Redcafe Cricket Draft- MJJ vs Stretch

Who will win based on players in their prime, team tactics and balance?

  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .
crappycraperson said:
Trott is not the keeper, jacobs is
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Duly noted. Don't remember much of his keeping though.

EDIT: Kept confusing Trott with Prior. My braisn thrashed. Will decide my final vote on my way to work tomorrow.

Good luck, Stretch and MJJ. Loved your arguments. This is how a draft is to be played.
 
Interval Level said:
Head to Head

BOWLING
- Stretch has more variety to his bowling. Including part timers, he has essentially 7 players who can bowl, which adds to his bowling depth. MJJ has only 4

- MJJ's quickies are superior as a unit. Though Stretch's aren't all that bad. However, MJJ's bowlers get you pulsating as potential match winners. I'd say Bishop, Lee and De Villiers would be the 2nd best fast bowling unit which is a shame that he had to meet the best.

- Both spinners are okay or null.

BATTING

- Both opening units are strong and steady. People penalising Ganguly doesn't work for me because in his prime, he could just work his way round the short stuff. Its not like he just couldn't face bouncers.

- Stretch's middle order is stronger, definitely. MJJ should've done better than Hick.

- Both lower orders are really nothing to speak off because I neither tail wagging. MJJ shades it due to Trott.

WK
- MJJ certainly takes this one by having an established keeper

Fielding
MJJ's fielding is suspect. It really is.

The way I think this plays out...
Frankly, if the pitch had any inconsistencies favouring either batsman or bowlers, this would be an easy decision. On a fair pitch, this is extremely hard.

The way I see this is MJJ bats first and scores 300-350. Stretch's batting loses early wickets to a fearsome attack and is reeling at 45-3 but some mi8ddle order guy steadies things and pips them to 320. MJJ then struggles against varied attack and a 3rd/ 4th day wicket to barely cross 270. Can stretch's team make 310 in the last inning with 1.5 days to spare.
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I don;t agree on that Ganguly bit at all. It is not just about the short stuff though that is a big part of it. You are massively underrating how difficult it is to open the innings in test matches. Also Ganguly infact, struggled against the short ball in his prime and only found a way around it during his twilight years. He would have been a very good no.6 batsman for MJJ but an opener against Lee, Bishop and Fannie? Not for me.
 
Going Stretch. I don't think either team is very well balanced, but I just don't like MJJ's batting lineup.
 
Dilshan has 3 tests as a keeper, that's terrible. That edges it for me. Voting for MJJ now
 
Hmm...you're right that it was a bad choice. I just went and looked and he's only kept in 3 one-dayers. Somehow I had an impression he did that more often in the shorter version.
 
MJJ said:
:( Dilshan as a keeper has to override ganguly as an opener.
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I'm sorry MJJ - it probably should, but I just think the rest of your batting line up is just too weak. A few wickets fall, and you are under HUGE pressure. That being said, I don't think the voting should be as lopsided as it is now.
 
Good match up this. Very nice analysis.

Gonna go with Stretch on this one. I like his middle order and i feel his bowling is underated as well. Ganguly at the top is cancelled out by Dilshan as keeper. Steyn and Amla cancel each other out, as do the Younises.
 
I love, absolutely love the Younis-Steyn attack, quality trumps quantity when its good enough(Trott and Ganguly would together work as a solid part time option). But the top order batsmen goes to Stretch with ease too. Definitely think if you are gonna move someout out the ordinary out of position to start, shouldn't have been Ganguly. But eh, not sure, I'll vote in an hour or so.
 
Crappy, I'm intrigued to know why you think my batting is not that strong? Especially my middle order.
 
Desert Eagle said:
I still haven't voted. Let me hear your pitch MJJ
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:lol: ok my pitch. You are saying that dilshan cancels out ganguly. Ganguly has played a lot as opener in the ODIs and is used to batting at number 3 and 4. Which means he has often faced the new ball. Dilshan on the other hand has kept 3 times in test matches and 3 times in ODIs. Thats it. Given the fact that he is keeping I expect my batsmen to have two lives(some of them) and his batting performance to be poor. As Kamran Akmal has shown all the pakistani fans over the years its very hard to win matches when your keeper keeps giving the opposition another life. My poor batting wont matter that much given that dilshan will miss chances.

His batting line up besides amla and younis is not good. I already mentioned that younis would struggle against the bounce and pace of my bowlers. After that he has symonds,bresnan,etc and a tall tail. All I need to do is get amla and samaraweera out and my bowlers will run roit.

Dont forget I will have the option of ajmal,waqar with the old ball, styen and harmison to get rid of his tail. I simply cant see him scoring enough runs to defend against. In my team I have atapattu,ganguly,trott,yousuf to help me out which should be enough.

Going by the comments, sarwan is now opening with ganguly coming in at number 5.:p
 
Plus stretch variety consists of bresnan and symonds. I would rather have my bowling attack than his as variety is useless if there is not enough quality there.
 
MJJ said:
Plus stretch variety consists of bresnan and symonds. I would rather have my bowling attack than his as variety is useless if there is not enough quality there.
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My worry about your bowling is that the quicks will not have enough recovery time and will have to bowl long spells.. That's what the depth is good for - two part timers or spinners can eat the overs and pick up a couple of wickets while the faster bowlers recover.
 
Sarwan
Atapattu
M.Yousuf
G. Hick
S.Ganguly
Trott
Jacobs
Ajmal
Steyn
Younis
Harmison

Looks a lot better to me.
 
nm03 said:
My worry about your bowling is that the quicks will not have enough recovery time and will have to bowl long spells.. That's what the depth is good for - two part timers or spinners can eat the overs and pick up a couple of wickets while the faster bowlers recover.
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I can allow ajmal to bowl from one end as he is used to doing it and rotate the other 3 to give all of them sufficient rests. I can also use ganguly to eat up some overs so dont think fatigue will be an issue.
 
Desert Eagle said:
Sarwan
Atapattu
M.Yousuf
G. Hick
S.Ganguly
Trott
Jacobs
Ajmal
Steyn
Younis
Harmison

Looks a lot better to me.
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I'd separate Hick and Ganguly as well. They are the weakest links in the batting line-up and one after the other could mean a quick collapse. Trott in between them adds solidity. Ganguly batted pretty low for a lot of his career.
 
i think both teams are well balanced in terms of batting and bowling. mjj has got players i liked to watch - attapattu and hick.

but the memory of ian bishop wins my vote
 
Red-Indian said:
I'd separate Hick and Ganguly as well. They are the weakest links in the batting line-up and one after the other could mean a quick collapse. Trott in between them adds solidity. Ganguly batted pretty low for a lot of his career.
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I still think you lot are underrating ganguly here, he had an average of 51 and played more than a 100 tests.
 
Red-Indian said:
I'd separate Hick and Ganguly as well. They are the weakest links in the batting line-up and one after the other could mean a quick collapse. Trott in between them adds solidity. Ganguly batted pretty low for a lot of his career.
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He is in his usual spot - 3 down. That being said (IMO) Ganguly >>> Trott.
 
I've listed my points already. His 3 pacemen are good, especially Steyn and Waqar. And I concede Dilshan as a keeper is a blunder, somehow I thought he had more games as a keeper when I made my picks. However, Bish, Fanie and Lee are a formidable frontline fast attack. All have pace, there's swing and reverse swing as well has bounce with seam movement. Herath and Ajmal pretty much cancel each other out since Herath's played much more cricket. My batting lineup is stronger than his. With Wessels well capable of defying Steyn and Waqar, and a middle order of Amla, Khan and Samaraweera (who's recently shown he can bat on bouncy pitches vs Steyn and co) is stronger than what he has to offer in the middle. Also, I wager Symonds, Bresnan and Lee will score more than Hick, Jacobs and Ajmal. I've also got a better fielding unit, bar wk. Overall I feel my team has better balance. Now vote for me ;)
 
Stretch said:
Crappy, I'm intrigued to know why you think my batting is not that strong? Especially my middle order.
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Symonds never shone in the tests like he did in limited overs. Someone like Yuvraj did better than him in tests or equally as well as him IMO. Don't rate Hicks as well. Samaweera, I won't back him to hold out against Younis and Steyn. I overlooked Younis actually. So saying 4,5,6 is not all that was wrong. It is tough for me, Younis is one of my fav bowlers of all time. At his absolute best, he was more devastating that likes of Akram, McGrath. Steyn is the best bowler in the current climate. So against those two, any order is going to look weak I am afraid.
 
Close game this. Although Gangully at number 1 sticks out like a soar thumb, I can't vote for a team without a proper WK. Keeping in a few ODIs is one thing, but keeping for consecutive days in a test match is a completely different beast both physically and mentally. We've seen nothing to suggest Dilshan is capable of that and Strech should have picked a specialist keeper.
 
Crappy I'm posting from my phone so not great. But I've shown that Thilan scored 2 centuries in SA as recently as last year and I saw those matches. He dealt with Steyn and Morkel just fine. So to say he can't hold his weight against Steyn and co is not accurate.
 
MJJ, Sarwan opening is no good either. Only thing saving you for me is his keeper being Dilshan. I like MJJ's bowling very much, and his batting for me is good enough, although not better than Strech's.
I am going with MJJ for this one.
 
MJJ what the feck have you done to your batting order?
I never rated Dada as a test match batsmen but him as a opener is a recipe of disaster. Trott should be at no.3.

Regarding Stretch, I'm sorry but there's no way you could go with a part time wicketkeeper as your regular wicketkeeper in the tests. Having said that middle order is world class. Still very close for me.
 
The score now is a bit more reflective of how close this should really be. Stretch was really running away with it earlier.

Both this and the next game are the closest in my opinion. In most of the others, I think I can see a clear winner.
 
Yup this is turning very close as I expected. Both sides have their strengths and obvious weak points. And on that, does Aldo's vote count? I'm gona need it as this can go either way. Great match MJJ.
 
This is a really tough one.

Stretch's team has a few too many stop gaps whilst MJJ's has seems a bit disjointed.

For example, Dilshan as the wk is a disaster. In addition, although Symonds and Bresnan provide variety, they just seem like a waste of space in a test team.

Looking at MJJ, his bowling line-up is class but lacks depth.

I think Stretch would have just enough to bowl out MJJ's team. However, I think MJJ's batsmen would score a lot.

The real battle, and hence the deciding part, will be Stretch's middle order vs. that bowling attack. If the middle order can grind away at that attack then the lack of bowling depth will give Stretch the real advantage. At the moment, I'm leaning towards that middle order of Stretch.

When does voting close?
 
I don't see why Aldo's vote shouldn't be counted. He participated just like any of us.

Traub...I think it says on the poll itself when it closes. I'm not sure which part of the world you're in but 12:00GMT is what we agreed on. Every poll to last 24 hours.
 
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