Monday, July 16, 2007

All Time Best Indian ODI Cricket Team

The second and the last post in the current sequence regarding the selection of all time Best Indian ODI Team. Needless to say that i am considering the ODI generation of Indian players i.e. after 1971 AD and minimum qualification for a player is 50 Matches (i.e. He should be a veteran of 50 matches). There is not a huge vier for selection. And the team is:

1. Sachin Tendulkar
2. Sourav Ganguly (Captain)
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Mohammad Azharuddin
5. Yuvraj Singh
6. Mahendra Singh Dhoni
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Kapil Dev (Vice Captain)
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Javagal Srinath
11. Anil Kumble

12th Man Virendra Sehwag/Harbhajan Singh

The openers were obvious choices and we are fortunate to have Sachin and Sourav as our openers. Both are having 40+ averages and both can be called as all rounders. Sourav has taken nearly 100 ODI wickets with a decent average of 37 and Sachin has taken almost 150 wickets with an average of 43 not bad at all.
There was no contest for number 3 slot and Rahul was right there.
There was a huge contest for middle order slots between Vengsarkar, Ajay Jadeja, Kambli, Azharuddin, Yuvraj, Siddhu and Sehwag. Azharuddin got the place because of his exemplary fielding skills. Yuvraj was able to win over Sehwag (for fielding and average) and Jadeja (for strike rate).
Dhoni was an obvious choice for wicket keeper.
People may laugh over the selection of Irfan pathan but he has a great ODI average in bowling as well as in batting(nearly 25 in both). He was given preference over Manoj Prabhakar and Ravi Shastri. All other bowlers were obvious choices.
I have chosen Sehwag as 12th Man over Jadeja because he has a comprehensively better strike rate than Jadeja as well as he is a better bowler.
This is a great team with 4 players having 40+ batting average. 4 world class fielders in Yuvraj, Azhar, Pathan and Kapil. 2 World Class all rounders in Kapil and Pathan. 3 average all rounders in Sourav, Sachin and Yuvraj. 4 players with more than 9000 runs each and 3 bowlers with more than 250 wickets each.This team has scored more than 60,000 ODI runs, 93 centuries and has taken nearly 1500 wickets, what else is required.

5 comments:

aviral said...

why no Bedi??why no Prasanna??
What abt maninder??
No spinners?

Neeraj Jadaun said...

They dont qualify the requirements and they are basically test bowlers not ODI...

Anonymous said...

Boss I m not agree with ur team.

riya said...

r U mad...!!! u picked Dravid and u dropped Shewag.........!!!! so funny....!!!!!

Neeraj Jadaun said...

@Riya
That team is 3 years old. I have mentioned him as 12th man. I will definitely take him now.