Best Australian ODI XI from the late 90s (1996-2000)

10) Damien Fleming - Flemo

Damien Fleming (left) and Adam Gilchrist of Australia share a joke during an ODI

In the mid-90s, Damien Fleming played the perfect foil to Glenn McGrath in opening the bowling for the Aussies. Fleming was a natural swing bowler who did well on seaming tracks. He troubled the batsmen with his late swing that curved his deliveries sharply away from the batsmen.

Fleming was a strike bowler in One-day cricket owing to his ability to consistently pick up wickets. Unfortunately, from the very start of his career, he was regularly marred by injuries.

11) Glenn McGrath – Pigeon

Glenn McGrath was Australia’s frontline seamer post the retirement of Craig McDermott. The tall and lanky seamer was an epitome of line and length bowling. McGrath was known to bowl a nagging line outside the channel of uncertainty and often had batsman nicking one to the keeper.

He wasn’t express pace but had relentless accuracy and bowled consistency in good areas. The “Pigeon” more often than not gave his side the initial breakthroughs.

McGrath bowled with a lot of fire and aggression and hated runs being scored off his deliveries. With his innocuous batting technique, McGrath lived up to his billing of being a true number eleven batsman.

12th Man

Adam Gilchrist – Gilly

Adam Gilchrist burst onto the international scene with is explosive batting and acrobatic wicket keeping skills. Opening the innings for the Aussies, Gilchrist was an all-out match winner and crowd puller owing to his destructive strokeplay.

Gifted with tremendous hand-eye coordination, “Gilly” was a blatant puller and cutter of the ball. Once set, he had the ability to simply take the game away from the opposition by scoring runs at a blistering pace.

Note: I haven’t considered Adam Gilchrist as my first choice wicketkeeper as he had just come onto the international scene and only bloomed as a full-fledged batsman in the next decade.

Bench Strength

The Aussies had some flamboyant stroke makers in Damien Martyn and Stuart Law who contributed to their team’s success. Meanwhile explosive opener Michael Slater gifted with immense talent became more of a test specialist.

Tom Moody, Shane Lee and Brendon Julian were handy all-rounders who made useful contributions whenever they made the national side. The Aussies had good pace reserves in Michael Kasprowicz, Adam Bichel and Adam Dale to fall back on whenever their regular seamers got injured.

Aussie stalwarts Matthew Hayden, Damien Martyn, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie had just started of their careers in the late 90’s and only became regulars in the next decade, hence haven’t been considered for my selection. Meanwhile David Boon, Dean Jones, Allan Border, Merv Hughes and Craig McDermott were past their prime and at the end of their careers in the mid 90s hence haven’t been considered for selection.