World Test Cricket XI (1970 on wards)

[Scarves]

Well was better fielder then Border and Sunny who are in your team. So your point is redunant and not consistently applied Also Mcgrtah and Ambrose were not exactly electric in field. Should have gone for anderson if wanted seamers who was good in field:giggle:

Oh my point counts since I have two average fielders who fill a role. Border as captain and Gavaskar as opening. Plus I can stuff Ambrose at Fine leg but McGrath was pretty handy in the outfield. Plus Tendulkar is a right hander and I had none barring Smith and Lara, so it was to change it up. Nothing against Tendulkar, 99 times out of 100 I would pick him....this is just that one time. :--D

[hhhhdmt]

Hayden is not my pick because I happened to see the series where Hayden was brutally exposed by Ambrose and Walsh. Hayden came to prominence just after the retirement of Wasim,Waqar, Donald, Ambrose,Walsh- pretty much the crème of the crop of top level fast bowling. They all retired or faded by 2000-2001 and Hayden's rise was *that* series in 2001 vs India. Then he made his hay in an era where fast bowling has been at one of its lowest ebbs, with pretty much one great fast bowler operating- Dale Steyn and even Steyn was not around till 2007 or so. Hayden's technique too is completely unsuited to facing extreme quality pace bowling: he was the only opener I've seen stick around who was instinctively a front foot player than a backfoot one. Even Sehwag, who is exceptionally strong on front foot play, is far far more sound than Hayden on the back foot and would make my lineup before Hayden. So Hayden, I see as making a whole bunch of cheap and easy runs while being easy meat for great fast bowling. Its the same reason I don't include Kallis in ATG category: he may have the stats but Kallis barely averaged 40 when ATG bowlers were around and whats the point of being picked for an ATG lineup if you cant face up to ATG bowling: an alltime XI does operate under the implicit assumption that it will be pitted against another alltime XI of high calibre.

Kallis was a much better batsman than Hayden though And while Kallis may have "only" averaged around 40 the, remember that he was relatively new to cricket and was facing some great attacks. He still outperformed Dravid vs quality bowling. I am curious to see if you rate Dravid highly