Draft: The Quotea Draft

Aislabie

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but in this draft, if you said “pick an all time SA team according to modern quota” and there was no draft, just my XI, I don’t know who I’d end up with, because a change here means your quota is out so that leads to 2 more changes and oh hang on I haven’t put in Faulkner and oh hang on that’s the quota gone again and wait a minute, didn’t I start with Richards and Cook opening, how have I got Smith and Goddard and hang on, if I use Rabada instead of Steyn I can put in Rice over Amla and...
Exactly this - it's an absolutely impossible puzzle I think, and that's part of the infuriating beauty of it. I honestly haven't got a clue where I'd start picking an all-time South African XI with modern quotas because the pieces are almost impossible to fit together.

There are two approaches - do you pick the best players for the quota slots and then fit non-quota legends around them? Or do you pick your first five or six players with complete disregard for quotas and then work backwards? Buggered if I know, but they create almost diametrically opposite teams:

Quotas firstQuotas last
:saf: :bat: Graeme Smith :c::saf: :bat: Barry Richards
:saf: :bat: Herschelle Gibbs :slvo::saf: :bat: Herschelle Gibbs :slvo:
:saf: :bat: Hashim Amla :slvo::saf: :ar: Jacques Kallis
:saf: :ar: Graeme Pollock:zim: :wk: Andy Flower
:saf: :ar: Aubrey Faulkner:saf: :ar: Aubrey Faulkner
:eng: :ar: Basil D'Oliveira :slvo::saf: :bat: Ashwell Prince :slvo:
:saf: :wk: Quinton de Kock:saf: :ar: Mike Procter
:saf: :ar: Mike Procter:saf: :ar: Haroon Lorgat :slvo: :c:
:saf: :ar: Khaya Majola :goldo::saf: :ar: Khaya Majola :goldo:
:saf: :bwl: Vincent Barnes :slvo::saf: :bwl: Vincent Barnes :slvo:
:saf: :bwl: Makhaya Ntini :goldo::saf: :bwl: Makhaya Ntini :goldo:

It's so weird - on one side you end up with a team that misses out Kallis and Richards, on the other you have a team that misses out Amla. There's seemingly no right answer to this

A compromise team:

:saf: :bat: Barry Richards
:saf: :bat: Herschelle Gibbs :slvo:
:saf: :bat: Hashim Amla :slvo: :c:
:saf: :bat: Graeme Pollock
:saf: :ar: Jacques Kallis
:saf: :ar: Aubrey Faulkner
:eng: :ar: Basil D'Oliveira :slvo:
:saf: :ar: Mike Procter
:saf: :wk: Thami Tsolikile :goldo:
:saf: :ar: Khaya Majola :goldo:
:saf: :bwl: Vincent Barnes :slvo:

The hardest bit there was choosing a captain - you probably end up with either Amla (who famously hated it) or Majola. And even then you end up picking Thami Tsolikile as your all-time South African wicket-keeper which is... dodgy
 

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