All time inter-zonal teams competition: which is the strongest?

[Gollum]

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

[Ankit_sharma03]

Was thinking same few days ago 

@Gollum- shud do test n Odi both 

[Laaloo]

West Zone trumps em all

[zen]

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 

 

 

[Gollum]

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. 

[Ankit_sharma03]

ODI

 

North Zone 

1. Dhawan
2. Gambhir (captain)
3. Kohli
4. Sehwag
5. yuvraj
6. Ajay Jadeja
7. Pant (keeper)
8. Kapil
9. Bhajji
10. Yuzi
11. Nehra  

Reserve-  amit mishra , Ishant

 

 

West Zone

1. Sachin
2. Parthiv patel (wk)
3. Rohit Sharma (captain)
4. Kambli
5. Jadhav
6. Irfan 
7. Hardik 
8. Jadeja
9. Zak
10. Bumrah
11. Agarkar

Reserve- Yusuf pathan, Iyer, Axar patel, Rahane 

 

South Zone

1. KL rahul
2. Uthappa
3. Dravid
4. Azharuddin (captain)
5. Rayudu/manish pandey
6. Dinesh karthik
7. Robin singh
8. Ashwin
9. Kumble
10. Srinath
11. 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 

1. Ganguly 
2. Ishan Kishen/Saha 
3. Dhoni (Captain)
4. Kaif
5. Manoj tiwary
6. Raina
7. Saurabh tiwary/Saha 
8. Kuldeep yadav
9. RP singh
10. Shami
11. 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

[zen]

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

[Ankit_sharma03]

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

[Ankit_sharma03]

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]

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

[Laaloo]

@Gollum

 

would ajay jadeja be ja be considered for west zone? I’d rather have him than Rahane or shastri 

 

how about robin singh?

[zen]

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

[Gollum]

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

[Gollum]

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. 

[zen]

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 

[Cricketics]

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. 

[Cricketics]

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]

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

[maniac]

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 :)

[Gollum]

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