General team of the 2010s thread

[srbhkshk]

Also Tahir for the spinner, or just get Bumrah, Shakib's there anyway.

 

[Daemon]

Bumrah's played 4 full years of the decade and has stupid stats like an economy of 4.5 while bowling half his overs in the death. Malinga had a few years that were just not very good at all.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Dhoni doesn't really belong in that team, typical of them to chicken out of choosing between him and Buttler. He had 5 great years to start with but the second half has been mediocre to poor. Kick him out for Root.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Fmd, I can't believe Dhoni still hasn't retired. Look forward to him being rubbish in another chase in the 2023 wc semifinal to round out this depressing trilogy.

 

[h_hurricane]

Dhoni doesn't really belong in that team, typical of them to chicken out of choosing between him and Buttler. He had 5 great years to start with but the second half has been mediocre to poor. Kick him out for Root.

A classic case of stats not showing the real picture. In the last 5 years, this has been the Dhoni template. He would come to the crease with run a ball required, then push and prod his way to a 30 ball 10. Once the match is out of hand, he would hit a few boundaries to end with a 55 ball 50, inline with his overall career average and SR.

 

[marc71178]

I don't think Cricinfo has specified any cutoffs (e.g. 5 years/50 tests etc?).
Bit harsh, maybe, but is there any argument to have Sachin (2,951 runs in 38 tests/64 innings, average of 50.01) ahead of Rahane? This is despite a wretched 2012 (23.80) and 2013 (34.50) - but he was god-like in 2010 and pretty good in 2011 too.

Kohli has the number 4 spot and we know SRT won’t bat anywhere but 4.

 

[wpdavid]

I think Woakes or Bresnan should be the English third seamer based on volume of work. Finn did play an underrated role in the win in Kolkata in 2012 though. He's not a disastrous selection here. Funny that despite not being able to bat for the second half of the decade, the batting spots are arguably a bigger strength (in terms of depth at least) than the seam bowling ones here. Having to leave out one of Trott or Bell is quite rough. Maybe Stokes should bat eight and be the third seamer.

iirc Trott was only good for about 18 months and tailed off after the 2010-11 Ashes. Still our best number 3 for ages though. Bell's best performances weren't actually at number 3 were they? Perhaps he's actually competing with Pietersen as we're ignoring matches before 2010.

Going back to the 3rd seamer, marc has shown admirable restraint in not challenging my omission of Woakes from that discussion if the match is being played in England.

 

[Pothas]

Finn was pretty good for quite a lot of his career really, think I would tame him over Woakes, could always play Moeen as a second spinner as well. We all knew it already of course but it really brings home how few Test match players England have produced in the last few years but also how good that team at the start of the decade was.

 

[Pothas]

iirc Trott was only good for about 18 months and tailed off after the 2010-11 Ashes. Still our best number 3 for ages though. Bell's best performances weren't actually at number 3 were they? Perhaps he's actually competing with Pietersen as we're ignoring matches before 2010.

Going back to the 3rd seamer, marc has shown admirable restraint in not challenging my omission of Woakes from that discussion if the match is being played in England.

Yeah Bell had that brilliant Ashes in 2013 batting at 5 and Pietersen was in his playing the occasional amazing innings phase of his career.

 

[wpdavid]

Yeah Bell had that brilliant Ashes in 2013 batting at 5 and Pietersen was in his playing the occasional amazing innings phase of his career.

That was my line of thinking. Hand on heart, I'd still pick Pietersen over Bell even post-2009. I just think that Bell's 2013 Ashes means that he'd be unlucky to miss out; one of our most under-rated performances for some reason.

 

[wpdavid]

We all knew it already of course but it really brings home how few Test match players England have produced in the last few years but also how good that team at the start of the decade was.

It really was. We've read a lot of comments about how poor Australia were, but that doesn't fully explain three innings victories in a single series. It would be interesting to know how many innings defeats Australia suffered at home since then or even during their dog days in the 1980s. I'd guess you could count them on the fingers of one hand. There's a decent book to be written about why that side imploded so spectacularly from January 2012.

 

[honestbharani]

Egos are never great for team building. And when the guy who is supposed to manage the egos himself has a huge one, it becomes even more difficult.

 

[Cabinet96]

Only partially relevant to the theme of the thread, but was just going through some numbers and I must say I didn't realise quite how insane de Villiers' decade was. Test average of 57.48, only bettered by Smith and Sanga of those with over 3.5k runs. Averaged 59 against Australia and 54 in Asia. Then you get to his stupid ODI record; averaging 64.20 at a strike rate of 109.76. To put things into perspective, Kohli averages 60.79 at a strike rate of only 94.11. The next best average for a guy striking at over 100 is Bairstow at 47.68, and the best average for a guy striking better than de Villiers is Buttler at 40.88. In the 2011 World Cup he averaged 88 striking at 108, and in 2015 he averaged 96 at 144. People will say he didn't impact the knockouts but in 2011 he was runout by Faf in the quarters, and in 2015 he was 65* off 45 and arguably taking the game away from New Zealand before the rain arrived. Quite unlucky in the former and very unlucky in the latter.

Obviously he retired a couple of years before decade's end, and you could argue potentially avoided a decline in those numbers, but still think it's hard to argue he's not the best cricketer of the decade.

 

[honestbharani]

I will say it again, AB is rather under-rated, especially in this forum. He is a God among batsmen, really.

 

[sunilz]

Devilliers did nothing in WT20 where Kohli won MOS twice in 2014 and 2016 and was top scorer in both tournaments. Kohli has better cumulative average than Devilliers last decade and 8000 more runs. There is absolutely no doubt that he is cricketer of the decade unless you give 80% weightage to test cricket and then Steve Smith comes into discussion.

 

[vcs]

Yeah absolutely no doubt about AB's class but he started part-timing it some time around early 2016. No way you can put him ahead of Kohli for this decade.

 

[vcs]

Kohli has been the best batsman of the decade (Smith in Tests) and best bowler of the decade is a close call between Anderson, Broad and Ashwin for me. I would go with Jimmy if pushed to choose one.

 

[ankitj]

Test win/loss in 2010s

Team	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	Draw	W/L
India	107	56	29	0	22	1.931
South Africa	90	45	25	0	20	1.800
Australia	112	57	38	0	17	1.500
England	126	57	46	0	23	1.239
New Zealand	83	32	31	0	20	1.032
Afghanistan	4	2	2	0	0	1.000
Pakistan	83	33	37	0	13	0.891
Sri Lanka	95	31	40	0	24	0.775
West Indies	83	22	43	0	18	0.511
Bangladesh	56	10	36	0	10	0.277
Zimbabwe	24	4	19	0	1	0.210
Ireland	3	0	3	0	0	0.000

ODI win/loss in 2010s

Team	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	NR	W/L
India	249	157	79	6	7	1.987
South Africa	188	114	68	1	5	1.676
Australia	216	125	79	1	11	1.582
England	218	123	82	4	9	1.500
New Zealand	192	98	82	2	10	1.195
Pakistan	217	104	106	2	5	0.981
Afghanistan	123	57	62	1	3	0.919
Ireland	112	50	55	2	5	0.909
Sri Lanka	256	113	127	2	14	0.889
Scotland	75	32	39	1	3	0.820
Bangladesh	162	70	87	0	5	0.804
West Indies	196	69	114	5	8	0.605
Zimbabwe	159	44	111	2	2	0.396

 

[honestbharani]

Can we have it for T20Is too?

 

[stephen]

It's pretty clear that India's been the best cross format side of the last decade. One world cup, away series win against Australia and regularly topping the ratings. Best win/ loss ratio in probably all formats.

Lacking the invincibility of the great Australian or West Indian teams, India have looked vulnerable or even poor at times and yet it's pretty clear that they've been the team to beat over the last decade.

One reason they haven't felt as dominant is the diversification of cricket in the last two decades. Their biggest challenges were teams who are strong in conditions alien to India - Australia, England and South Africa, so unlike the dominant Aus/WI sides, India haven't quite had the same aura about them. Still, they've earned a cabinet three quarters full of trophies and claim to some huge series wins this decade.

And Kohli, much as I dislike him, has been promoting test cricket as the pinnacle of the game, which is admirable in this era of t20 cricket. And while India play tests they will continue to be popular.