Draft: The Quiz Draft

[Bevab]

Well, Ed Smith-style I've ended up with a poorly balanced team with no openers. What I do have over Ed the plagiarist, however, is a world class keeper and a bowling attack that will rip teams to shreds...

So, I will go with:

1) Tom Graveney (he was really a number 3/4, but he did open occasionally)
2) Rachael Heyhoe-Flint (Again a middle order player but she was a brilliant bats(wo)man so I'm backing her
3) Ted Dexter
4) Sourav Ganguly
5) Clive Lloyd (c)
6) Ben Foakes (wk)
7) Ken Graveney
8) Mitchell Johnson
9) Andy Roberts
10) Shane Warne
11) Shaun Tait

Brutal bowling attack. Strong top-order. Lots of leadership/tactical input. Top 6 will have to bat well, but that's a tail that can wag too.

Given the nature of the draft I'm not unhappy with that.

You could push Sourav to open, he was an opener in ODIs and has experience batting at 3/4 in tests too!

 

[blockerdave]

You could push Sourav to open, he was an opener in ODIs and has experience batting at 3/4 in tests too!

With that bowling attack they are getting the opposition out for 100 every time so I’m not that worried ha ha

 

[Villain]

I hope my team gets completed finally.

Waiting for this one.

 

[Aislabie]

I hope my team gets completed finally.

Waiting for this one.

Should be up tonight; each update takes a good half-hour or more to do, and I've been slightly busy this week

 

[Aislabie]

Round Sixteen Picks

Alliterative cricketers

@CerealKiller - Muttiah Muralitharan
@Rebel2k19 - Muttiah Muralitharan
@Sinister One - Muttiah Muralitharan
@VC the slogger - Muttiah Muralitharan
@Villain - Muttiah Muralitharan

As per the rules of the draft, Muttiah Muralitharan is now more ineligible than I've ever seen anyone be ever.

Round Seventeen Picks

Never played an international

@CerealKiller - Vince van der Bijl
@Rebel2k19 - John Langridge
@Sinister One - Frank Tarrant
@VC the slogger - Bart King
@Villain - Andy Wilson

Round Eighteen Picks

Players with at least four initials

@CerealKiller - HAPW Jayawardene
@Rebel2k19 - HMRKB Herath
@Sinister One - LRPL Taylor
@VC the slogger - LRPL Taylor
@Villain - DPMD Jayawardene

As per the rules of the draft, Ross Taylor is now ineligible.

Round Nineteen Picks

Off the beaten track

@CerealKiller - Sachin Tendulkar
@Rebel2k19 - Brian Lara (tried to pick a West Indian in Round 1 and Round 13)
@Sinister One - Mohammad Yousuf
@VC the slogger - Mushfiqur Rahim
@Villain - Jacques Kallis

All of which means the teams now look like...

Spoiler: CerealKiller's XI (1 players to go)

Archie Jackson
Javed Miandad
Steve Waugh
Sachin Tendulkar
Meg Lanning
Imran Khan
Shaun Pollock
Prasanna Jayawardene
Curtly Ambrose
Vince van der Bijl
- - -

Spoiler: Rebel2K19's XI (1 player to go)

WG Grace
Shane Watson
Rahul Dravid
Rohit Sharma
John Langridge
Sarah Taylor
Andrew Flintoff
George Lohmann
Rangana Herath
Lasith Malinga
- - -

Spoiler: Sinister One's XI (2 players to go)

Graeme Smith
Kepler Wessels
Justin Langer
Mohammad Yousuf
Michael Hussey
Frank Tarrant
Richard Hadlee
Sydney Smith
Dale Steyn
- - -
- - -

Spoiler: VC's XI (2 players to go)

Chris Gayle
Alastair Cook
Frank Worrell
Eoin Morgan
Garry Sobers
Mushfiqur Rahim
Bart King
Michael Holding
Dennis Lillee
- - -
- - -

Spoiler: Villain's XI (1 player to go)

Ed Joyce
Mahela Jayawardene
Steve Smith
Viv Richards
Jacques Kallis
Mithali Raj
Shane Lee
Andy Wilson
Brett Lee
Jasprit Bumrah
- - -

Spoiler: Double-picked players

George Headley
Kapil Dev
AB de Villiers
Clyde Walcott
Don Bradman
Ryan ten Doeschate
Sandeep Lamichhane
Ellyse Perry
Albie Morkel
Morne Morkel
Peter Pollock
Graeme Pollock
Jimmy Anderson
Ravichandran Ashwin
Sydney Barnes
Anil Kumble
Malcolm Marshall
Joel Garner
Adam Gilchrist
Muttiah Muralitharan
Ross Taylor

So, nobody needs more than two players now at this stage, which means this could and should be the very last set of questions. And those questions are...

The Round Twenty question will be...

Pick a player with a Z in their surname.


The Round Twenty-One question will be...

Name a cricketing slaphead.
By "slaphead" I do of course mean a player who is bald.


The Round Twenty-Two question will be...

Pick exactly the kind of player your team needs, but they can't have played more than 10 Test matches.

As with @blockerdave and @Survivor before you, if you manage to fill your team before the end of this round, then it will be treated as if all picks after that never happened.

 

[Villain]

@CerealKiller - Muttiah Muralitharan
@Rebel2k19 - Muttiah Muralitharan
@Sinister One - Muttiah Muralitharan
@VC the slogger - Muttiah Muralitharan
@Villain - Muttiah Muralitharan

lol Seriously.[DOUBLEPOST=1567663085][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ed Joyce
Mahela Jayawardene
Steve Smith
Viv Richards
Jacques Kallis
Mithali Raj
Shane Lee
Andy Wilson
Brett Lee
Jasprit Bumrah

Happy with it, just need one more.

 

[CerealKiller]

Murali

 

[Master Bates]

@Aislabie pls announce the results.

 

[Aislabie]

@Aislabie pls announce the results.

Yes, after waiting several days for the picks to come in I should definitely whip up the full end-of-draft reports and everything in 14 minutes while I'm sleeping off jet lag. This seems like an entirely fair expectation.

 

[Master Bates]

Yes, after waiting several days for the picks to come in I should definitely whip up the full end-of-draft reports and everything in 14 minutes while I'm sleeping off jet lag. This seems like an entirely fair expectation.

Taylor Swift: YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN!

 

[Aislabie]

Round Twenty Picks

Cricketers with a Z in their name

@CerealKiller - deliberate incorrect answer
@Rebel2k19 - deliberate incorrect answer
@Sinister One - Nuwan Zoysa
@VC the slogger - deliberate incorrect answer
@Villain - Josh Hazlewood (TEAM COMPLETE)

This is the first time we've seen people deliberately throw a wrong answer, but it's a very good tactic if you can't find a player to suit your needs.

Round Twenty-One Picks

Cricketing Slapheads

@CerealKiller - Nathan Lyon (slap)
@Rebel2k19 - Tony Lock (slap) (TEAM COMPLETE)
@Sinister One - Matt Prior (slap) (TEAM COMPLETE)
@VC the slogger - Nathan Lyon (slap)

As per the rules of the draft, Nathan Lyon is now ineligible.

Round Twenty-Two Picks

Fewer than ten Tests

@CerealKiller - Ranji Hordern (TEAM COMPLETE)
@VC the slogger - Mike Procter

Round Twenty-Three Picks

One-Cap Wonder

@VC the slogger - Charlie Parker


All of which means the remaining teams now look like...

Spoiler: CerealKiller's XI (COMPLETED)

Archie Jackson
Meg Lanning
Sachin Tendulkar
Javed Miandad
Steve Waugh
Imran Khan
Shaun Pollock
Prasanna Jayawardene
Vince van der Bijl
Curtly Ambrose
Ranji Hordern

Spoiler: Rebel2K19's XI (COMPLETED)

WG Grace
John Langridge
Rahul Dravid
Rohit Sharma
Sarah Taylor
Shane Watson
Andrew Flintoff
Rangana Herath
Tony Lock
George Lohmann
Lasith Malinga

Spoiler: Sinister One's XI (COMPLETED)

Graeme Smith
Kepler Wessels
Justin Langer
Mohammad Yousuf
Michael Hussey
Frank Tarrant
Matt Prior
Richard Hadlee
Sydney Smith
Dale Steyn
Nuwan Zoysa

Spoiler: VC's XI (COMPLETED)

Chris Gayle
Alastair Cook
Frank Worrell
Eoin Morgan
Garry Sobers
Mushfiqur Rahim
Mike Procter
Bart King
Dennis Lillee
Michael Holding
Charlie Parker

Spoiler: Villain's XI (COMPLETED)

Ed Joyce
Mahela Jayawardene
Steve Smith
Viv Richards
Jacques Kallis
Mithali Raj
Shane Lee
Andy Wilson
Brett Lee
Josh Hazlewood
Jasprit Bumrah

Spoiler: Double-picked players

George Headley
Kapil Dev
AB de Villiers
Clyde Walcott
Don Bradman
Ryan ten Doeschate
Sandeep Lamichhane
Ellyse Perry
Albie Morkel
Morne Morkel
Peter Pollock
Graeme Pollock
Jimmy Anderson
Ravichandran Ashwin
Sydney Barnes
Anil Kumble
Malcolm Marshall
Joel Garner
Adam Gilchrist
Muttiah Muralitharan
Ross Taylor
Nathan Lyon

(so ends the first of three parts to the End-of-Draft Report)

 

[VC the slogger]

Chris Gayle
Alastair Cook
Frank Worrell
Eoin Morgan
Garry Sobers
Mushfiqur Rahim
Mike Procter
Bart King
Dennis Lillee
Michael Holding
Charlie Parker

That's some bowling we've got there. Overall quite pleased with my XI.

 

[Gaurav_7]

WG Grace
John Langridge
Rahul Dravid
Rohit Sharma
Sarah Taylor
Shane Watson
Andrew Flintoff
Rangana Herath
Tony Lock
George Lohmann
Lasith Malinga

I like it but eagerly waiting for your views too.

 

[Aislabie]

Post-Draft Report Part Two: The @Aislabie XI

So while the draft was going on, I was playing along myself. The rules I adopted were that if I picked a player who was also picked by somebody else, then I lost them - but if anyone else picked someone I had picked, then they kept them. It seemed like a nice way to balance out the fact that I was the one setting the questions which could have been something of an inherent advantage.

Round One: Players born in non-Test countries
My pick: George Headley - Nothing dramatic here; I wanted to start the draft by picking the best possible players, even if it meant taking some time before I got on the scoreboard.

Round Two: Better ODI than Test scores
My pick: Mark Waugh - An easy, elegant batsman to watch and a prolific run-scorer who might have been even better if he'd just knuckled down a bit more. People also missed Saeed Anwar here.

Round Three: Parliamentary Cricketers
My pick: Wally Hammond - I was really surprised by some of the players not considered for this round when surnames like Clarke, Cummins, Hall, Hammond, Harris, Jayawardena, Johnson, McCabe, May, Morgan, Sheppard, Stewart, Thomson, Turner, Villiers (which I'd have accepted) and Wright were all present, but Wally Hammond for me was the biggest miss.

Round Four: Wicket-Keeper Bowlers
My pick: MS Dhoni - Honestly, I just wanted to get a really good keeper into my side.

Round Five: Bowlers who made the step up
My pick: Don Bradman - I wrote this round to be a way of sneaking Don Bradman into the eligible pool without everyone noticing and thinking of him. I'm impressed that more than one of you did.

Round Six: Associate ODI representatives
My pick: Rashid Khan - Another question written with an in-built exploit, but only @VC the slogger picked it out: just because the player played ODIs for an Associate doesn't mean the country remains an Associate.

Round Seven: Women's Cricketers
My pick: Ellyse Perry - She was always going to get picked, but she's the women's GOAT and if there was even a chance I could sign her I wanted to do it. Only @blockerdave thought to look back into history to find players like Heyhoe-Flint, Belinda Clark, Charlotte Edwards or Debbie Hockley.

Round Eight: Cricketing Siblings
My picks: Hanif, Wazir, Raees, Mushtaq and Sadiq Mohammad - Again I wrote this question in the hope that somebody would pick cricket's greatest ever set of brothers, but nobody did. Also still nobody has picked either Waugh yet.

Round Nine: Bopara's Bunnies
My pick: Mitchell Johnson - Having just picked up five brothers who were either batsmen or batting all-rounders, the quest begins to find some quick bowlers, ASAP.

Round Ten: Current County Cricketers
My pick: Jimmy Anderson - Again, I decided to just pick the best player available for the roles I still had in my team. No surprises that he wasn't available, but some surprise that there weren't more overseas players getting selected besides Ashwin.

Round Eleven: Ye Olde Cricketers
My pick: Sydney Barnes - I needed someone who had debuted before 1903, and ultimately went for quite a popular choice. No regrets though.

Round Twelve: Northants Alumni
My pick: Curtly Ambrose - Again I decided to go for the best quick bowler I could think of and - though this may be controversial - I've always been of the opinion that Dennis Lillee is a tiny bit overrated. Slightly sad nobody picked Colin Milburn, and very surprised that someone picked Lord Snooty!

Round Thirteen: WIndies Quicks
My pick: Tony Gray - A bit of a forgotten quick compared to the most famous foursome of Garner, Holding, Marshall and Roberts, but of very much the same high standard. The parameters also allowed people to target guys like Ian Bishop if they wanted, but they didn't.

Round Fourteen: Played for two countries
My pick: Mike Procter - He also represented Rhodesia for quite some time, which was enough to help him count here. This was mostly a question written with an eye on the West Indies though, where guys like Worrell and Walcott would represent the national teams of Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica. Also, anybody who represented the West Indies between 1958 and 1962 would have been eligible.

01 - Hanif Mohammad
02 - Sadiq Mohammad
03 - Wally Hammond
04 - Mark Waugh
05 - Wazir Mohammad
06 - Mushtaq Mohammad
07 - Raees Mohammad
08 - MS Dhoni
09 - Mike Procter
10 - Rashid Khan
11 - Tony Gray

So at this point, that was my team completed. It was probably a bowler light, and would need Hammond and Waugh to turn their arms over to break up our four-man attack, but I was very happy with it nonetheless.

But there was also still the chance that I would end up missing out on some players if you guys picked them later, so I kept making picks.

Round Fifteen: 2005 Ashes Alumni
My pick: Adam Gilchrist - I mean, he's the most irreplaceable of those who played in that series, even if he did have a quiet one himself.

Round Sixteen: Alliterative Cricketers
My pick: Colin Croft (reserve fast bowler) - I knew that someone would pick Murali (didn't expect it to be everyone) so I decided to pick up someone a bit off the beaten track as a reserve quick bowler.

Round Seventeen: No international experience
My pick: Frank Tarrant - He would have been my reserve spinner, but I was extremely happy to see someone other than myself pick him up.

Round Eighteen: At least four initials
My pick: HMRKB Herath - Also known as the "pick a Sri Lankan" round, Herath was one of the outstanding picks here. Hats off to @CerealKiller for picking up one of the all-time underrated wicket-keepers.

Round Nineteen: Countries you haven't picked from
My pick: Andy Flower (reserve wicket-keeper) - I'd picked from quite a lot of different countries on this little adventure, but happily noticed Zimbabwe lying untouched.

Round Twenty: Player with a Z in their name
My pick: Josh Hazlewood - I could have picked a deliberate wrong answer, but I decided to try to pick a player that other people would also pick. Pretty slim pickings this round, but Sarfraz Nawaz would have been a very good pick, and another ex-Northants man.

Round Twenty-One: Cricketing Slapheads
My pick: Sanath Jayasuriya (reserve batsman and spinner) - An excellent utility player to have in the side, someone I was really quite surprised didn't get picked up ahead of Nathan Lyon at least.

Round Twenty-Two: Fewer than ten Tests
My pick: JJ Ferris (reserve fast bowler) - In my opinion the obvious choice among those who played fewer than ten Tests, on the basis that I had already picked Mike Procter and that I had no need of an extra batsman such as Barry Richards. But in the real draft, I hadn't picked him so he went to @VC the slogger and I ended up with Peter Pollock instead.

Round Twenty-Three: One-Cap Wonders
My pick: Rodney Redmond (reserve batsman) - A truly unfortunate tale of terrible eyesight that I can relate to deeply, Redmond showed that he had all the ability one could ever want from a Test player.

Anyhow, with Mike Procter being snatched from my grasp (a big loss, for certain), that means that my eleven is:

01 - Hanif Mohammad
02 - Sadiq Mohammad
03 - Wally Hammond
04 - Mark Waugh
05 - Wazir Mohammad
06 - Mushtaq Mohammad
07 - Raees Mohammad
08 - MS Dhoni
09 - Rashid Khan
10 - Colin Croft
11 - Tony Gray

 

[Villain]

Here's my team in CWC '19 style, got some free time decided to spend it on this.

VILLAIN'S ELEVEN
Ed Joyce
Mahela Jayawardene
Steve Smith
Viv Richards
Jacques Kallis
Mithali Raj
Shane Lee
Andy Wilson
Brett Lee
Josh Hazlewood
Jasprit Bumrah​