All time India-Pakistan 11

[Lurker]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11

Interesting to note Dennis didn't pick Sunil...who had 13!!! Centuries against the Windies....what a LOSER... And David Gower is No. 3... :chin:

I wouldnt call Dennis Lillee a loser though it perplexed me, as it would perplex any Indian fan, as to why no Indian bats register in his top 10. To be fair for the last 2 spots(9-10) he nominated the following players - Lloyd, Zaheer Abbas, Vishy, Gavaskar, Boycott, Border and Ian Chappell. Ultimately he would go with the last two. His reason for not selecting Vishy was that he was either too flamboyant or that he would struggle. Which quite frankly is not too off the marks. Vishy was great under pressure but anyone who has watched him and Sunny Gavaskar bat would be hard pressed to explain the difference of about 10 runs per innings between the two. Quite simply Vishy underachieved. As for Sunil Gavaskar, Lillee mentions that neither he nor Boycott were his type of players. In his own words - "they are a dying breed, not seen as up to the modern stroke players who score runs quickly. You may have one if your side has a dozen stroke players, else they are on their way out". Me thinks there was also that small matter of Sunny and Lillee clashing together in that game in Australia(which India eventually won) that left a sour taste in his mouth. xxx

[CC1981]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11 To be fair to Lillee, he hardly ever played against Sunny as Lillee came to India only once and Sunny wasn't a part of WSC. And the few times Lillee did play against Sunny, he mostly had the better of Sunny. Sunny's scores when Lillee played against India : 0 ( Lillee), 10, 23,5, 10, 70 ( Lillee). Hardly surprising that Lillee doesnt rate Sunny highly, given that players tend to rate based on performances against themselves more than anything else.

[CC1981]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11 My alltime India-Pakistan XI: Tests : S.Gavaskar S.Anwar R.Dravid S.Tendulkar J.Miandad I.Khan © K.Dev S.Kirmani (wkt) W.Akram B.Bedi B. Chandrasekar/A.Kumble/S.Gupte/W.Younis/F.Mahmood* * : Chandra or Kumble when the wicket is turning square/is uneven, Gupte for slow turners, W.Younis for bouncy/fast conditions and Fazal for matting wickets. ODIs: S.Tendulkar S.Ganguly R.Dravid YoYo Inzamam M.Azharuddin K.Dev I.Khan W.Akram S.Mushtaq W.Younis

[CC1981]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11 Subcontinental alltime XI: S.Tendulkar S.Ganguly © K.Sangakkara(wkt) A.deSilva R.Dravid M.Azharuddin K.Dev W.Akram W.Younis S.Mushtaq M.Muralitharan

[MundaPakistani]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11

Hanif Mohammed is the same guy who scored triple century in West Indies and also ended with 499 in a first class game, a score later bettered by Brian Lara. So much was admiration/fear of Hanif that on a trip to India while Pakistani team was travelling by train(no aeroplane back then of course), he was mobbed by Indian cricket fans and would later on realize that while the hand shakes were on someone had slipped a blade and cut the palm of his hands so he couldnt bat, or atleast bat at his best, against India!! xxxx

Interesting!

MP. Indo-Pakistan cricket history is replete with such interesting anecdotes. The only problem is that fans of today generation are not too much interested in them. For them Hanif Mohammed is a batsman who scored at abouts 43 and that is it. Unfortunately. Do you know that when Abdul Hafiz Kardaar led Pakistan's first trip to India(1952-53) he made it a point to visit the Islamic remains in India. Only the Islamic remains mind you. Not for him the Hindu or Buddhist or Christian architectural wonders. He was as pro-Pakistan as Zinnah would have ever hoped for. Yet the man had such integrity that when he went back he would be asked the same question over and over again, "How did they treat Muslims in India? How were you treated?" and he would always say that Muslims were treated as good as Hindus and that they(Pakistanis) were treated very well. Lot of powerful people tried him to say something against India(probably in an order to justify creation of Pakistan I suppose) but he wouldnt budge. No wonder he was the only person even the fiery Imran Khan feared of. On the other hand his counterpart was Lala Amarnath. He was born in Pakistan and many of Pakistani players had played under him as skipper in undivided Indian domestic cricket. On field Lala would have tremendous fight with Pakistani players but off field he was revered as Ultimate person. I remember how Hanif Mohammed fondly remembered of Lala Amarnath and mentioned how Pakistani cricket fans would only listen to Lala Amarnath when the cricket commentary was on in 78-79. The moment he would go off the air Pakistani fans would abuse the local commentators. To Hanif, Lala was the ultimate. And so it is no surprise that these two powerful characters once had a good old melee, fighting each other old school style in a Hotel Lobby :lmao: Indian Pakistan cricket is rich with such characters, but alas fans do not care much today. One possible reason why inspite of such a huge rivalry we are not a patch on Ashes. We dont respect our history..or our characters. xxxx

AH Kardar was defiantly a man with a great aura. It?s mainly due to his leadership that Pakistan started a bang in test cricket with a test win in the very first series followed by a drawn series in ENG and then wins over AUS and NZ. His leadership skills can be gaugedby the fact that as soon as he left the game PAK cricket started to go downhill and through out the 60s the team performance was well below par.

[Guest dada_rocks]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11

Interesting to note Dennis didn't pick Sunil...who had 13!!! Centuries against the Windies....what a LOSER... And David Gower is No. 3... :chin:

That's why I say he said she said is totally objective so is anecode driven judgement . Sometimee people witness some great inning live and impact fo that far oushadows everythign else. All these things in my opinion cloud the judgement. Stat is a very scineitific way to look at how talent karishma flare yada yada finally geleld together in some particular individual. It averages everything out at least in a given era. Yes some origin translation can be done when u compare players from different era but then even there there are pros and cons of playing in particular era. So overall average strike rate etc do provide a good gauge to measure performances.

[Sooda]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11

Subcontinental alltime XI: S.Tendulkar S.Ganguly © K.Sangakkara(wkt) A.deSilva R.Dravid M.Azharuddin K.Dev W.Akram W.Younis S.Mushtaq M.Muralitharan

No Imran?? ...WC winning captain. Plus Batting deep is the key in ODIs..one offie would do out of Saqi and Murali Inzamam in there as well instead of Azhar. Thatd make it a terrible fielding side though :chin: You cant not select Hanif purely on the basis that he was too defensive- Anwar and Sunny would complement each other perfectly but Im sure Hanif would be far more consistent

[CC1981]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11

No Imran?? ...WC winning captain. Plus Batting deep is the key in ODIs..one offie would do out of Saqi and Murali

No..no Imran. Too slow for ODI batting and his ODI bowling doesnt really fit in my lineup. As per batting depth- i dunno whats the prob- Kapil at 7, Akram at 8 means ODI batting is deep enough and well rounded enough. Those two may not have the averages of Imran but you have to think just where do you wanna slot Imran in. He wasnt good enough to bat in the middle order for the alltime team IMO.. and his batting is definitely not suited for #7-8 where you need the Kapil-Akram types of run-a-ball hitters. ODI batting doesnt need 8-9 bona-fide batters anyways. Given that the top order is awe-inspiring, #7-8 batsmen will not be required to bat for more than 5-6 overs at best most of the time. And in the last ten, i'd much rather have kapil than Imran. So in other words, Imran doesnt 'fit in' with the team IMO. Azhar over Inzy is down to fielding. This team isnt exactly top-drawyer in fielding, particularly when you consider that the Aussie alltime XI or WI alltime XI would include brilliant fielders like Ponting, Bevan, Junior, Deano, Viv, Lloyd, Logie, etc. Azhar was a tremendous fielder and the runs he saves in the field is enough to make up a 4-5 run average differential. Also, Inzy has a tendency to run-out his partners. Azhar was very good between the wickets. So Inzy too, doesnt 'fit in' with the team. As per one offie, i disagree. Saqqi and Murali both play. Infact, i think a middle overs duo of Saqqi-Murali would give batsmen problems no end.

[Lurker]

Re: All time India-Pakistan 11

AH Kardar was defiantly a man with a great aura. It?s mainly due to his leadership that Pakistan started a bang in test cricket with a test win in the very first series followed by a drawn series in ENG and then wins over AUS and NZ. His leadership skills can be gaugedby the fact that as soon as he left the game PAK cricket started to go downhill and through out the 60s the team performance was well below par.

Quite correct. I daresay without AH Kardar Pakistan cricket would not be in the position it is in today(excluding the current mess of course). However it is fair to say that AH Kardar would hardly find a place in all-time Pakistan XI let alone Indo-Pak XI. This is largely because people would look at his stats and hence would rule him out, as they rule out every single past great..well almost. Which is why I would like to split my choice XI into two eras: pre and post 1970. That being said here is my Pre 1970 Indo-Pak XI. Pre-1970 Indo-Pak XI 1) Hanif Mohammed(I suppose we have discussed Hanif enough already) 2) Vijay Merchant: The first of great Indian batsmen. Made his debut at number 6 but then played for the bulk as an opener. Lost his best years to WW but still ended with a formidable average of 48 in 10 Tests with around 900 runs to his name. The interesting thing about his career is that his average in every Test series increased,in other words his lowest batting average was in his first test and highest in his last. And for those intersted in trivia Vijay Merchant has the second highest First class batting average(72.3) in cricket history, second only to Don Bradman. 3) Vinoo Mankad: The floater in my team. Vinoo is one of the few batsman who batted in every single batting position from 1-10. The first great all-rounder from sub-continent he was as good as dropping the anchor(as witnessed by his highest first wicket batting partnership with Pankaj Roy) as he was taking wickets with his guile. His rate of century per test is much ahead of the likes of Imran, Kapil, Hadlee etc and his left arm spin was good enough to take 160 wickets in 40 odd tests. Gives me the option of playing extra batsman or bowler as need be. 4) Vijay Hazare: Rather easy this one. Vijay Hazare was the second in the famous Vijay's of India(others being Merchant and Manjrekar). It is often said that Hazare walked to the middle with a bat in his hand and a bedding in the other, so hard he was to remove. Would end up with a career batting average of 47 in 30 Tests, a formidable record that was scrwed largely thanks to a bad last series against Windies(190 runs in 10 innings). Take that away and his career average rises to 55.5! 5) Polly Umrigar: Fierce competitor and top batsman. One of the bravest men ever to play cricket. While Aussie(and English) scribe fall over each other when talking about Bodyline they forget that West Indies pacemen have used the same tactics. Atleast twice against India. Including the (in)famous 1962 series when Indian batsmen Contractor almost died at the hands of Charlie Griffith. Amidst all the ruins Umrigar amassed 1000 plus runs in 10 Tests with 3 centuries @ 55 against the likes of Hall, Grifith, Roy Gilchrist and Sobers. And he did it with flash and strokes..So much so that he was nicknamed Polly "Palm Tree Hitter" Umrigar. 6) CK Nayudu©: Would be the skipper for this side. I had to debate hard between him and Lala Amarnath or Kardaar. Kardar's leadership record is the best while Lala Amarnath's respect as a player and leader or men was second to none. However I went in with CK Nayudu since he was the man who gave the sub-continent players the self-beleif. In the times of Bradman, Hammond, Headley it took some heart to say subcontinent players were the best in the business. And he proved it with lusty hitting and crafty bowling. Had a late start to the career(37), with leading India in debut test, but was still good enough to be selected as one of Wisden's top 5 cricketer of that year. 7) Imtiaz Ahmed(wk): Pakistan's first great keeper. Kept to the likes of Fazal Mehmood and also scored decent runs at about 30 with a double century as highest. 8) Amar Singh : The half of India's only true pace-attack till date. Made a great combo with Mohd. Nissar and was widely respected in world of cricket. Amongst others he was nominated by Len Hutton was one of the toughest bowlers to face if not the toughest. Wally Hammond once said how Len Hutton had told him that "Amar came off the pitch like the crack of doom..and when I played him I knew Hutton was so right". Also a lusty late order hitter who scored India's first 50 in International cricket(in the first test) 9) Fazal Mehmood: Easily the best match-winner from subcontinent till date. And yes I say that after having seen the likes of Imran, Waqar, Akram, Kapil, Kumble even Murali at their best. Not convinced? Check out Fazal's record in match won. 7 tests 65 wickets @10 runs!! That at a time when Pakistan were babies in world cricket is simply phenomenal. I have heard how Fazal succeeded in an era of matting wickets but hey who amongst his peers, Asian or non-Asian, has even a fraction of that record? 10) Khan Muhammed/Mohammed Nissar: Would be a toss-up between the two depending on pitch. I will go with Khan Muhammed on pitches that would assist bowlers while on pace track I would stick with Mohammed Nissar. 11) Subhas Gupte: Would be my lead spinner. One of the greatest leg spinners of all time. Gary Sobers still maintains that Gupte was the best leg-spinner he ever saw bowl and that shall do it for me. So there is my team. A classic batting line-up of Merchant, Hanif, Hazare, Umrigar...pace of Fazal/Amar Singh/Nissar/Khan Mohammed...spin attack of Gupte and Mankad and leadership of Nayudu. xxxx