Gollum Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) Dividing it like they do in Duleep Trophy. But for the sake of fairness (and mercy!!!) I will merge Central Zone and East Zone, otherwise they will get steamrolled by the other 3. Squad of 18 and best XI to be chosen depending on conditions. Red ball format only and peak (non chucking, non fixing ) versions of all cricketers. In case I have missed some prominent names please do tell. 1) North Zone (JK, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi) Sehwag Gambhir Mohinder Amarnath Kohli (c) Sidhu Pant (wk) Kapil Chetan Sharma Harbhajan Ishant Bedi Reserves: Yuvraj, Dhawan, Chetan Chauhan, Madan Lal, Yashpal Sharma, Rajinder Goel, Prabhakar Observations: Tremendous (5 options) opening pair, gun top order, slightly wobbly middle order, decent bowling but quite a few chinks there (mainly poor SR), aggressive characters and aggressive captaincy/leadership candidates, swag 2) West Zone (Gujarat's 3 teams, Mumbai, Maharshtra minus Vidarbha, Goa) Gavaskar (c) Vinoo Mankad Pujara Sachin Vijay Hazare Vengsarkar Engineer (wk) Sir Jadeja Zaheer Gupte Bumrah Reserves: Vijay Merchant, Jaffer, Chandu Borde, Rahane, Umrigar, Padmakar Shivalkar, Irfan Pathan By far the toughest to limit to 18, I had to leave out some big names like Wadekar, Contractor, Dilip Sardesai, Sandeep Patil, More, Vijay and Sanjay Manjrekar, Agarkar, Shastri ....spoilt for choices especially in the batting department. Observations: Terrific batting.....potentially the best all round batting unit out of the 4 options, best all conditions bowling, one big drawback will be the captain whoever it is will be very defensive and/or inept, will the captain be able to extract the best from this brilliant bowling unit? 3) South Zone (Karnataka, TN, Andhra, Hyderabad, Telangana, Kerala) Murali Vijay Budhi Kunderan (wk) Dravid GR Vishwanath Azharuddin Laxman MAK Pataudi (c)...even though he was from Bhopal he shifted to Hyderabad to be under Jaisimha's tutelage Ashwin Kumble Srinath Chandra *Deliberately picked 3 spinners in starting XI because of who the captain is Reserves: KL Rahul, Ramesh (rate him above Srikanth in this format), Kirmani (in case I want a safer opening option in place of the mercurial Budhi), Prasanna, Venkatraghavan, Venkatesh Prasad, Sreesanth. Observations: Clutch team...look at the middle order with 3 of India's most clutch batsmen of all time, excellent 4th innings team with both bat and ball, almost unbeatable on spinning tracks, weak pace bowling arsenal (but Srinath/Sreesanth/Prasad in RSA will be deadly), outstanding spin bowling arsenal and can field an intimidating spin quartet on certain tracks, greatest Indian captain and someone who was a master at utilizing spin resources 4) Rest of India (Central plus East Zone...Rajasthan, Vidarbha, MP, Chhattisgarh, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bengal, NE) Pankaj Roy Syed Mushtaq Ali CK Nayudu Ganguly (c) Dhoni Saha (wk) Bhuvi Shami Kuldeep Doshi Umesh Reserves: Hanumant Singh, Salim Durani, Kaif, SS Das, Ojha, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh Observations: Piss poor batting, decent bowling resources, only hope is drastic swinging/seaming conditions and their bowlers getting 1st use of those conditions....may be just may be PK/BK/RP/Shami/Dada can run through the opponents and some gritty batting to complement. Otherwise a very sorry looking team that will get smashed by the other 3. OK in the bowling department and good leadership..... I may have messed up the XI, please correct if that is the case. The oldies from these regions are not good enough. My take is that West Zone looks the strongest, Bumrah's arrival has given it a huge boost in strength. However South will probably edge it in Asian conditions. North may run West close in most places but will eventually lose. Asia: South>West>North Elsewhere: West>North>South but too too close to call between 2 and 3. Overall: West is best Rest of India will get ragdolled 9/10 times . Edited April 1, 2020 by Gollum Straight Drive, maniac, philcric and 4 others 5 2 Link to comment
Ankit_sharma03 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Was thinking same few days ago @Gollum- shud do test n Odi both Gollum 1 Link to comment
Laaloo Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 West Zone trumps em all Real McCoy 1 Link to comment
zen Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Asia includes subcon so went with West Zone .... Gavaskar gives it the edge .... Batting has Pujara, Sachin and Hazare .... Has the best AR in Mankad .... Gupte was an amazing spinner .... Bumrah-Zak is a powerful opening combo, can play a 3rd seamer (Irfan, Munaf, Ghavri, Pandya, ....) as well in place of Jadeja overseas Gujarat has 3 teams but all are competitive and have won Ranji, who was also from Gujarat Link to comment
Gollum Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 3 minutes ago, zen said: Asia includes subcon so went with West Zone .... Gavaskar gives it the edge .... Batting has Pujara, Sachin and Hazare .... Has the best AR in Mankad .... Gupte was an amazing spinner .... Bumrah-Zak is a powerful opening combo, can play a 3rd seamer (Irfan, Munaf, Ghavri, Pandya, ....) as well in place of Jadeja overseas Gujarat has 3 teams but all are competitive and have won Ranji, who was also from Gujarat West is insanely strong but in Asia with Pataudi as skipper and 4/5 high quality spinners plus Srinath who was amazing in these tracks.....I voted for South. Again the South batting is scary in Asian conditions, look at that middle order, their prowess against spin and reputation in 4th innings can't be downplayed. Before I made this thread I assumed that North would look the strongest but boy was I wrong. I almost forgot about Vinoo Mankad and Bumrah, with them the bowling is so well rounded. Link to comment
Ankit_sharma03 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) ODI North Zone Dhawan Gambhir (captain) Kohli Sehwag yuvraj Ajay Jadeja Pant (keeper) Kapil Bhajji Yuzi Nehra Reserve- amit mishra , Ishant West Zone Sachin Parthiv patel (wk) Rohit Sharma (captain) Kambli Jadhav Irfan Hardik Jadeja Zak Bumrah Agarkar Reserve- Yusuf pathan, Iyer, Axar patel, Rahane South Zone KL rahul Uthappa Dravid Azharuddin (captain) Rayudu/manish pandey Dinesh karthik Robin singh Ashwin Kumble Srinath Venkatesh prasad Hardest one to pick as their are so many good young cricketers coming that soon ull want to replace many among them East + Central zone Ganguly Ishan Kishen/Saha Dhoni (Captain) Kaif Manoj tiwary Raina Saurabh tiwary/Saha Kuldeep yadav RP singh Shami Bhuvi Was really hard to think of some names to fill the 11 so slotted saurabh tiwary n saha.....feel free to give suggestions. It will be a final between North vs West zone Edited February 8, 2019 by Ankit_sharma03 Laaloo and Gollum 1 1 Link to comment
zen Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Gollum said: West is insanely strong but in Asia with Pataudi as skipper and 4/5 high quality spinners plus Srinath who was amazing in these tracks.....I voted for South. Again the South batting is scary in Asian conditions, look at that middle order, their prowess against spin and reputation in 4th innings can't be downplayed. Before I made this thread I assumed that North would look the strongest but boy was I wrong. I almost forgot about Vinoo Mankad and Bumrah, with them the bowling is so well rounded. South is good too in Asia but West has amazing batting line up with even Vensarkar having tons of centuries in Asia. On turning tracks, spinners will be equally competitive with Gupta, Jadeja and Mankad, and it has Bumrah + Zak combo to use the new ball and reverse with old ball as well Edited February 8, 2019 by zen Link to comment
Ankit_sharma03 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 31 minutes ago, Gollum said: 3) South Zone (Karnataka, TN, Andhra, Telangana, Kerala) Murali Vijay Budhi Kunderan (wk) Dravid GR Vishwanath Azharuddin Laxman MAK Pataudi (c)...even though he was from Bhopal he shifted to Hyderabad to be under Jaisimha's tutelage Ashwin (Prasanna in SENA) Kumble Srinath Chandra *Deliberately picked 3 spinners in starting XI because of who the captain is Reserves: KL Rahul, Ramesh (rate him above Srikanth in this format), Kirmani (in case I want a safer opening option in place of Budhi), Prasanna/Ashwin, Venkatraghavan, Venkatesh Prasad, Sreesanth. Ill go with KL Vijay Dravid Azhar Laxman Vishwanath DK Ashwin Kumble Srinath Sreesanth ( on his day he ll trouble anyone) This team shud give west zone tough time, actually anyone can win among them Gollum 1 Link to comment
Ankit_sharma03 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) 36 minutes ago, Gollum said: Dividing it like they do in Duleep Trophy. But for the sake of fairness I will merge Central Zone and East Zone, otherwise they will get steamrolled by the other 3. Squad of 18 and best XI to be chosen depending on conditions. Red ball format only and peak (non chucking, non fixing ) versions of all cricketers. In case I have missed some prominent names please do tell. 1) North Zone (JK, Himachal, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi) Sehwag Gambhir Mohinder Amarnath Kohli (c) Yuvraj Pant (wk) Kapil Chetan Sharma Harbhajan Ishant Bedi will go for dhawan instead of yuvi and also sidhu in place of chetan sharma.....this side has already to much of bowling. Sehwag n amarnath both cud bowl Edited February 8, 2019 by Ankit_sharma03 Gollum 1 Link to comment
Gollum Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) 55 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said: Was thinking same few days ago @Gollum- shud do test n Odi both Yeah that will be interesting. My guess is that in ODI North will be a heavy favorite while South will get severely depleted, ROI will stay weak. It should be a North vs West fight in the final and the former should be a comfortable favorite. Sehwag Dhawan Kohli Gambhir Yuvraj Kapil (c) Pant (wk)....can't think of anyone else Prabhakar Chetan Sharma Harbhajan Nehra Maximizing batting depth because there isn't an out and out quality quick to partner Kapil. Besides ODI is a batting dominated format and getting 10 wickets isn't a priority. West will be: Sachin Rohit (c) Shastri Rahane Vengsarkar Hardik Sir Jadeja Mongia (wk) Agarkar Zaheer Bumrah Fill in if I have missed some big name, just from the top off my head....apart from the openers the batting line up is pathetic, bowling is good with 6 options, light in the middle overs with both bat and ball. I think South can give West a tough fight, North is in another league altogether. The gap between West and South pales in front of the gap between North and West. North can go toe to toe with West+South+Rest (Dhoni, Ganguly, Raina, Shami etc). South should be: Srikanth KL Rahul Dravid Azhar Rayudu ....maybe Laxman of 2003-04 CB series and 2004 Pak series if we are talking about peak versions Karthik (wk) Roger Binny Ashwin Kumble Srinath Prasad ROI I won't even bother Edited February 8, 2019 by Gollum Link to comment
Laaloo Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 @Gollum would ajay jadeja be ja be considered for west zone? I’d rather have him than Rahane or shastri how about robin singh? Real McCoy 1 Link to comment
zen Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) If I do an ATG Test 11, it will be something like the one below: Gavaskar Sehwag Dravid / Pujara Kohli Sachin Mankad Kapil Engineer / Dhoni / Pant (future) -> WKs that can bat too Srinath / Zak / Shami / Prasanna / Gupte Chandra Bumrah Having watched Warne and Murali, modern spinners such as Kumble, Ashwin and Jadeja are not at that level. Past greats such as Chandra, Prasanna and Gupte can compete and have won Ind games overseas too Edited February 8, 2019 by zen Link to comment
Gollum Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Laaloo said: @Gollum would ajay jadeja be ja be considered for west zone? I’d rather have him than Rahane or shastri how about robin singh? Ajay Jadeja never played for any of the west zone teams, he was a regular player for Delhi and Haryana. Rahane is a weak link but Shastri is ok I guess. We are talking about the peak versions, so the Shastri of 1985 B&H WCC will be the player here...his batting was slow/steady but his SLA was very handy. I missed Jadhav, so may be he can find a spot in the middle order. Robin Singh was ok for our deplorable 90s standards but his role was that of a medium pace A/R. So his direct competition is Roger Binny and I can't select him over Binny who was stellar in the 1983 WC...leading wicket taker in that edition. He was worse than Robin Singh with the bat but much better with the ball....for a couple of years he was even doing better than Kapil Dev who himself was a gun ODI bowler. Edited February 8, 2019 by Gollum Link to comment
Gollum Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 Guys let us stick to 5 day cricket, maybe another thread for ODIs/T20s. ODI came to the forefront only in the late 80s and gained popularity in the 90s...so we are missing out on many past Indian greats. Besides we are talking about the greatest format here, no place for hacks and bits and pieces cricketers. Only 5 members have voted, hope we get a larger sample size. Except @Cricketics all others are unanimous in their choice that overall west is best. Anybody wanna dispute that? Stage is yours. Link to comment
zen Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 29 minutes ago, Gollum said: West will be: Sachin Rohit (c) Shastri Rahane Vengsarkar Hardik Sir Jadeja Mongia (wk) Agarkar Zaheer Bumrah Shastri + Rahane .... I would rather have Sachin Rohit Engineer (played a few ODIs) Vengsarkar Patil Hardik Jadhav Jadeja Agarkar Zak Bumrah Gollum 1 Link to comment
Cricketics Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 2 minutes ago, Gollum said: Only 5 members have voted, hope we get a larger sample size. Except @Cricketics all others are unanimous in their choice that overall west is best. Anybody wanna dispute that? Stage is yours. North has the best opening pair which can negotiate any kind of bowling and can pulverize the oppositions. Middle order is definitely strong. Gambhir can do a Napier when required to save team's @ss. India's greatest all rounder Kapil Dev is the heart of the team. I don't see how this team can't dominate. Don't even have to mention about Kohli and what Sehwag can do. I would replace Yuvraj with Navjot Sidhu as he is a better Test bat that Yuvi. Link to comment
Cricketics Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Also while we are at it, Spare a thought for all South Zone fans who were looking for Thala in South Zone but realized he is Jharkhandi rofl.. maniac, Nikola, zen and 4 others 7 Link to comment
maniac Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 6 minutes ago, zen said: Shastri + Rahane .... I would rather have Sachin Rohit Engineer (played a few ODIs) Vengsarkar Patil Hardik Jadhav Jadeja Agarkar Zak Bumrah Shastri is underrated at times. Even though he was terrible towards the end of his career, a guy like Shastri with his bowling ability would be worth his weight in gold currently. He did have some hitting ability but was dadu version 1 with his holding one end bs Link to comment
maniac Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 4 minutes ago, Cricketics said: Also while we are at it, Spare a thought for all South Zone fans who were looking for Thala in South Zone but realized he is Jharkhandi rofl.. How about South Zone fans who are happy to see the xfactor in the West Zone :) Link to comment
Gollum Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Cricketics said: North has the best opening pair which can negotiate any kind of bowling and can pulverize the oppositions. They are certainly destructive but against Bumrah/Zak on a lively track or overcast conditions can they come out unscathed? On such pitches West Zone will choose Gavaskar/Merchant as openers....2 of the greatest technicians of their times. Quote Middle order is definitely strong. I would argue it is a weak link, numbers 5-7 don't have the same reputation as West/South. That is an opportunity for the other team to run through them once they get an opening. Quote I would replace Yuvraj with Navjot Sidhu as he is a better Test bat that Yuvi. That's your choice. I presented an 18 member squad for all the teams and you can choose the XI as you deem fit. Whether Sidhu in place of UV or Prabhakar in place of Chetan Sharma....totally up to you. Is there any cricketer(s) you feel missed out in the 18 member squads? Edited February 8, 2019 by Gollum Link to comment
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