Unfortunately, I was born in the mid 70s and with due apologies to the pre-Jagadish-era greats, my list comprises those players who were at the peak of their prowesses from the 70s.
The list is also no indication of who were the best players, it is merely an indication of who MY favourite players are. As far as I am concerned, the following categories would be the broad basis upon which I have chosen my favourites. The categories are in descending order of preference :
1. Match Winning ability
2. Pleasing to watch
3. Aggression
4. Guts (pluck and performance under pressure)
Going by these categories, it is definitely possible that I would have missed out on so many greats of the post 70s time ... but as I have said all along, it is MY list. If I were John Woodcock, then you are justified in raising an uproar for my names but then I ament that famous yet ... so you will have to just put up with me for now. The names are as far as possible in batting order (last member is 12th man). My comments follow below the teams listing. The team basically consists of 5 batsmen, 2 allrounders, 1 wicketkeeper and 3 bowlers.
Team 1 |
Country | Team 2 |
Country |
| Sunil Gavaskar | IND | Gordon Greenidge | WI |
| Viv Richards | WI | Javed Miandad | PAK |
| Sachin Tendulkar | IND | Brian Lara | WI |
| Mohd Azharuddin | IND | David Gower | ENG |
| Steve Waugh | AUS | Allan Border (c) | AUS |
| Imran Khan (c) | PAK | Ian Botham | ENG |
| Kapil Dev | IND | Wasim Akram | PAK |
| Jeff Dujon (wk) | WI | Syed Kirmani (wk) | IND |
| Curtly Ambrose | WI | Malcolm Marshall | WI |
| Dennis Lillee | AUS | Allan Donald | RSA |
| Waqar Younis | PAK | Michael Holding | WI |
| Rahul Dravid | IND | Aravinda DeSilva | SL |
AUS
Mark Waugh
Ian Healy
Shane Warne
Greg Chappell
Jeff Thomson [I've never really seen these 2 in action]
ENG
Gooch
IND
Saurav Ganguly
Mohinder Amarnath
Anil Kumble
NZL
Martin Crowe
Richard Hadlee
PAK
Salim Malik
Mushtaq Ahmed
Abdul Qadir
RSA
Brian MacMillan
Jonty Rhodes
SL
Jayasuriya
Ranatunga
WI
Desmond Haynes
Clive Lloyd
Courtney Walsh
Andy Roberts
Michael Holding
ZIM
Houghton
That makes a total of 7 West Indians, 6 Indians, 4 Pakistanis, 3 Australians, 2 Englishmen, 1 South African and 1 Sri Lankan. I suppose that is a fair distribution considering that I, being Indian, have seen more of Indian cricketeers than anyone else and also the fact that during the mid 80s (my formative years :) the West Indians were kings. RSA has been out in the wilderness for such a long time, SL has just started making its mark while England really hasnt produced a matchwinner of late ! In fact Gooch is in there because there HAD to be some one from England and not coz he deserves to be ! Australia has had a plethora of talent and considering that Warne doesnt find a place, it is a fair indication but as I said, I havent really watched them a lot. Maybe in my next list there could be major changes ! I have hardly seen Zimbabwe players so you ought to pardon me for that. Martin Crowe misses out VERY narrowly to Dravid.
So who do you think will win this one ? Team 1 seems to have a better batting lineup while Team 2 is slightly ahead in the bowling department. I have to clarify here that the teams are for TEST matches, not slambang ODIs. And thats a main reason why Jayasuriya doesnt figure in here. Averages DO matter but only to some extent - matchwinningness comes first. Further, all the names on the list are there for a main reason that I have seen them play a lot of the time. I would be very happy if you could give me some feedback (in this case, it is definitely going to be something like : "You &#%*@! - Why the hell isnt ABCD in this list ?!" - I couldnt care less ... even better would be if you sent in TWO teams on your part ! We could compare notes ! Hey you could even form a third team from the guys who're in the honourable mentions list.
So go ahead and
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