All time SA vs Pak Test XI - Who will win?

[Majestic]

Let's keep the teams from 80s onwards as players before that didn't played enough.

 

SA :-

 

Graeme Smith (c)

Garry Kirsten

Hashim Amla

Jacques Kallis

AB de Villiers

Mark Boucher(wkt)

Shaun Pollock

Keshav Maharaj

Kagiso Rabada

Dale Steyn

Allan Donald

 

4 man pace attack - Steyn, Donald, Rabada and Pollock with a spin option of Maharaj.

 

Pakistan:-

 

Saeed Anwar

Majid Khan

Younis Khan

Javed Miandad

Inzamam ul haq

Imran Khan(c)

Rashid Latif(wkt)

Wasim Akram

Saqlain Mushtaq

Shoaib Akhtar 

Waqar Younis

 

4 man pace attack - Imran, Wasim, Waqar and Shoaib and a spinner in Saqlain.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Majestic

[Nikola]

SA unless they choke badly and PAK pacers use bottle caps to get huge reverse swing. Pakistan's pace attack is quite overrated. Akhtar was overrated test bowler and Waqar without tampering was above average bowler. Only wasim was true great. On other hand we have Donald, Steyn & Rabada. No comparison actually if this match happens in today's era of DRS and so many cameras.

[HamHindustani]

Faltoo ka free time hai to bend wend kar liya karo. Yeh kya bekaar topic chala rakha hai 

[vvvslaxman]

SA had a wood over Pakistan in ODis.  They had some sort of record number of wins in a row against them.   14 consecutive wins over Pakistan in ODIs from 1995 till 2000

[Ankit_sharma03]

logical question since most were involved in fixing when it comes to Pakistani cricket , Asif shud also be allowed to feature in ATG lineups

[Jay]

Question is can either beat indias best in tests? I don't think so. Not in India anyway. Away from home I believe india can still edge pakistan in their country. Especially with bumrah kapil shami ash jaddu etc. Pant. 

 

Vs south africa in south africa ? That is the hard one. We will beat them at home for sure. 2 0 or 2-1.

 

We would lose 2-1 again away from home unless bowlers conjure some magic. South africa at their home is a tough cookie.

[express bowling]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Question is can either beat indias best in tests? I don't think so. Not in India anyway. Away from home I believe india can still edge pakistan in their country. Especially with bumrah kapil shami ash jaddu etc. Pant. 

 

Vs south africa in south africa ? That is the hard one. We will beat them at home for sure. 2 0 or 2-1.

 

We would lose 2-1 again away from home unless bowlers conjure some magic. South africa at their home is a tough cookie.

 

 

1. Gavaskar

2. Sehwag

3. Dravid

4. Tendulkar

5. Kohli

6. Pant

7. Kapil

8. Ashwin

9. Srinath / ( Kumble in Asia )

10. Shami

11. Bumrah 

 

will beat most teams anywhere except WI of the 1980s and Australia of 1995 to 2007.

 

[Majestic]

23 minutes ago, express bowling said:

 

 

1. Gavaskar

2. Sehwag

3. Dravid

4. Tendulkar

5. Kohli

6. Pant

7. Kapil

8. Ashwin

9. Srinath / ( Kumble in Asia )

10. Shami

11. Bumrah 

 

will beat most teams anywhere except WI of the 1980s and Australia of 1995 to 2007.

 

What kind of India's all time XI it is that they can't beat the Aussies of 1995 to 2007 or WI of 1980s?

 

You picked India's all time XI so technically we should compare it with Aus all time XI, SA all time XI, Pak all time XI and so on.

 

[Adamant]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Question is can either beat indias best in tests? I don't think so. Not in India anyway. Away from home I believe india can still edge pakistan in their country. Especially with bumrah kapil shami ash jaddu etc. Pant. 

 

Vs south africa in south africa ? That is the hard one. We will beat them at home for sure. 2 0 or 2-1.

 

We would lose 2-1 again away from home unless bowlers conjure some magic. South africa at their home is a tough cookie.

Both Pakistan and South Africa will beat the living daylights out of Indian ATG team. 

It will be a bloodbath,  complete and utter destruction. 

[Adamant]

Our fast bowling lineup is 

Shami - 27.6

Kapil - 29.5

Srinath - 30+ (in 90s)

Bumrah - (22)

 

Now compare this with 

 

ATG lineups of Sa,  Eng, Pak. 

We are nowhere near

 

Compare our trash bowling lineup with

 

Wasim

Imran

Waqar

Shoaib

 

Steyn

Donald

Pollock

Rabada

 

Trueman

Statham

Anderson

 

Actually even Nz's bowling lineup is comparable to us 

 

Hadlee

Bond

Boult

Cairns

 

We really live in some sort of fantasy bubble. 

[Need4Speed]

Mohammed Asif wud hv been dangerous for anyone even though he didnt play much.. if he didnt spoil his carrier..due to other stuff

 

I liked one series Pak vs SA in SA when Asif and Shoaib Akhtar made their batsmen dance with pace and movement..

I felt good from Indian SC perspective that day

[Majestic]

30 minutes ago, Adamant said:

Our fast bowling lineup is 

Shami - 27.6

Kapil - 29.5

Srinath - 30+ (in 90s)

Bumrah - (22)

 

Now compare this with 

 

ATG lineups of Sa,  Eng, Pak. 

We are nowhere near

 

Compare our trash bowling lineup with

 

Wasim

Imran

Waqar

Shoaib

 

Steyn

Donald

Pollock

Rabada

 

Trueman

Statham

Anderson

 

Actually even Nz's bowling lineup is comparable to us 

 

Hadlee

Bond

Boult

Cairns

 

We really live in some sort of fantasy bubble. 

We will have to pick two spinners in our all time XI simply because of the number of quality spinners we have- Ashwin, Kumble, Chandra and Bedi being four of those. Whether it is spinners or pacers, the job at the end of day is to pick wickets and we can pick two spinners from this list easily based on leg spin and off spin combination.

 

Purely in terms of pace quality, I do agree that India are perhaps 6th although from 80s onwards, I would say we have produced better pacers than England and comparable to NZ( they have advantage of their conditions).

 

But in terms of spin quality, we are definitely no.2, only behind Australia and that is mostly due to Warne.

 

And I haven't considered batting where we are undoubtedly competing with Australia for top spot.

[Adamant]

57 minutes ago, Majestic said:

We will have to pick two spinners in our all time XI simply because of the number of quality spinners we have- Ashwin, Kumble, Chandra and Bedi being four of those. Whether it is spinners or pacers, the job at the end of day is to pick wickets and we can pick two spinners from this list easily based on leg spin and off spin combination.

 

Purely in terms of pace quality, I do agree that India are perhaps 6th although from 80s onwards, I would say we have produced better pacers than England and comparable to NZ( they have advantage of their conditions).

 

But in terms of spin quality, we are definitely no.2, only behind Australia and that is mostly due to Warne.

 

And I haven't considered batting where we are undoubtedly competing with Australia for top spot.

The problem with spin being that we don't have anyone like Murali /Warne who can perform in all conditions,  spinners are quite limited when compared to pacers. 

 

Can't really compare Kumble with Donald/Waqar etc. 

[Ankit_sharma03]

11 hours ago, Adamant said:

Our fast bowling lineup is 

Shami - 27.6

Kapil - 29.5

Srinath - 30+ (in 90s)

Bumrah - (22)

 

Now compare this with 

Srinath avg wud have been far far far better had he bowled in this group and even kapil

For one bowler to do well u need pressure from other end .

Other great ATG bowlers also have had the advantage of taking dozens of home wkts , our home wkts helped spinners 

[express bowling]

2 hours ago, Majestic said:

What kind of India's all time XI it is that they can't beat the Aussies of 1995 to 2007 or WI of 1980s?

 

You picked India's all time XI so technically we should compare it with Aus all time XI, SA all time XI, Pak all time XI and so on.

 

 

 

Super Great Teams have a winning mindset, a camaraderie and Team spirit which make them much much better than they may seem on paper.

 

The whole becomes much greater than the sum of its parts.

 

I don't think the ATG WI XI will be able to beat Lloyd's WI in a 5 test series. In fact they may get badly thrashed.  Same with Australian ATG XI and Waugh's Australia. 

 

 

[Majestic]

4 minutes ago, express bowling said:

 

 

Super Great Teams have a winning mindset, a camaraderie and Team spirit which make them much much better than they may seem on paper.

 

The whole becomes much greater than the sum of its parts.

 

I don't think the ATG WI XI will be able to beat Lloyd's WI in a 5 test series. In fact they may get badly thrashed.  Same with Australian ATG XI and Waugh's Australia. 

 

 

I think your reference is more down to that test match played between Australia and rest of world XI in mid-2000s.

 

But here you are missing a point. This is an all time XI of the same country, so the cricket culture remains same. A batting lineup of Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Dhoni will only get better if you replace Gambhir with Gavaskar, Dhoni with Pant and Laxman with Kohli. It is the country's all time XI and it also assumes that those players are playing at their cricketing career age (which is hypothetical scenario).

 

Same case if you apply with Windies all time XI, if they have Lara coming in instead of Kanhai or Kalicharan at 3 and Sobers at 6 that team will only get strengthened. You add Cummins and Lillee to the bowling attack of McGrath and Warne and that Australian attack becomes just so much more awesome.

 

Now ofcourse if you throw in a world XI against them and include the likes of Sachin, Shoaib, Sehwag,Sanga, Kallis etc then it becomes a charity sort of game and players don't take it seriously.

[express bowling]

14 minutes ago, Majestic said:

.

 

But here you are missing a point. This is an all time XI of the same country, so the cricket culture remains same. A batting lineup of Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Dhoni will only get better if you replace Gambhir with Gavaskar, Dhoni with Pant and Laxman with Kohli. It is the country's all time XI and it also assumes that those players are playing at their cricketing career age (which is hypothetical scenario).

 

Same case if you apply with Windies all time XI, if they have Lara coming in instead of Kanhai or Kalicharan at 3 and Sobers at 6 that team will only get strengthened. You add Cummins and Lillee to the bowling attack of McGrath and Warne and that Australian attack becomes just so much more awesome.

 

.

 

 

Nah !

 

This won't neccesarily happen.

 

Certain great teams of certain eras have a certain winning mindset that a much greater individual player may lack. Or he may not function that well under a different captain. Or the captain may know how to motivate a slightly lesser player whom he is used to leading 

 

There are so many parameters.

 

Just putting together lots of great players won't necessarily make a great team. 

 

For example, the WI players of the 1990s did not really have the winning mindset that the 1980s and 1970s WI players had, although they were from the same country. 

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by express bowling

[Majestic]

23 minutes ago, express bowling said:

 

 

Nah !

 

This won't neccesarily happen.

 

Certain great teams of certain eras have a certain winning mindset that a much greater individual player may lack. Or he may not function that well under a different captain. Or the captain may know how to motivate a slightly lesser player whom he is used to leading 

 

There are so many parameters.

 

Just putting together lots of great players won't necessarily make a great team. 

 

For example, the WI players of the 1990s did not really have the winning mindset that the 1980s and 1970s WI players had, although they were from the same country. 

 

 

 

Those teams were lacking a bit in quality as well compared to the Windies of 70s. Now ofcourse strong teams also underachieve and that could be due to captain, team manager or certain big names not complimenting each other as well but ultimately there will be some difference in quality of the team strength too.

 

An all time country XI is made up generally with the base being your best team and then the weaker part( or less impactful part) of that team is generally removed with stronger part of other era's XI and it is their same countrymen at the end of the day. As example, Windies all time XI will have their base with Viv, Lloyd, Greenidge, Haynes, Marshall, a couple of other pacers and then the relatively less impactful part will be replaced by the likes of Lara, Sobers, Ambrose etc. The quality difference becomes so vast( a middle order of Lara, Viv, Lloyd and Sobers) that it is just not comparable to any of the Windies team. Now obviously we will never know how good they would be as it is hypothetical team but they just look too strong to even think that it would by any chance get smacked by the Windies of 70s.

 

In a same way, if you add Gavaskar to Indian batting of 2000s and Kapil Dev to Indian bowling of 2015s and combine them, they just become so much strong. The quality difference is almost like 3X. They may not perform 3X better but even if they do 2X, that's already better than the solitary best team. A best player of any era will only strengthen a team and here the quality is getting almost doubled and tripled as best from different eras come together with similar culture, similar language, grown up and played cricket in same country.

[express bowling]

19 hours ago, Adamant said:

Our fast bowling lineup is 

Shami - 27.6

Kapil - 29.5

Srinath - 30+ (in 90s)

Bumrah - (22)

 

Now compare this with 

 

ATG lineups of Sa,  Eng, Pak. 

We are nowhere near

 

Compare our trash bowling lineup with

 

Wasim

Imran

Waqar

Shoaib

 

Steyn

Donald

Pollock

Rabada

 

Trueman

Statham

Anderson

 

Actually even Nz's bowling lineup is comparable to us 

 

Hadlee

Bond

Boult

Cairns

 

We really live in some sort of fantasy bubble. 

 

 

If average was the only parameter for considering quality then Younis Khan would have been considered a better batsman than Kohli, Sangakkara would have been better than Richards and Tendulkar and Philander better than Roberts. And the WI batting unit of the 1980s would have been considered average.  But none of the aforementioned are cconsidered to be true by the cricketing world. 

 

The modern Indian quicks have won lots of big test matches away from home including 2 big test series in Australia. They know how to win. And Kapil Dev had a super winning mentality too.

 

While Ashwin and Kumble know how to absolutely thrash opponents in tests in Asia.

 

Many of the ATG pacers in your list have not really won their nations that many tests or series against big nations of their era in away conditions. Some of them are just stats padders or paper tigers ( though not all of them ).

 

The WI attacks of the 1980s and the Australian attacks if the 1995 to 2007 are the ones who will beat us on more occasions than not ..... Because they had a much better winning mentality. And some of the SA Test attacks were quite good too. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by express bowling

[express bowling]

3 hours ago, Adamant said:

Both Pakistan and South Africa will beat the living daylights out of Indian ATG team. 

It will be a bloodbath,  complete and utter destruction. 

 

When Pakistan had these ATG pacers and India did not, we actually played quite a few test series against them.

 

And it was mostly a case of winning home series or drawing them.

 

Pakistan beat us at home in 1986/87 and we beat Pakistan in Pakistan in 2003/4.

 

We drew 4 tests in Pakistan in 1989 when they had Wasim and Waqar.

 

This decimation of India that you talk of did not ever happen in reality when we had much much poorer pacers. Now that we are producing good pacers, I wonder who will be decimated in tests !!

 

And SA usually won at home and lost away against us when they had their great pacers. Decimating teams at home.... well we do it too, so what's so unique about it.

Edited August 23, 2022 by express bowling