ICC Teams of the Decade

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ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby sussexpob » Mon Dec 28, 2020 12:59 pm

The ICC announced three sides for their team of the decade recently.

Test - Cook, Warner, Kohli, Williamson, Smith, Sangakarra (WKT), Stokes, Ashwin, Steyn, Broad, Anderson

Vern Philander, Rabada and Pat Cummins might feel particularly hard done by to miss out on the bowlers considering they both average far less than Broad. Herath too makes a case for Ashwin's place, but not that I feel I would pick him. Younis Khan and Chanderpaul have very strong batting records in this period.

Although the most obviously stupid pick is that of Sangakarra as keeper; he did not keep in a single test in the qualifying decade. ABDV averaged 60 in 22 tests as keeper, and averaged 57 (identical) to Sangakarra as a bat alone, playing the statistically worst country to bat in during the period. He was surely the right man to pick here. Cook has by far the worst average, but put into context of other openers, he is worthy of his place.

ODI - Sharma, Warner, Kohli, ABDV, Shakib, Dhoni, Stokes, Starc, Boult, Tahir, Malinga

The inclusion of no English specialist bats, the dominant record breaking force in this period, is noticeable. Bairstow and Warner for instance average almost identical in this period, Bairstow has a much better SR. Dhoni selection over Buttler is not one I would take, id sacrifice number 7 average for pure firepower considering they dont get many overs. The main two picks that make no sense are Shakib and Stokes.

Shakib has a large proportion of average boosting games against terrible opposition. When limited to the top test sides, he averages 33 at 79SR, which for a modern day bat is a train wreck. His average of 38 per wicket is similarly very underwhelming. And while Stokes average of 40 with the bat is far from shabby and comes at a decent lick, the idea he is an allrounder in this format is a bit stretched, and his batting alone does not set him out from the crowd. In economy rate terms, only a handful of bowlers have a slightly worse rate and none have the luxury of not having to face the best batting side of England (in fact the three players worse all played a lot v England) - in fact, Stokes ranks the worst when taking England out the equation of who you are bowling too. Also all the others average far less and take more wickets per balls.

Someone like Shane Watson averages more with the bat with less not outs from batting low boosting it, has a higher strike rate with the bat, and has better bowling metrics on every single level (And noticeably so) than Stokes. Depends how you set your all rounder criteria. Someone like the much maligned Mitch Marsh for instance only averages a few runs less, but his bowling is far superior in terms of wicket taking and econ. And someone like Jadeja as a bowling all rounder with an econ sub 5 (which is the equivalent of a batting post 100SR, possibly even higher) would probably a far better net value pick.

With the bowlers Malinga and Boult are surprising. Steyn, Rabada and Morkel have outstanding records. Steyn's 120 wickets at one of the lowest averages and an econ of 4.61 seems insane not to have included.

T20 - Rohit, Gayle, Finch, Kohli, ABDV, Maxwell, Dhoni, Pollard, Khan, Bumrah, Malinga

Again the picking of Dhoni seems a bit strange to me. His average on paper means little because he simply hardly faced a ball batting so low in T20s. As an example his highest score is only a couple of runs more than his average, courtesy of the fact of a staggering number of short innings where he ended not out. So SR matters more, who cares what you average from 10 balls an innings, its how many you score. So again, Buttler's huge SR is surely better than this.

The rest you can argue the toss over. There simply inst that many players who play a lot to judge this on, so consistent members of sides make compelling cases, like those above. Gayle maybe is lucky, his records in IPL and Franchise cricket are staggering, but in internationals he hasnt played that much, and never came close to the same heights.
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Re: ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby Durhamfootman » Mon Dec 28, 2020 8:49 pm

sussexpob wrote:ABDV averaged 60 in 22 tests as keeper, and averaged 57 (identical) to Sangakarra as a bat alone, playing the statistically worst country to bat in during the period. He was surely the right man to pick here.

If they'd gone with ABdV, then their pick of Kohli as the male player of the decade becomes less certain
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Re: ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby Red Devil » Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:16 pm

sussexpob wrote:The ICC announced three sides for their team of the decade recently.

Test - Cook, Warner, Kohli, Williamson, Smith, Sangakarra (WKT), Stokes, Ashwin, Steyn, Broad, Anderson

Vern Philander, Rabada and Pat Cummins might feel particularly hard done by to miss out on the bowlers considering they both average far less than Broad. Herath too makes a case for Ashwin's place, but not that I feel I would pick him. Younis Khan and Chanderpaul have very strong batting records in this period.

Although the most obviously stupid pick is that of Sangakarra as keeper; he did not keep in a single test in the qualifying decade. ABDV averaged 60 in 22 tests as keeper, and averaged 57 (identical) to Sangakarra as a bat alone, playing the statistically worst country to bat in during the period. He was surely the right man to pick here. Cook has by far the worst average, but put into context of other openers, he is worthy of his place.



Agreed on ABD/Sanga

I have to agree that the bowling is also pretty surprising - Broad and Anderson ahead of Cummins, Philander and Rabada ... really? Maybe if they are playing in Eng but even then it's not exactly clear cut.

Also, I'd think that Jadeja would be a better shout than Stokes as the all-rounder on pitches offering any spin -his batting average is about the same as Stokes but his bowling record is phenomenal by comparison and you don't lose anything in the field with Jadeja either.

So maybe ... Cook, Warner, Smith, Kohli, Williamson, ABD (WKT), Jadeja, Ashwin, Cummins, Steyn, Rabada / Philander ... but I think they obviously wanted to get Eng players in given that Eng had a good test record, but I think that was probably more about collective performance than necessarilly having the best individuals
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Re: ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby yuppie » Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:39 pm

Sangakarra had to be in the team as a batsman. Drop any of the big three to accommodate him. And if you can not decide which one to drop then i guess it would have to be Smith. The ball tampering incident should be a negative mark.

Test - Cook, Warner, Sangakarra, Kohli, Williamson, AB (wkt), Jadeja, Ashwin, Steyn, Cummings, Philander.

Broad and Anderson have probably been selected because they played through the entire decade. But in reality there have been better bowlers this decade.

For comparison this is the 2000's Wisden test team

Sehwag, G Smith, Dravid, Ponting, Kallis, Sangakarra, Gilly, Warne, Akhtar, Murali, McGrath.

Very funny that the 2000s team does not have Hayden in it. He scored 28 tons, averaged 53 and scored 8500 runs in the time frame. Much better than either Sehwag or Smith. Even Langer has a fair shout at replacing those 2. Compared to Cook and Warner the previous decade had 4 openers who would have been picked before them.

For me, between the 2 teams i would pick Steyn over Akhtar and.........have AB instead of Dravid.
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Re: ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Tue Dec 29, 2020 8:06 pm

I think there's a good case for Anderson. Broad is a bit of a stretch though (credit to him for lasting the whole decade). And Stokes has only really been at his best for the last couple of years. He can make a case in the next decade.
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Re: ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby sussexpob » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:14 pm

Arthur Crabtree wrote:I think there's a good case for Anderson. Broad is a bit of a stretch though (credit to him for lasting the whole decade). And Stokes has only really been at his best for the last couple of years. He can make a case in the next decade.


I would have agreed with this whole heartedly before seeing the all decade figures, and I was actually surprised to see Broad had taken more wickets than Anderson and that their averages were very close. Only about a run in it per wicket. When you add that to the fact Broad scored 2300 runs to Andersons 700, you could argue that the net effect of Broad is actually statistically superior. Broad weirdly is in the top 50 run scorers of the decade (a lot to do with matches played of course, but still an amusing stat).
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Re: ICC Teams of the Decade

Postby sussexpob » Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:34 pm

yuppie wrote:Sangakarra had to be in the team as a batsman. Drop any of the big three to accommodate him. And if you can not decide which one to drop then i guess it would have to be Smith. The ball tampering incident should be a negative mark


Sangakarra's record was always bolstered by massive runs against terrible opposition. In the 2010s he averages;

40 v England
23 v India
35 v South Africa
46 v Australia
34 v NZ

and

140 vs BD....
72 v Pakistan....

The master of taking apart pie chuckers. Never looked consistently good against good quality bowlers that swung it. Although there were exceptions (his innings in Hobart vs Australia in 2012 will remain on the greatest innings I have watched ever. Sublime).
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