ABdV, Dale Steyn - all would go close - Kallis a certainty.
Possibly debatable. The career average of a shade under 50 doesn’t help his cause.
I agree with you over 11000 test runs, next best at 7000, for me anyway.. him and Sangakkara stand out like proverbial dogs balls for batting. Murali is the third head, but a long way back to their next in both batting and bowling
For me the next layer down would be adding someone like Jayasuria but that would be more focusing on his contribution to ODIs as well
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@MN5 Lance Gibbs and Jeff Dujon probably in the borderline - but, you've got most of them. Not sure Bishop quite makes the grade.
There's some older guys - Ramadhin and Valentine, Wes Hall, Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse - but, none probably contenders for their Rushmore.
Sobers and Richards would be the first two carved - I'd have Holding and Marshall, but probably others wouldn't.
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@Chris-B said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 Lance Gibbs and Jeff Dujon probably in the borderline - but, you've got most of them. Not sure Bishop quite makes the grade.
There's some older guys - Ramadhin and Valentine, Wes Hall, Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse - but, none probably contenders for their Rushmore.
Sobers and Richards would be the first two carved - I'd have Holding and Marshall, but probably others wouldn't.
But then how do you leave out Lara, Ambrose ( whom I have seen and know to be legends ) or the three Ws ( Google them )
Impossible task.
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@MN5 said in NZ All Time XI:
@Chris-B said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 Lance Gibbs and Jeff Dujon probably in the borderline - but, you've got most of them. Not sure Bishop quite makes the grade.
There's some older guys - Ramadhin and Valentine, Wes Hall, Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse - but, none probably contenders for their Rushmore.
Sobers and Richards would be the first two carved - I'd have Holding and Marshall, but probably others wouldn't.
But then how do you leave out Lara, Ambrose ( whom I have seen and know to be legends ) or the three Ws ( Google them )
Impossible task.
How do you not even mention Joel Garner?
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@Higgins said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 said in NZ All Time XI:
@Chris-B said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 Lance Gibbs and Jeff Dujon probably in the borderline - but, you've got most of them. Not sure Bishop quite makes the grade.
There's some older guys - Ramadhin and Valentine, Wes Hall, Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse - but, none probably contenders for their Rushmore.
Sobers and Richards would be the first two carved - I'd have Holding and Marshall, but probably others wouldn't.
But then how do you leave out Lara, Ambrose ( whom I have seen and know to be legends ) or the three Ws ( Google them )
Impossible task.
How do you not even mention Joel Garner?
Thank you for reinforcing my point. NZ have two and it’s a scramble for four. The Windies have a battle to narrow it down to four.
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For that 4th spot on NZ's Mt Rushmore. Jack Cowie would have a claim as he was probably the best in the world in his position (seam/fast bowling) for a period of x years. A statsguru query backs it up, with only competition from Lindwall (an all time great) in the post-war years (the final third, or fag-end, of Cowie's 12 year career span).
Shane Bond, no matter how much I rate him, would never have been the best in the world even if injury or ICL free, as his peak coincided with McGrath.
But, probably, McCullum would have a very good claim as he rates highly (top 5 or better) on so many NZ metrics. Runs scored, wicket-keeping, captaincy etc. Even areas where he is considered a 'relative failure'; e.g. as an opening batsman - he is in NZ's top 4 or 5 for both runs scored or average etc.
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On a tangent, as a kid I played football in a team and one of the kids' grandads coached the team and I never liked him because he was soooo old and just let his grandson play wherever he wanted. Dad mentioned he played a few games for NZ, it was Jack Cowie...
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@canefan said in NZ All Time XI:
He was a tall bugger, solid built even in his 80s. I could imagine him being a real terror in his prime
Jack Cowie
Known as “The Bull”, Cowie was New Zealand’s first great test bowler and ranked with the world’s best.
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@Rapido said in NZ All Time XI:
For that 4th spot on NZ's Mt Rushmore. Jack Cowie would have a claim as he was probably the best in the world in his position (seam/fast bowling) for a period of x years. A statsguru query backs it up, with only competition from Lindwall (an all time great) in the post-war years (the final third, or fag-end, of Cowie's 12 year career span).
Shane Bond, no matter how much I rate him, would never have been the best in the world even if injury or ICL free, as his peak **coincided with McGrath.
**
But, probably, McCullum would have a very good claim as he rates highly (top 5 or better) on so many NZ metrics. Runs scored, wicket-keeping, captaincy etc. Even areas where he is considered a 'relative failure'; e.g. as an opening batsman - he is in NZ's top 4 or 5 for both runs scored or average etc.Yes but assuming Crowe is the third name on there we need to agree that Border, Chappell, Richards etc were better than he was. Other like Gooch, Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson, Gower etc were around his level.
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@Chris-B said in NZ All Time XI:
@MN5 JFR was very good against spin, but I recall was regarded as a bit suspect vs pace.
He skipped a tour to the Windies (and Edgar was dropped) which gave Rudder his baptism of fire.
That's the glaring blotch on the copybook of JFR. Not even close to an NZ all time XI and someone suggests he's on the Mount Rushmore of NZ cricketers? Good grief.
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@canefan said in NZ All Time XI:
He was a tall bugger, solid built even in his 80s. I could imagine him being a real terror in his prime
Too far away from Cricket to have any sensible view on who should be in the XI and just enjoying reading this thread, but yeah, we should def' consider older-era players like Cowie, Bert Sutciffe and JR Reid who were clearly way up with the very best of their era based on stats and contemporary opinion.
And just want to make a point that NZ cricket owes a huge debt to semi-pro players like Bevan Congdon & Bruce Taylor who made NZ competitive in the '70's and laid some seriously good foundations. You suspect they'd be outstanding in todays professional environment but sadly, I guess we'll never know how good they might have been.
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@KiwiPie said in NZ All Time XI:
Kane has moved into the top 10 for centuries per innings batted - at around 1 ton every 6 innings.
His conversion rate over the last 5 years or so has been phenomenal. Something like 13 tons and 9 fifties I think.
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@Cyclops said in NZ All Time XI:
His conversion rate over the last 5 years or so has been phenomenal. Something like 13 tons and 9 fifties I think.
If you remove his first 25 tests, he is averaging over 63 with 24 tons in 117 innings - better than 1 in 5 which is pretty spectacular.
For the last 5 years (since March 2018) he averages 61 with 10 tons in 50 innings - still 1 in 5. Possibly more failures in that period though but his average rescued by 4 double centuries. (in that same period, Root has played 64 tests to Kane's 30!)
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FB@KiwiPie said in NZ All Time XI:
@Cyclops said in NZ All Time XI:
His conversion rate over the last 5 years or so has been phenomenal. Something like 13 tons and 9 fifties I think.
If you remove his first 25 tests, he is averaging over 63 with 24 tons in 117 innings - better than 1 in 5 which is pretty spectacular.
For the last 5 years (since March 2018) he averages 61 with 10 tons in 50 innings - still 1 in 5. Possibly more failures in that period though but his average rescued by 4 double centuries. (in that same period, Root has played 64 tests to Kane's 30!)
I saw a thing on FB asking which of the big four would get the most test tons.
Unfortunately KW is always going to suffer a bit by not being from the big three nations. It’ll probably be Root and I’d argue he’s third or forth best of the lot.
All of them could easily each play for another five years at least as well. Loads of hundreds to come.
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A guy like Bond has to be in for me. With him playing we were a good chance of beating a really bloody good Aussie team who probably outmatched us in 10/11 spots. Without him we were no chance. There are no Reid type 'would he have been found out over time' suspicions or lucky wickets - he was playing the best and dominating them: people bowling 150kph inswingers and making players as good as Ricky Ponting look silly are not over-rated.
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@reprobate said in NZ All Time XI:
A guy like Bond has to be in for me. With him playing we were a good chance of beating a really bloody good Aussie team who probably outmatched us in 10/11 spots. Without him we were no chance. There are no Reid type 'would he have been found out over time' suspicions or lucky wickets - he was playing the best and dominating them: people bowling 150kph inswingers and making players as good as Ricky Ponting look silly are not over-rated.
Guys as good as Hayden, Gilly, Ponting and Martyn were made to look like chumps that day. I can’t believe we lost though !
It’s probably a good thing in one way that he essentially didn’t play when not 100% and risk losing the aura like lots of others have.
