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One rule. I had to have shared a field with them. No Bradman, no Sobers, no picking off YouTube.
I have picked this team in public before. The Telegraph in 2015, cricket.com.au in 2018. It has never come out the same twice.
Eight names have never moved. The other three are where the arguments live, and I will give you both sides of every one.
This is the version I would put my name to today.
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Sachin batted at four in Tests. I know. I am opening with him anyway.
He was a genius and a superstar. Like the best in any sport, he seemed to have a lot more time to do his thing than everyone else. The new ball does not change that.
Viru is the easiest pick in the side. Two Test triple hundreds, and he could win you a Test inside a session.
The Delhi bit I played with him at the Daredevils. He would be singing to himself as the bowler ran in, then hit him out of the park. A complete superstar, and the most fun I ever had in the middle. |
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Ricky was the best batter of his generation, and I saw it from both ends of an Ashes.
In 2005 we beat him. Eighteen months later he made 196 in the first Test at the Gabba, and Australia beat us 5-0. The best players come back angrier.
Jacques Kallis is the greatest cricketer of them all.
I said it on his birthday and got slaughtered for it. I will say it again.
Pick him and you get a number four, a third seamer and a slip fielder in one shirt.
The uncomfortable bit People argue with me about Kallis because they count one job at a time. Nobody else in the history of the game gives you all three. |
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In 2018 I said there were only two absolute superstars left in international cricket. Virat was one. AB was the other.
The night I think of is in Dubai in 2020. He smashed it, kept wicket, then went straight back out and batted in the Super Over. Too busted afterwards to do the media.
He averaged over 50 in Test cricket and could bat anywhere. He goes in at five.
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This is the hardest call in the side, so I will make it quickly.
Adam Gilchrist changed what a keeper was. He batted at seven like it was T20 before anyone played T20, and he was in my 2015 side.
But Kumar Sangakkara has made every version of this team I have ever picked. He kept wicket for years before Sri Lanka took the gloves off him to get even more runs out of him.
Sanga keeps, and I get a better batter at six.
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Who is the biggest name I left out?
Vote below. Results at the top of the next issue.
Who is the biggest name I left out?
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The 2005 Ashes. Flintoff made 402 runs and took 24 wickets.
I was in that side and watched him do it from about ten yards away.
Shaun Pollock was in my 2018 team, and on numbers he is a very good shout. 421 Test wickets and nearly 3,800 runs.
But this is a team I have to walk out with. I am taking Fred.
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I played under some very good captains and against some great ones. I am still giving it to Shane.
He was my captain at Hampshire and we got on great. So when I walked out at Lord's for my Test debut, the thing everybody else felt against him, I did not. No intimidation. Absolutely none.
708 Test wickets, and he never captained Australia in a Test.
That tells you more about Australian cricket than it does about him.
The part I still think about He is the one name on this sheet I cannot ring up and argue with about it. |
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McGrath. My Test debut, Lord's, 2005. He took five in the first innings, his 500th Test wicket among them. Relentless. You knew exactly what was coming, and it did not help.
Jimmy. To be the greatest for your country, you need to have done it in all conditions. Jimmy did it everywhere, and he was still taking Test wickets at 41.
Steyn. The ultimate competitor, lightning quick, and you always knew you were in a battle with him. 439 Test wickets, and huge admiration and respect for his craft and how hard he worked at his game. He has never made one of my published sides. He does now.
The coin toss Brett Lee was in my 2018 side and got me out six times in Tests. Shoaib was in my 2015 side, the first man ever clocked at 100mph. Both were close. Dale gets the new ball. |
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Lara. I ran him out in his last international innings. Barbados, 2007 World Cup. I got a hundred that day, we won by one wicket, and nobody in that ground thanked me for any of it.
Lee. In my 2018 side, and he got me out six times in Tests. Missing out to Dale is the hardest call on this sheet.
Kohli. One of my two superstars in 2018, and in my all-time IPL side. In a Test XI from my era, the middle order is simply full.
Murali. Eight hundred Test wickets. I have picked Warne, and you only get one.
Asif. The best bowler I ever faced. Not in, for the reason I gave last time.
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If you have not voted on who I left out, scroll back up.
See you in a fortnight.
Kevin Pietersen