Great cricket XIs

A friend of mine composed the best England Test team of his lifetime (he was born in 1959) which I will now share with you.

Gooch, Cook, Root, Pietersen, Stokes , Botham, Knott, Swann, Broad, Andersen, Underwood.

Having been born five years earlier, I might have included Ted Dexter, Fred Trueman and Peter May. How’s about Geoff Boycott and David Gower too?

His team prompted me to compose an Overseas XI, namely:-

Barry Richards, Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Lara, Kane Williamson, Sobers,  Gilchrist, Holding, Lillee, Warne.

I then thought of my omissions who would make a more than capable second team:

Greenidge, Derek Lindsay, Shaun Pollock and Jaques Kallis of South Africa; the Sri Lankans Sangakara, Jayasinghe and Aravinder Singh; the Indian spinners Bedi, Rashwin and Harbinjer Singh and batters Kohli and Dravid; the Pakistanis speedsters Akram and Younis, all-rounder Imran Khan and spinner Qadir; and portly run accumulator Inzamam ul Haq; the Aussies Steve Waugh, Allan Border and Justin Langer, Glenn McGrath; the Kiwis Martin Crowe, Richard Hadlee and Trent Boult.

Ireland’s Ed Joyce stakes a claim too.

It was an impossible task, but then I thought how fortunate I have been to have witnessed such wonderful cricketers.