A real tough exercise!!

Recently Cricinfo came out with a really interesting yet extraordinarily difficult idea of selecting the greatest eleven players from the glittering test cricket history of each team. It kindled my imagination immediately and I wasn't going to sit still for s single minute without trying to select my own team and compare it with friends. I entered into detailed discussions and made use of all the stats and history of each country and player and eventually made a selection. I am putting up my teams (Australia, England, West Indies, India and Pakistan) in batting order. I am not providing any explanations for the selection (wait for a later post). Only a rather strange selection will carry some kind of reasoning.

It would be great if you guys can flip through the record books and rummage through the stats and come up with your own classic eleven for each team. It would make for an extremely interesting time comparing the lineups we come up with. I should believe I wont be off the final panel's decision by more than 2/3 names!!.

Index--> * ->Captain + -> Wicket Keeper


Australia

Matthew Hayden
Bob Simpson
Don Bradman(*) (:D)--as if there was a doubt..lol
Ricky Ponting
Greg Chappell
Neil Harvey
Adam Gilchrist(+)
Alan Davidson/Keith Miller(prefer Davidson because he adds variety with left arm)
Shane Warne (guess no arguments here)
Dennis Lillee
Glenn Mcgrath


England

Len Hutton(went for Hutton over Sutcliffe--dont ask why!)
Jack Hobbs
Walter Hammond(*)
Dennis Compton
David Gower
Ken Barrington
Ian Botham
Alan Knott(+)
Jim Laker
Harold Larwood
Syd Barnes------pretty old but the record does speak for itself


West Indies

Gordon Greenidge
Clyde Walcott/George Headley
Viv Richards
Brian Lara
Frank Worrell(*)
Garry Sobers-----------absolute no brainer :D
Jeff Dujon(+)
Malcolm Marshall
Lance Gibbs
Michael Holding/Wes Hall
Curtly Ambrose


India

Sunil Gavaskar
Virender Sehwag (guess he has done enough to get there)
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Gundappa Viswanath
Vijay Hazare/Dilip Vengsarkar
Kapil Dev
Syed Kirmani (+)
Anil Kumble (*)-->guess he would have made a very fine captain
Bishen Singh Bedi
Erapalli Prasanna/Javagal Srinath (depending on the wicket i suppose!!)


Pakistan

Hanif Mohammad
Saeed Anwar
Zaheer Abbas
Javed Miandad
Inzamam Ul haq/ Mohd Yousuf
Imran Khan (*)
Wasim Akram
Wasim Bari (+)
Abdul Qadir
Waqar Younis
Fazal Mahmood-----------thought his record was stupendous


Its quite hard coming up with the teams for SA, NZ and Sri Lanka due to different reasons. Will try to do so shortly.

Till then happy selecting!!