ATG Teams of each Decade - squads

[Wilted]

A new Cricket Captain edition and late-night Ashes series mean one thing: it's time for another ATG Championship Series. This time I'll be delving into the depths and picking the top players to represent their decade to prove once and for all which decade has the best test team... kinda.

Some guidelines for how each squad was picked:

1. Each player can only represent one decade, eg: Tendulkar cannot play in both the 1990s and 2000s.
2. A player's most dominant era is prioritised, eg: Muralidaran was selected for the 2000s as he took most of his wickets in that decade.
3. Each squad has at least three opening options, two wicketkeepers, one allrounder and at least one spin option (preferably two).

With so many players eligible for each squad and in some instances, eligible for two or three squads, it is difficult to narrow down who should make the cut in each era. Here are the squads so far:

1920s	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s	2010s
H Sutcliffe (ENG)	WR Hammond (ENG)	C Washbrook (ENG)	RN Harvey (AUS)	KF Barrington (ENG)	SM Gavaskar (IND)	AR Border (AUS)	PA de Silva (SL)	RT Ponting (AUS)	AN Cook (ENG)
JB Hobbs (ENG)	DG Bradman (AUS)	AD Nourse (SA)	PBH May (ENG)	MC Cowdrey (ENG)	GR Viswanath (IND)	DI Gower (ENG)	ME Waugh (AUS)	JH Kallis (ICC/SA)	JE Root (ENG)
FE Woolley (ENG)	B Mitchell (SA)	AL Hassett (AUS)	ED Weekes (WI)	WM Lawry (AUS)	GS Chappell (AUS)	Javed Miandad (PAK)	MA Atherton (ENG)	R Dravid (ICC/IND)	V Kohli (IND)
HW Taylor (SA)	GA Headley (WI)	WJ Edrich (ENG)	L Hutton (ENG)	GS Sobers (WI)	AI Kallicharran (WI)	IVA Richards (WI)	SR Waugh (AUS)	ML Hayden (AUS)	SPD Smith (AUS)
J Ryder (AUS)	EH Hendren (ENG)	AR Morris (AUS)	CC McDonald (AUS)	ER Dexter (ENG)	RC Fredericks (WI)	CG Greenidge (WI)	SR Tendulkar (IND)	KC Sangakkara (SL)	DA Warner (AUS)
CG Macartney (AUS)	WH Ponsford (AUS)	VS Hazare (IND)	PR Umrigar (IND)	RB Simpson (AUS)	G Boycott (ENG)	GA Gooch (ENG)	BC Lara (WI)	GC Smith (ICC/SA)	KS Williamson (NZ)
WAS Oldfield (AUS)	LEG Ames (ENG)	D Tallon (AUS)	CL Walcott (WI)	ATW Grout (AUS)	RW Marsh (AUS)	PJL Dujon (WI)	AJ Stewart (ENG)	AC Gilchrist (AUS)	Q de Kock (SA)
MW Tate (ENG)	CV Grimmett (AUS)	WA Johnston (AUS)	AV Bedser (ENG)	GD McKenzie (AUS)	DL Underwood (ENG)	MD Marshall (WI)	SK Warne (AUS)	M Muralidaran (ICC/SL)	JM Anderson (ENG)
AA Mailey (AUS)	H Verity (ENG)	ERH Toshack (AUS)	RR Lindwall (AUS)	LR Gibbs (WI)	DK Lillee (AUS)	RJ Hadlee (NZ)	CEL Ambrose (WI)	M Ntini (SA)	SCJ Broad (ENG)
JM Gregory (AUS)	WJ O'Reilly (AUS)	KR Miller (AUS)	JC Laker (ENG)	FS Trueman (ENG)	RGD Willis (ENG)	Imran Khan (PAK)	Wasim Akram (PAK)	GD McGrath (AUS)	R Ashwin (IND)
AP Freeman (ENG)	H Ironmonger (AUS)	IWG Johnson (AUS)	R Benaud (AUS)	WW Hall (WI)	JR Thomson (AUS)	J Garner (WI)	AA Donald (SA)	SM Pollock (SA)	DW Steyn (SA)
Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad	Rest of Squad
J Ryder (AUS)	M Leyland (ENG)	RS Modi (IND)	DCS Compton (ENG)	RB Kanhai (WI)	AW Greig (ENG)	IT Botham (ENG)	MA Atherton (ENG)	Mohammad Yousuf (PAK)	HM Amla (SA)
AE Hall (SA)	W Voce (ENG)	NBF Mann (SA)	Fazal Mahmood (PAK)	PM Pollock (SA)	BS Bedi (IND)	Abdul Qadir (PAK)	Waqar Younis (PAK)	A Kumble (IND)	NM Lyon (AUS)
H Carter (AUS)	G Duckworth (ENG)	TG Evans (ENG)	J Langridge (ENG)	JM Parks (ENG)	C Llyod (WI)	SMH Kirmani (IND)	A de Silva (SL)	M Boucher (SA)	B Stokes (ENG)
			GRA Langley (AUS)		APE Knott (ENG)	I Qasim (PAK)	I Healy (AUS)	V Sehwag (IND)	AB de Villiers (SA)
					KR Stackpole(AUS)		S Mushtaq (PAK)		V Philander (SA)
					IM Chapell (AUS)				BJ Watling (NZ)
					AME Roberts (WI)

Please make suggestions to fill in the blanks so each squad has a full strength of 18 players.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

1970's K.R. Stackpole (Aus) Opener I.M. Chappell (Aus) Mid-Order A.M.E. Roberts (WI) RF

[Wilted]

1970's K.R. Stackpole (Aus) Opener I.M. Chappell (Aus) Mid-Order A.M.E. Roberts (WI) RF

Good picks.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

When picking an 18 man touring squad I go for 8 batsman (3 openers) 2 wicketkeepers 8 bowlers (3 spin). Here is an example for the 69-70 Australia to India & South Africa. J. Irvine (WA) & R. Jordon (V) aren't in the ATG list. I replaced them with J. Inveraity & J. Maclean. G. Chappell, T. Jenner & D. Renneberg were added to bring the squad to 18.

[Wilted]

When picking an 18 man touring squad I go for 8 batsman (3 openers) 2 wicketkeepers 8 bowlers (3 spin). Here is an example for the 69-70 Australia to India & South Africa. J. Irvine (WA) & R. Jordon (V) aren't in the ATG list. I replaced them with J. Inveraity & J. Maclean. G. Chappell, T. Jenner & D. Renneberg were added to bring the squad to 18.

I typically do the same but I had a lot of difficulty trying to filter stats, especially for the earlier decades.

[S.A.& Kent]

I`m really pleased to see more of you are playing what I call fantasy cricket, using ATG`s, and as Wilted has put in his post, there are players he could not include, or select, as they are not included in the ATG`s lists. In my previous posts as Springbok1970, I advocated that players who were chosen to tour, but not selected to play a Test, should be included in the ATG`s, and I sincerely hope that a few of you will push for this to happen, sooner rather than later.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

I`m really pleased to see more of you are playing what I call fantasy cricket, using ATG`s, and as Wilted has put in his post, there are players he could not include, or select, as they are not included in the ATG`s lists. In my previous posts as Springbok1970, I advocated that players who were chosen to tour, but not selected to play a Test, should be included in the ATG`s, and I sincerely hope that a few of you will push for this to happen, sooner rather than later.

The ATG list appears right from 1979 (second World Cup) onwards. I've found a few Australian players from the 1970-75 period. Earlier than 1970 my research petered out.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

1920's I had W. Bardsley (Au) E.H. Hendren (Eng) H.L. Collins (Au) H. Strudwick (Eng) W. Rhodes (Eng) as bowler not batsman W.W. Armstrong (Au) E.A. McDonald (Au) A.E.R. Gilligan (Eng) L.N. Constantine (WI)

[Wilted]

Added Bardsley to the 1920s squad.

Rhodes and Armstrong would either be on the 1900s or 1910s team if I had gone that far back since they only played a handful of matches in the 20s. Similar thing with Constantine, who I added to the 1930s squad. Hendren was already in the 30s squad.

Edit: I'm making changes in my original spreadsheet to save the hassle of editing the above post. Also added some more seam options to the 30s such as Larwood, whose career was cut short after the bodyline series).