Draft: Left-Handed Cricketers | Index updated

[Aislabie]

words

@CerealKiller has already picked Border as the eighth overall pick

 

[RUDI]

@CerealKiller has already picked Border as the eighth overall pick

Oops! Graeme Smith

 

[Aislabie]

@El Loco is up next

 

[El Loco]

Alf Valentine.

 

[Aislabie]

@Sinister One

(Can we keep tagging the next person please?)

 

[Master Bates]

Derek Underwood

With a reputation that bloated along the lines of him being able to dig a small hole in the pitch by consistently landing the ball in the same area, Derek Underwood was one of the most feared spinners of his time. He bowled with a run up of a medium pace bowler and was considered to be so by a lot of people. He preferred to keep things simple and accurate. He was the type of bowler who probed away until the batsman made a mistake. Nicknamed 'Deadly', he was truly so on the uncovered pitches of that era. A wet pitch would help him do wonders with the ball and was considered to be the best bowler in these conditions. His moment under the sun came at The Oval in 1968 when he picked up the last four wickets with time rapidly running out and helped England square the series against Australia.

Underwood was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2009 and he also served as the chairman of the MCC for a while.


Stats:
Matches: 86
Innings: 151
Wickets: 297
Bowl Avg: 25.84
BBI: 8/51
BBM: 13/71
SR: 69.98
Eco: 2.22
5w/10w: 17/10

 

[Gaurav_7]

Shivnarine Chanderpaul

@Akshay.

 

[Master Bates]

Derek Underwood write up updaed!

 

[Akshay.]

Mike Hussey
Relatively late comer to test cricket, debuting only at the age of 30, he became the fastest player to reach 1000 test runs in just 166 days. Played many match-winning knocks over the course of his career, earning him the nickname, 'Mr. Cricket'. He was quite a dependable batsman in the middle order and will play at no.5 in the team.

Stats
6235 runs in 137 inns, @51.52, 19 hundreds and 29 fifties

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Mike Hussey
6. Garry Sobers
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

@Aislabie

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #22: Trevor Goddard

Profile
While a lot of people have been looking for match-winners, I've gone the opposite route with my second pick: I've gone with someone who was regularly the support act, both with bat and ball, but whose remarkable consistency was a huge asset to the pre-isolation South African team. In a four-year period opening the batting for South Africa, he only got out in single figures four times, averaging 45 runs but more importantly taking up around three hours of opposition bowlers' effort and energy before finally being dismissed. But his batting was arguably his weaker suit: as a first- or second-change left-arm seamer, his control and accuracy was peerless: though he was unlikely to win a match on his own, he earned endless wickets for his bowling partners by simply refusing to give away runs; as demonstrated by a career economy rate of just 1.64 runs per over. In other words, if a tireless pair of Trevor Goddards bowled for a full 90-over day of Test cricket, the opposition would finish it on 147 for six. A phenomenal competitor, and one of the most underrated all-rounders of all time thanks to his rather obdurate style of play.

Statistics

| | Left-handed batsman | Left-arm medium-pace |
Tests|41 matches|2,516 runs @ 34.46 (1 century, best 122)|123 wickets @ 26.22 (5 5WI, best 6/53)|48 catches
First-class|179 matches|11,289 runs @ 40.60 (26 centuries, best 222)|534 wickets @ 21.65 (24 5WI, best 6/3)|173 catches

Finest Performance
At 35 years of age, Trevor Goddard should arguably have been past his peak. At the end of a five-Test series, performing a gruelling double-role, he should at least have been tired. But there was still a Test series on the line, and a dangerous Australian team attempting to halve it. His first-innings bowling effort returned figures of 10-3-13-3, with all three of those wickets (Stackpole, Martin and Watson) falling with the score on 137. When explaining why the Australians found Goddard's bowling so troublesome, wicket-keeper Denis Lindsay explained that he was "swinging them in circles." Moving seamlessly into his alternate role of impassable opening batsman, Goddard then compiled a four-hour 74 in difficult conditions that was immediately eclipsed by a sublime Graeme Pollock century that made the pitch look far flatter than it really was.

Goddard must have found the rest day truly restorative, for in Australia's second innings he kept running in unstintingly until he had compiled a monumental 36-12-63-3 in an innings where nobody else bowled more than sixteen overs. His three wickets: Bob Simpson, Ian Chappell and Martin again. So what else would Goddard do after such an effort but go straight back out to bat, anchor a potentially tricky run-chase, and top-score with 59. This match, in which he made conclusive but not headline-grabbing performances in all four innings was the purest distillation of Goddard as a cricketer.

Aislabie's Southpaws so far:
1. Trevor Goddard (Pick #22)
2.
3.
4. Graeme Pollock (Pick #1)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

This icon denotes somebody who performed both their primary and secondary skills left-handed. No restriction.
This icon denotes somebody who performed their secondary skill right-handed. Only five allowed.

Next pick:​

@Ashutosh.

 

[El Loco]

Kumar Sangakkara

Sangakkara racked up a total of 38 centuries, 11 double centuries and even one triple during an illustrious test career that spanned a decade and a half.

When it comes to statistics, in this man's case they definitely do not lie. Sri Lanka's greatest ever batsman remains the fastest ever to have reached 8000, 9000, 1000 (joint), 1100 and 1200 runs respectively in test cricket.
Representing a marked change from the Sri Lankan lefties that had come before him, Sangakkara was far more elegant in his strokeplay and modelled his game around the great finesse fans all over the globe have come to associate with him today.

Test Record:

Innings: 233
Not Outs: 17
Aggregate: 12400
Highest Score: 319
Average: 57.41
50s: 52
100s: 38
200s: 11
300s: 1
Ducks: 11
Pairs: 0
4s: 1491
6s: 51
Balls Faced: 22884
Scoring Rate: 54.19
Opened Batting: 9


Middle Stump Lubricators XI:

01.
02.
03. Kumar Sangakkara
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.
11.

 

[El Loco]

Alfred Valentine

The devastating spinning partnership between Ramadin and Valentine (right) tormented England during their 1950 tour.

Considering the arsenal of legendary pacers that the West Indies turned out during the 20th century, it is easy, but still complacent, to overlook the few spinners that have carved out a niche for themselves in the Caribbean islands.
One of these is none other than Alf Valentine, who was an integral part of the first ever great West Indian side that shocked England 3-1 in 1950 and thus gave birth to the famous Victory Calypso:

Second Test and West Indies won
With those two little pals of mine
Ramadhin and Valentine

He arrived on the scene as a fresh faced 20 year old, strongly built with immense stamina, heavy-footed and rather ponderous, with merely two first class matches under his belt having taken only two wickets at an average of 95. However he played out probably one of the greatest debuts of all time, taking 8 wickets in his first innings, grabbing 5 of those before lunch on the first day and finishing the match with 11/204 which till the end of his career remained his best figures.

Test Record:

Overs: 2029.5
Balls: 12953
Maidens: 789
Runs Conceded: 4215
Wickets: 139
Average: 30.32
5 Wickets in Innings: 8
10 Wickets in Match: 2
Best - Innings: 8/104
Best - Match: 11/204
Economy Rate: 1.95
Strike Rate: 93.19


Middle Stump Lubricators XI:

01.
02.
03. Kumar Sangakkara
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.
11. Alf Valentine

 

[Ashutosh.]

Zaheer Khan.

 

[Aislabie]

@El Loco - time to pick again

(Let's keep tagging the next person)

 

[El Loco]

Neil Harvey.
@RUDI