Your All-Time Sussex XI

[Perry Milkins]

you might also want to consider that Dexter was an arrogant wanker who had no time for the fans and little more for his players....but he was a very talented cricketer (and golfer for that matter) with perfect timing and some of the prettiest and most cultured stroke play I ever witnessed.

Maybe you could select 3 teams - pre war, post war up to the 60's, and 1970 to date. Be interesting to speculate which might win a round robin between them.

My one is 1970 to date and would tan the hide of all others.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

All Time Favourite Players I Can Remember Seeing XI.... (with no limit on overseas and based on how much I would like to watch them play as a team tomorrow...)

1. Murray Goodwin
2. Gehan Mendis
3. Javed Miandad
4. Paul Parker
5. Alan Wells
6. Tony Greig
7. Andrew Hodd (+)
8. Imran Khan
9. Rana Naved ul Hasan
10. J.R.T. Barclay (*)
11. Mushtaq Ahmed

 

[severnside gull]

My one is 1970 to date and would tan the hide of all others.

I guess that's the one most people could select although mine would be the middle generation as I did all my serious cricket watching at the County Ground between 1958 and 1975. The serious stattos could undoubtedly come up with an earlier team.


SO if we had the three sides who would win based on their combined performance statistics

 

[The Large One]

All Time Favourite Players I Can Remember Seeing XI.... (with no limit on overseas and based on how much I would like to watch them play as a team tomorrow...)

1. Murray Goodwin
2. Gehan Mendis
3. Javed Miandad
4. Paul Parker
5. Alan Wells
6. Tony Greig
7. Andrew Hodd (+)
8. Imran Khan
9. Rana Naved ul Hasan
10. J.R.T. Barclay (*)
11. Mushtaq Ahmed

You'd have Hodd ahead of Gould or Moores?

Incidentally, Moores holds the Sussex record of highest number of runs conceded by Sussex with no byes. Something like 565.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Alan Oakman to open instead of Goodwin please - one of the best slip fielders of all time as well as a good bat

What he said.

Alan Oakman used to run the newsagents and sub-post office at the end of my street in Hove.

The sight of his 6'6" frame in full flight, diving for a catch, was awesome.

 

[BensGrandad]

Alan oakman often batted lower down the order, than opener about no 5 or 6 if my memory serves me well

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

What he said.

Alan Oakman used to run the newsagents and sub-post office at the end of my street in Hove.

The sight of his 6'6" frame in full flight, diving for a catch, was awesome.

Didn't he take a couple of such catches during the 'Laker' test vs Australia at OT in 1956 - worth keep an eye out for AO next time Sky or whoever re-run the highlights.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Didn't he take a couple of such catches during the 'Laker' test vs Australia at OT in 1956 - worth keep an eye out for AO next time Sky or whoever re-run the highlights.

He only played twice for England. His second match was the 'Laker' test, when he took FIVE slip catches, to add to the two catches he'd made on his debut.

This is Ken MacKay getting out to an Oakman catch off Laker's bowling:-

I'm not sure which innings. MacKay was c Oakman b Laker 0 in both.

 

[Gwylan]

We could get into semantics here and talk about the fact that it was a personal grudge by the then England captain that stopped Adams establishing himself in the Test side. Granted, he never made the greatest of starts to his Test career, but then again neither did Graham Gooch.

Adams played 5 tests, scored 104 runs at an average of 13.0 Gooch, in his first 5 tests scored 202 runs at an average of 28.9 - he also scored two 50s while Grizzly's highest score was 31. While I agree that Gooch didn't set the world on fire in his first few tests, that's not the worst start. I thought Adams had a fair crack at the test team - there are plenty of players dropped after one game (Paul Parker and Alan Wells to name two). He could have fought his way back but hasn't really scored heavily enough.

So what we're talking about here is effectively batsman v captain? As you say, close, but it's why I've got Dexter AND Adams in the team, with Grizzly as the skipper. Upon reflection, however, if I don't have Dexter in the team as captain, I think I really ought to replace him with another batsman, in the same way that you have Dexter as a captain with no Adams in the team. Our differences are, I suspect, based on the same premise - who is the best captain? I would replace Dexter with Duleepsinjhi.

Whether Adams and Dexter could have ever worked together harmoniously or not is another question...

Well, I was working on the Australian premise that you pick the best team and then work out the captain from there.

I looked at like this: there are four really world-class players who have played for Sussex: Ranji, Fry, Tate and Imran. There has to be a wicket-keeper and at least one spinner and Parks and Mushtaq stand head and shoulders above anyone else. I would also put Snow as the other fast bowler, simply because there are no other real candidates.

That left four places up for grabs. I opted for Dexter and Shepherd because of their style. Tony Greig because he was a one-man matchwinner and John Langridge because of his longevity (and because I once interviewed him for The Cricketer and he was such a lovely man). I could easily have picked James Langridge (he would have been my next pick), Ken Suttle, Javed Miandad, Kepler Wessels, Paul Parker Murray Goodwin or Duleepsinhji but I didn't. Out of my XI, Dexter stood out as captain.

But it's great to argue it - that's why the Greatest Teams of all-time are always such fun.

 

[Gwylan]

Maybe you could select 3 teams - pre war, post war up to the 60's, and 1970 to date. Be interesting to speculate which might win a round robin between them.

That's scarcely a fair split: the first one covers a 100 years and the next two, 60 years between them. Splitting them like that, the pre-war one would win with ease: it would contain Fry and Ranji, who scored a heap of runs but had no bowlers to back them up; the side of the 30s who finished runners-up three times (a side with good batsmen, a lethal opening attack of Gilligan and Tate, and a good spinner, but probably just short of one more decent player) and James Lillywhite who took nearly a 1000 wickets at an average of under 15.

The better split would be between pre-WW1, between the wars, post-war to 1970 and post-1970. My guess is that the last-named would win it but that would be a fascinating contest.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

You'd have Hodd ahead of Gould or Moores?

fair shout - those were the other two in the frame... Gunner's Jack the Lad belligerence and Moores the ultimate professional both appeal (no pun intended) - but Hoddy's silky glovework and boyish enthusiasm pipped them to the post...