As the 2015 Cricket World Cup gets underway, collingwoodfc.com.au caught up with the club’s resident cricket guru Brent Macaffer.
Macaffer, a fine junior batsman in the mould of his Pakistani idol Shahid Afridi, has compiled his first choice XIs for international one-day cricket, the Collingwood playing list and his all-time favourite players.
In part one of Macaffer’s XI, he names and explains his favourite international cricketers.
Brent Macaffer’s XI: Favourite players
1. Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka)
2. Chris Gayle (West Indies)
3. Virender Sehwag (India)
4. Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa)
5. Chris Cairns (New Zealand)
6. Adam Gilchrist (Australia)
7. Lance Klusener (South Africa)
8. Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)
9. Shane Warne (Australia)
10. Wasim Akram (Pakistan)
11. Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan)
“It was a tough selection,” Macaffer told collingwoodfc.com.au.
“There was a lot of chit-chat out there. I sought some advice over lunch with ‘Youngy’ (Clinton Young), Steele (Sidebottom) and ‘Ox’ (Adam Oxley). They’re the cricket heads in the team.
“My most entertaining team was pretty easy for me to pick.
“A lot of the guys are opening batsmen and would go out there and have strike rates of well over 100.
“The middle order is capable of playing just one good innings out of 20, but all 20 would be well worth watching just to see if they played that one innings.
“For the bowlers, I could watch Shane Warne bowl 24/7. The Rawalpindi Express (Shoaib Akhtar) picks himself. Wasim Akram, no one swung the ball like he did, and he loved a bit of banter with the opposition.”
Macaffer, who was born in 1988, grew up during Australian cricket’s golden era, so it’s no surprise that some of his favourite memories revolve around watching champion wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist demolish opponents at the top of the order in one-day cricket.
“Adam Gilchrist was always my favourite,” he smiled.
“Just knowing the game was on in the afternoon and coming home from school as quickly as possible to watch him.
“If Australia wasn’t batting, I’d hope the opposition went on to make a massive score, knowing he would come in and open the batting and play aggressively.
“If the opposition made an average score it’d really annoy me, and if ‘Gilly’ got out early on it would ruin my weekend because I’d waited all day for him!”
“It’s just the entrance theme to Channel Nine’s Wide World of Sports, I loved stuff like that, with (commentators) Bill Lawry and Tony Greig. They were some of the best times, growing up.”
Stay tuned to collingwoodfc.com.au for Brent Macaffer’s all-time one-day cricket XI on Wednesday.
Macaffer's XI: Part I
As the 2015 Cricket World Cup gets underway, the club’s resident cricket guru Brent Macaffer names his favourite all-time cricketing XI.
