Team NM/Prath
Pitch conditions
The pitch conditions are similar to those in NZ and England. However English pitches change with seasons, with the pitch green and swinging in March April and as summer approaches, the pitches tend to be flatter and similar to subcontinent pitches.
Bowling superiority
We have 3 swing bowlers, 2 of whom can reverse. One of whom was the best ever at it. He was bamboozling batsmen for fun with his swings. Flintoff was England's only bowler when he played who could reverse (other being Simon Jones who wasnt talented enough for this format). Bracken was also one of the only true swing bowlers in the Aussie cricket team which enabled him to play well and become a mainstay in the team. He has played few games in the English pitches and NZ pitches but he is an excellent swing bowler especially with the new ball. He was also deadly with his accuracy and line. Andy Roberts was one of the best bowlers of his generation. Tall and fast, he could generate amazing pace and keep it tight, bowl those yorkers at great speed and accuracy. Murali is probably the best spinner ever, who is adept at keeping it tight, having an economy of under 4 even though he retired in 2011 (well into the t20 era). Few could score against him. In case of any spells in which one of our bowlers end up conceding a bit more than expected would see us mixing it up with the others. All our bowlers were difficult to score against with teir career economy well under 4.5 runs per over which is a very good economy in ODIs. We would give the ball to a new bowler and they would contain the runs. All these bowlers have almost always come back strongly when they had a rare bad spell in any case. While Richards is definitely a batting GOAT, Roberts, Murali and Akram are bowling GOATs and are well up for the challenge as well. Bracken and Flintoff are themselves used to bowling in the beginning and death but here their job would be to complement the initial two in aaccuracy, swing line and length and murali and there arent better players you can ask for doing this. The opposition batting is good with Smith Anwar opening and Richards and Lloyd in the middle order but I think our bowlers are well capable of containing them to a good extent, and are more economical than the opposition bowlers anyways so it would see us not concede too many runs. Especially on pitches which suit our bowlers to a T.
In comparison, both Akhtar and malinga were highly erratic even at their best and conceded runs against able batsmen. Not the best bowlers you want to open with especially in a chase against these batsmen. Kapil Dev and Shane warne are excellent bowlers of course but our batsmen are excellent players of spin as well and will give due respect to warne. Kapil is an excellent in swing bowler but is not someone who can reverse so will not be as dangerous once the ball becomes older. Neither Kallis nor cairns are swingers either and our batsmen deal with seam pace and bounce adeptly.
Batsmen adept at chasing
We have players who become superhumans in a chase. They all have good records in at least one of New Zealand or England with similar pitches so they can play well in these conditions.Hayden averages 50 in chases and needless to say, Kohli and Dhoni are one of the best at it. Allan Lamb himself is a top chaser with having masterminded chases against Aus and WI often, two of the best teams then (once hitting 16 off the last over to win- him and MS would be a good combo to chase together
). Add to this solid batsmen like Kirsten and Chanderpaul who sensibly bat depending on the situation, any chase would possibly be well achieved. Flintoff at 7 would go for big hits and support the set batsman at the other end. Wasim is there in case a cool level headed batter is required to finish off the chase but frankly we may not need him at all.
ost always goes for runs initially and is a bowler who concedes runs and against Hayden may not be a good idea. Akhtar too while could maybe generate pace like Roberts does not really have a lot of accuracy like Roberts does. Kapil is a good bowler and so is warne but we have great players of spin in our team and they wouldnt attack Warne any more than they need to. Others like Cairns and Kallis again werent swingers of the ball. in fact, none of the bowlers other than Kapil and to a little extent Malinga were really swingers and none of them could reverse as well. So there would be little to no swing after the 20th over or so when the ball becomes old. Which can again help our batsman. Warne was a slightly more expensive spinner than Murali though (only in his comparison). Especially with the batsmen that we have who were great players of spin bowling, he would not be impossible to handle. They would be helped by the seam but our batsmen are adept at facing fast bowlers as well.
Pathetic.