I have been writing a series of posts inspired by Cricinfo’s idea of selecting a dream team across formats from players in the time span of 1995 – 2017. The posts are of two types:

1. Team selected basis my personal preference :  See Cricket Test XI For The Last 25 Years , Cricket ODI XI for the last 25 Years , Cricket – All Time T20 XI
2. Team selected basis statistics : See Selection By Stats – Cricket ODI XI

This post falls in the second category and attempts to arrive at the ideal team based on statistics. The thing with test cricket is that conditions differ by country and not all players have the ability to adapt to conditions different from their home conditions. For the purpose of analysis, I have broken down the career averages further into country averages and selected players who demonstrate consistent performance across countries.  The selections and their rationale are as follows:

1. Openers: Graeme Smith and Chris Gayle

Following table shows average of shortlisted openers across different countries. The cells are highlighted in red are cases where the average falls below 35. Graeme Smith is the only opener who has an average of 35+ across all countries with just about making the cut in India and Australia. The second best seems to be Chris Gayle who apart from a bad record in India, averages 35 + every where. Sehwag has a dismal record in England, New Zealand and South Africa while having a pretty good record elsewhere. Alistair Cook surprisingly has a bad record in NZ and so do Warner and Hayden. New Zealand seems to be the toughest location for openers while all of them have great records against Australia and Pakistan.

2. Middle Order: Tendulkar, ABD, Kallis, Lara

Below table shows averages of shortlisted players by country. Averages below 35 have been highlighted in red.

This table pretty much establishes Sachin Tendulkar as the pre-eminent player of his generation. His lowest average is 44.66 against Pakistan and average 50+ in 6 of the countries. There are legions of fans who believe Rahul Dravid to be India’s best overseas batsman – however what is not so well known is that Dravid does not have that great a record in South Africa and Sri Lanka. Sachin on the other hand has a consistency that is unmatched. The only player who comes close to him is the South African maestro ABD who has a 40+ average across all countries.  Jacques Kallis also has 35 + against all countries but makes the cut marginally in England and Sri Lanka. Brian Lara never played in India in the stated period – however considering his record in Sri Lanka, I am quite sure he would have been successful in India too. The ones who missed out narrowly are Steve Waugh ( bad average in Sri Lanka ), Sangakara and H Amla ( both bad records in West Indies ) and Ricky Ponting ( Bad Record In India ).

3. Wicket Keeper : Adam Gilchrist

On a dismissal per innings basis Adam Gilchrist is way superior to the other keepers – however one must also remember that this is also a function of the strength of the bowling line up. Gilchrist was keeping to some of the best bowling units in this time period – McGrath, Warne, Lee, Gillespie to name a few. Hence i have discounted keeping statistics and assumed all keepers to be of equal calibre behind the stumps. If I consider their batting then Gilchrist, inspite of a insipid record in india and Pakistan, is way ahead of the rest of the keepers and hence walks into the team:

4. Bowlers: Glenn McGrath, Dale Steyn, Shaun Pollock, S Warne, A Donald ( 12th Man )

I have considered bowling averages and lumped spinners and pacers together. The cut off for the bowling average is 30. Here are the results:

Glenn McGrath’s record is awe inspiring and puts him streets ahead of any other bowler in the period. With the exception of Sri Lanka he averages less than 22 in every other country! Dale Steyn and Shaun Pollock’s averages go above 30 only in England and Australia respectively and are the next two entrants. There are 3 bowlers whose averages go above 30 in 2 countries – A Donald, S Warne and W Akram. Have chosen Shane Warne and Allan Donald as with this combination of 5 bowlers – I can always field 4 bowlers all with averages less than 30 in every country. Just going by pure numbers – I would put in 4 fast bowlers in India and West Indies.

A note about the other bowlers – while Kumble has been a match winner in India, his average in every other country is above 30. Similarly J Anderson’s averages dip in most countries outside England. Murali has a very good record in most countries – but struggled in Australia and India. Courtney Walsh surprisingly does not have a great record in Australia and both he and Ambrose lost out to the others owing to the fact that they did not play tests in a couple of nations. Dont be fooled by Waqar’s numbers – these are from 1995-2017, if we take the period prior to this his record is comparable to the best in the business. Fast bowlers surprisingly have a great record in the so called spin friendly tracks of the sub continent.

Overall the team has quite a bit of overlap with my earlier selection based on personal choices. While the openers are different, the middle order ( including the keeper ) is identical. I had a narrow preference of Ambrose over McGrath and Akram over Pollock. Warne and Steyn feature in both teams. In terms of geography mix this team is dominated by South Africans ( 5 ) followed by Australians ( 3 ), West Indians (2) and 1 Indian.

If I were to select the best XI to play against each country in that country excluding players from the host country ( for example, Sachin cannot play against India, McGrath not against Australia etc ) then the choices would be the following:

1. Australia: Sehwag, Cook, Sangakara, Tendulkar, Y Khan, Kallis, Stewart, Akram, Steyn, Donald, Ambrose
2. England: Cook, Smith, Chanderpaul, H Amla, Dravid, S Waugh, Gilchrist, Donald, Murali, McGrath, Walsh
3. India: Cook, Hayden, Amla, Jayawardene, Kallis, Chanderpaul, A Flower, Donald, Steyn, McGrath, Ambrose
4. NZ: Smith, Gayle, Dravid, Sangakara, Ponting, Kallis, Gilchrist, Akram, McGrath, Walsh, Murali
5. Pakistan: Sehwag, Hayden, Dravid, Ponting, ABD, Kallis, Dhoni, Warne, McGrath, J Anderson, Walsh
6. South Africa: Gayle, Warner, Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting,S Waugh, Gilchrist, Warne, Ambrose, McGrath, Walsh
7. Sri Lanka: Sehwag, Cook, Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting, Y Khan, Gilchrist, Warne, Akram, Steyn, McGrath
8. WI: Hayden, Cook, ABD, S Waugh, Dravid, Ponting, Gilchrist, Akram, Steyn, McGrath, Anderson.

This was quite a fun post to write and I hope you enjoyed reading it too!