Australia’s best one day side

I can’t stand watching the one-day game.  It’s just an absolute bloody bore to me, an absolute bore, always has been.  I have never enjoyed playing the one-day game, never enjoyed watching it.  It’s too predictable.  A Test match, oh, you can watch it unfold.

– Rod Marsh, 1989 – an interview for Extra Cover by Jack Egan

 

International one-day cricket was officially born in 1971 as an aside to a washed out Test match.  That first game between Australia and England was held at the MCG on January 5.  Each side bowled forty eight-ball overs, with a bowler limited to eight overs.  English opener John Edrich scored 82.  Keith Stackpole, who would later open the batting for Australia took 3-40 from his allotted overs.  Ian Chappell, Australia’s captain, hit 60, sealing a five-wicket victory in the 34^th over.

 

One-day cricket wasn’t a totally new concept, having been played in domestic seasons in England and Australia prior to its international debut, and despite being hastily arranged, 46,006 people turned up to watch.

 

The match, in terms of the crowd, was a success, but that didn’t mean cricket boards and fans embraced the concept readily.  Though there were just three international one-day games played in 1972, the International Cricket Conference (now known as the International Cricket Council) wasn’t treating the format game with caution.  Instead, various cricket boards around the world didn’t seem interested.  Five games were played in 1973 and six in 74.

 

The table below shows the number of international one day games played throughout the seventies. 

 

 

	games
1971	1
1972	3
1973	5
1974	6
1975	19
1976	6
1977	6
1978	10
1979	26

 

 

 

Undeterred by the indifference, the ICC saw the potential of the one day game and acted swiftly.  Of the list above, two years, 1975 and 1979 stand out in terms of the number of games played.  There is a simple reason, proof, of the high regard the ICC had for one-day cricket as a valuable, commercial commodity.

 

The inaugural World Cup was held in England in 1975.  When English and Indian players stepped onto Lord’s on 7 July to open the tournament, it was just the 19^th international one-day match ever played.  The format, four years and eighteen matches old, had virtually no history or tradition.  Many players of the era, and Rod Marsh is not alone in his opinion, didn’t enjoy playing it, many fans didn’t enjoy watching it.  Undeterred by the murmurings and quasi resistance, the ICC organised the World Cup, giving the format legitimacy, thrusting one-day cricket at the fans and creating an instant tradition, a contest every four years to decide the best one-day team.

 

Heading into the first World Cup, England had played 15 one-day internationals.  Australia and New Zealand seven each, Pakistan three while India and the West Indies had played just two international one-day games. 

 

One day cricket had barely been played – eighteen games, when the ICC scheduled the 1975 World Cup, amazing the vision and foresight that goes into a decision like that. 

 

The tournament featured eight teams, the six Test playing nations along with Sri Lanka and East Africa as special attractions.  Match conditions stipulated 60 six-ball overs with a maximum of 12 for each bowler.  None of the matches were played under lights, which meant some games finished late, about nine.

 

When the West Indies defeated Australia by 17 runs in the final, it was the 33^rd game of international one-day cricket.  That is a format in infancy, a champion crowned when the one-day didn’t seem deserved of such grandeur.  The cricket industry was suddenly assailed by a new format, and regardless of the immediacy, the Cup was a huge success. 

 

The final was exciting.  Australia’s innings featured five run-outs, three by Viv Richards with two direct hits off misfields.  Alvin Kallicharran was a factor in the other two.  Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson put on 41 runs for the last wicket before Thompson was run out in the second last over.

 

Though one-day cricket was just four years old, it was a proud moment for the men from the Caribbean and the precursor to eventual world dominance. 

 

In 1977 Kerry Packer, desperate to broadcast cricket, retaliated after being snubbed by the then Australian Cricket Board.  Packer annexed the game, offering the players what they wanted – money, and convinced a glorious assortment of cricketers to join the rebel troupe, showing them off in World Series Cricket.  One-day cricket, for the first time, was played under lights.  After a dispirited beginning, the second season of WSC featured a sold out one-day game between Australia and the West Indies at the SCG.

 

The players were elated, the establishment reeling, helpless as the world’s best were marketed aggressively, newspapers, magazines and television.  Packer demanded tough cricket for his investment, putting the world’s best cricketers on TV during peak time.  Day-night games transformed cricket, especially the way people watched it.

 

The excitement World Series Cricket generated sucker punched the international cricket community and a generation of Australians.  Packer offered fans a new direction in sport broadcasting, the white ball, colourful uniforms and cricket under lights compelling.  Kids loved one-day cricket because of the immediacy, the creation of instant heroes and the chance at emulating those deeds in their minds.

 

One-day cricket created a new generation of fans.  Its sudden popularity, however, was simply a commercial decision, one the ratings justified, which the game badly needed.

 

By 1979, the ACB compromised with Packer, allowing the establishment to regain control of the world’s best cricketers, a truce ensuring the second World Cup could go ahead free from vexing issues.  Held again in England, the tournament was played across two weeks.  East Africa was replaced by Canada.  The opening match between India and the West Indies was the 61^st one-day international played.

 

Playing conditions were the same as for the 1975 event, 60 overs a side.  The West Indies won again, defeating England by 92 runs, Viv Richards hitting 138 from 157 balls.  The Windies were the best in the world then, at Test and one-day level.

 

Former Australian captain Ian Chappell played sixteen one-day internationals across nine years, averaging 48.07 with a top score of 86.  Chappell hit eight fifties from sixteen innings.  Four of his last five innings featured half-centuries.  Clearly he was suited to the one-day game, but Chappell said there wasn’t much nous put into one-day cricket in its infancy.  ‘We didn’t realise the importance of batting out the full complement of overs,’ he said.  ‘There were few tactics to start with, we learned as we played.’

 

The game was a quick one, and though Chappell suggested the players fumbled through the beginnings, the fundamentals remained the same.  The West Indies, under Clive Lloyd, developed swiftly than most.  Where some countries bowled to restrict scoring on flat wickets, the Windies were capable of bowling tightly and bowling to take wickets.  Their fielding was extraordinary, often saving fifteen to twenty runs. 

 

By the early eighties, one-day cricket had infiltrated the world’s Test playing countries, offering financial incentives for cricket boards that propped up their incomes.  The result was dwindling crowds at Test matches.

 

In 1983, the third World Cup featured Zimbabwe instead of Canada.  India defeated the West Indies in the final.  Australia won the World Cup in 1987.  Pakistan took home the trophy in 1992. 

 

Former Australian batsman Dean Jones, in his woeful 1987 autobiography One Day Magic wrote; The importance of one-day cricket will soon outweigh the importance of Tests.   Jones’s book, simple prose punctuated with cartoons by artist Jeff Hook, captured the essence of the one-day game in the eighties.  His better innings, he wrote, were defined by the number of singles he took, rather than the number of fours or sixes. 

 

Jones wasn’t wrong about the importance of one-day cricket, yet a decade after he released his book, the familiarity of the concept bred contempt.  The game began to stagnate, middle overs becoming dull as the bowlers pitched the ball up and the batsmen drove them down the ground or worked the ball into gaps for singles before the customary frenetic finish.  Jones, with his penchant for singles, had summed up the game’s faults succinctly. 

 

There was no excitement.  In Australia, the crowds dropped dramatically.  Commentators wondered what could be done to spice up the predictability, when the game was already governed by fielding restrictions.  The proliferation of one-day cricket devalued the format, too many meaningless matches.

Committed fans can recall Test hundreds or bags of wickets taken.  Few can recall the great performances in the one-day game.

 

Sri Lanka, during the 1996 World Cup, did more to evolve one-day cricket than any country in the history of the game, altering the course of matches by attacking the bowling in the first fifteen overs, when the field was up.  Sanath Jaysuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana flung willow, over the top of the field.  Suddenly 50 runs after fifteen overs was redundant.  Ninety was a reasonable start.  Scores of 240 were considered big twenty-five years ago.  By 1996, captains worried about the lack of runs if they scored 270.

 

Such a simple concept of hammering the bowling when the field is close took more than twenty years to perfect.  It required luck, placement and guts, and Sri Lanka rode them all in defeating Australia in the final by seven wickets.

 

Other changes in one-day cricket arose.  Regular Test batsmen, by 1992, were suddenly seen as liabilities if their strike rate was slow and they couldn’t pick up the pace.    The concept of split teams, or one-day specialists created a dividing line between squads and fractured the psyche of discarded players. Former Australian captain Mark Taylor, following the 1996 World Cup, was one of the first casualties.  Fellow openers Michael Slater and Justin Langer were overlooked for one-day cricket because their fielding wasn’t considered adequate.  Selection policies didn’t just hurt the batsmen.  Merv Hughes was regularly out of the one-day side during his peak.

 

As the teams evolved, the game did too.  Power plays were introduced to encourage free hitting.  Nowadays, if a no ball is bowled, the batsman has a free hit at the next delivery.  Scores of 350 or more are common.  Not long ago, India’s Virenda Sewag hit 219 in a one-day game, an extraordinary effort, considering one-day matches are limited to 250 balls.

 

The evolution of cricket through the one-day game is essential, particularly for fringe teams.  The only way to improve is to play the best, even if a team is bowled out for 35 or has trouble with the basics, like batting, bowling and fielding.  Spots in the World Cup are still earned. 

 

The ICC currently has 98 countries as associates or affiliates.  Imagine cricket being played at international level in more than 100 countries.  That would create some competition.  Twenty competitive teams is a fantasy.

 

Kerry Packer was the first businessman to market international one-day cricket, and he did it with unrivalled success.  Since the birth of World Series Cricket, the abbreviated game has produced stunning performances, moments that secured a series victory or victory in a World Cup final.  The one-day game, no matter what people think about it, has created a great legacy by virtue of longevity and volume of matches.  Packer needs to be thanked for his contribution.

 

The one-day game, though, has almost monopolised international cricket.

 

In 1980, 22 international one-day games were played.  By 1990 the number had risen to 60.  In 2000, 130 one-day internationals were played.  Last year, 2011, the figure rose to 145.

 

That’s a lot of one-day cricket, one of the major criticisms the ICC deals with daily, particularly when Australia toured South Africa recently and played just two Tests.  It isn’t good enough.  Scheduling has become more cluttered with the popularity of Twenty20.

 

Balance is required but may not necessarily be achieved. 

 

One-day cricket is criticised for various reasons, just like Test cricket and Twenty20.  There are staunch fans of all codes, traditionalists who love Tests, those who prefer the one-day game and kids who seem entranced by Twenty20.

 

The argument, which is better, is pointless and endless.  Nothing is gained by arguing against opinion.  It is much better to discuss what the game has offered to the fans.

 

Australian cricketers have offered plenty the one-day game.

 

And this is where The Ramble gets tough…

 

You’ve read this much about the one-day game – it is time to select your best Australian team.

 

Australia’s best

 

Since 1971, Australia has produced some of the world’s best one-day players, and despite the segregated teams, our stand out performers have also excelled in Tests.

 

To select Australia’s best one day side is difficult, which is an indication of how strong the team has been.

 

The Ramble has shortlisted 21 players, eleven bowlers and ten batsman, four of whom were genuine all-rounders, to make up Australia’s best one-day side.

 

To qualify, bowlers needed 100 or more wickets, while batsmen, with the exception of Shane Watson, required 5000 runs.

 

The table below shows the bowlers:

 

 

	games	wickets	average	s/rate	econ	best	5 for	4 four	runs
Glenn McGrath	250	381	22.02	34	3.88	7/15	7	9	8391
Brett Lee	205	357	22.89	29.1	4.7	5/22	9	14	8173
Shane Warne	194	293	25.73	36.3	4.25	5/33	1	12	7541
Craig McDermott	138	203	24.71	36.7	4.03	5/44	1	4	5018
Nathan Bracken	116	174	24.36	33	4.41	5/47	5	2	4240
Mitchell Johnson	107	168	25.22	31.1	4.85	6/31	3	6	4237
Jason Gilespie	97	142	25.42	36.2	4.21	5/22	3	3	3611
Shane Watson	140	138	29.55	36.4	4.85	4/36	3	0	4078
Damien Flemming	88	134	25.38	34.4	4.41	5/36	1	4	3402
Denis Lillee	63	103	20.82	34.8	3.58	5/34	1	5	2145
Peter Taylor*	83	97	28.24	40.5	4.17	4/38	1	0	2740
Mark Waugh	244	85	34.56	43.3	4.78	5/24	1	1	2938
Steve Waugh	325	195	34.67	45.5	4.56	4/33	0	3	6761

 

 

Clearly, as you’ll see from the following list, it is much easier to achieve longevity in cricket as a batsman than a bowler.  I’ve picked ten bowlers and included Peter Taylor only as a comparison to Shane Warne.  It’s a certainty Warne will be selected in everyone’s best one-day side. 

 

Shane Watson and Mark and Steve Waugh were/are regarded as all-rounders, so their bowling figures are included too.

 

There may be other certainties too, in terms of selecting bowlers, but given the strength in the batting and the quality of the backup bowlers, five bowlers can be chosen.  That leaves a couple of empty spots that need to be filled.

 

Bowling is a tougher occupation than batting, so don’t let longevity fool your bowling selections. 

 

The table below shows the batsmen who could get a birth in Australia’s best one day side.

 

 

	Games	Inn	runs	ave	HS	rate	n/o	100s	50s	catches
Ricky Ponting	370	360	13686	42.63	164	80.6	39	30	82	162
Adam Gilchrist	287	279	9619	35.89	172	96.94	11	16	55	417
Mark Waugh	244	236	8500	39.35	173	76.9	20	18	50	108
Steve Waugh	325	288	7569	32.90	120	75.91	58	3	45	111
Michael Bevan	232	196	6912	53.58	108	74.14	67	6	46	69
Michael Clarke	206	188	6622	45.35	130	78.1	42	6	49	80
Allan Border	273	252	6524	30.62	127	71.42	39	3	39	127
Dean Jones	164	161	6068	44.61	145	72.56	25	7	46	54
David Boon	181	177	5964	37.04	122	65.13	16	5	37	45
Damien Martyn	208	182	5346	40.80	144	77.73	51	5	37	69
Shane Watson	140	121	4186	43.15	185	89.84	24	6	25	47

 

 

There is no alternate wicket keeper, for obvious reasons.  Adam Gilchrist is by far the best keeper-batsman Australia has ever had.  To include the statistics of Rod Marsh and Ian Healy would be folly.

 

I’ll announce my team soon.  Certainly there might be guaranteed selections, but there are intangibles.  Some of the men listed above will miss out and I will explain why.  I’d like you all to select your own team.

 

When you select your team, study the statistics closely, but understand they might not tell the full story.  Look at the averages, the economy rate, the number of not-outs and the strike rate.  Consider, by research or from memory, who the players competed against.  Longevity and average are important, but they don’t tell the full story.

 

You must pick a captain, put your team in batting order and select a 12^th man.

 

Also, I’d like a few short sentences on each of your selections.  He’s a legend will suffice, if you can’t think of anything else to write.

 

 

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