My Best Test XI

I’m sure at one time or another any cricket fan has sat down and tried to pen his or her all-time Test XI and I can tell you now that it’s no easy feat. Beyond the fact that Test cricket has been going since 1877 and seen thousands of names come and go with varied amounts of success, the thing that makes it really difficult to pick the best XI is that every game of Test match cricket is unique in regards the match conditions and situation. The XI you might pick for a turning track in the sub-continent would surely be different than those that you’d want on a pacey pitch down-under or a green top in April in Yorkshire so how do you decide who the best team is?

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To make things easier for myself I’ve therefore only selected my XI from players that I’ve seen play with my own eyes. I’m sure that the likes of Bradman and Hutton, or Sobers and Barnes, etc, etc were brilliant players, their career stats and the video highlights that still exist show as much but short of me inventing a time machine or otherwise using some powerful smelling salts then I’m never going to have the privilege of watching them in person and therefore I’ve excluded them from my list. It’s also going to be a side picked to succeed on a good all around wicket in England where I’ve watched most of my cricket.

So here is my personal all-time test XI

Alastair Cook

Perhaps it sounds bias but I don’t think you can name an all-time XI without including an English opener. Opening the batting on English pitches against the Dukes ball is the hardest job in cricket no question about it and the stats over the best part of 150 years of Test cricket show as much. In my lifetime, England have been blessed with multiple world class openers from Graham Gooch to Michael Atherton and then onto Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss but the player that I’m going to choose to open for my all-time XI is England’s all-time leading run scorer Sir Alastair Cook.

I’ve always followed Essex county cricket club right back from the 1990s when I was a youngster growing up in Australia largely because their batting line-up at the time including Graham Gooch, Mark Waugh and a young Naser Hussain who is one of my all time favourite cricketers but not quite of the calibre to make it onto this list. Then in the early noughties, I heard of a young left-hander at the county who was still doing his undergraduate degree at the University of Durham but playing for the second XI in his summer holidays who was destined for big things his name was Alastair Cook and he would become an intrinsic part of England’s success over my lifetime.

The first time I saw Cook play in person was at the picturesque Arundel Castle in Sussex where he turned out for an MCC XI vs the touring West Indies in 2004. He made 89 in the second innings and nearly helped a side comprised of other young hopefuls, a few fringe players and some Test regulars looking for game time recover from 77-4 to chase an unlikely 278 to win. It was clear that he was of Test Match pedigree and less than 2 years later he would debut for England in India. His finest moments for England were undoubtedly the 2010-11 Ashes win in Australia where he ground the Aussie pace attack into the dirt on their own patch and the 2012-13 tour of India where he lead the side on the field and with the bat to a rare win in the sub-continent.

If you were listing a team of players you’d most like to watch bat, Cook wouldn’t be in the reckoning. He wasn’t a stylish batsmen or stroke maker of any great regard. Instead he grafted for every run with the express intent of making sure that he didn’t give his wicket away cheaply. Every good Test side needs at least a couple of players of his ilk and certainly one at the top of the innings and it’s difficult to think there have been many, if any, in the modern game who are better suited to that role.

Virender Sehwag

If having a right-hand, left-hand combination at the top of the order is a plus then having contrasting styles of player is also a major benefit to any side. Some of the best partnerships over the last 20 or so years have been between powerful stroke makers and determined nuggety run getters, think of the likes of Hayden and Langer for Australia or Gibbs and Smith for South African or Trescothick and Strauss for England. All 3 pairs were given serious consideration for spots in my team but I’ve decided to plump for the mercurial talent that is Virender Sehwag.

If there is ever an opening batsmen who is the complete antithesis of Alastair Cook then it would have to be Virender Sehwag, the kind of batsmen who was more likely to try and hit his first ball for 6 than to block it back to the bowler. From my point of view, it was a shame that I didn’t get to see more of Sehwag in England because despite his long Test career in which he played over a 100 times he toured England only twice once as young raw talent in 2002 and then again 2011 at the end of his career when his powers were beginning to fade. It’s that early tour that most sticks out in my memory of a 23 year old hitting a breezy 80 odd at Lord’s as wickets tumbled around him. Sehwag had already demonstrated that he was not to overawed by an occasion by striking a century on debut in South Africa and he hit another century later in the Test of that English summer at Trent Bridge.

There after he would amass over 8000 runs in his Test career at an average of just under 50 and eye watering strike rate of 82.23. Having a player like him teeing off at one end while my more conservative options at the top the order quietly go about their business seems like the perfect blend to me.

Kane Williamson (captain)

The only current Test player in my side and in my opinion the best cricketer on the planet as things stand. They’ll always be the debate over Smith or Kohli and both of them are very fine Test match cricketers but Williamson in his own understated way is just as good a batsmen as either and more importantly for this team he is better number 3 and a far better leader which is why he captains my side as well. It was a tough call because I also have great respect for Australia’s Steve Waugh who could easily have lead the side and taken a spot in the middle order but in many ways what Williamson has achieved with the relatively scant resources he has available to him surely has to match the achievements of those Australian sides of the 90s and early noughties even if they were more dominant for a sustained period.

If you’re reading this you might think that this is a reactionary pick based on the recently completed Test Championship but Williamson has been my favourite non-English cricketer for some time. His batting is simple yet effective and in a world that has gone crazy over reverse sweeps and switch hits it’s good to see that some batsmen can still make a successful career from the now forgotten late cut which has been a staple for run scorers in generations past.

Beyond his batting and leadership, Williamson embodies everything that is good about cricket and the spirit of the game. There will always be players who will capture the imagination on the pitch more than Kane does but there are very few who can play it with that perfect combination of toughness and competitiveness on one hand and gentlemanly conduct on the other. Williamson is the shining example of what all cricketers should aspire to be.

Brian Lara

Again, I’m sure that some would have picked Tendulkar at 4 and this is another debate that you could have until the cows come home but for me, Brian Lara was the genius batsmen of his generation and therefore makes it into team ahead of his peers. I remember doing a project in primary school about sport (I of course choose cricket) and writing about 2 young up and coming players in the form of Lara and Tendulkar but if was always the former who most captured my imagination.

I remember watching him and what was probably the last truly high class West Indies Test side tour Australia in 1992/93. He struck a magnificent double hundred at the MCG, the equivalent of cricket’s Colosseum and I was in the crowd at the Adelaide Oval for the game that followed where the West Indies won by a single run in one of the greatest Test matches of all time. The West Indies would go onto snatch the series in the final Test and to this day I’ve been a West Indies cricket fan (see Curtly Ambrose below).

Of course, Lara saved some of his finest performances for England including twice breaking the world record for a highest Test score against us not to mention striking 500 in a county game for Warwickshire during a stint in English domestic cricket. In full flow there can have been few better batsmen to watch with his high back lift and exaggerated movements whether it was creaming the ball through the covers or pulling through midwicket, everything he did was sheer poetry in motion.

Kumar Sangakkara

It always amazes me that Sangakkara doesn’t get spoken about in the pantheon of Test players. However, the numbers alone speak for themselves. He reached 10,000 Test runs in same number of games as Lara and Tendulkar and he did so while often having to keep wicket for Sri Lanka. In fact, in the entire history of Test match cricket, Sangakkara’s batting average when playing purely as a batsmen (66.78) is second only to that of the great Don Bradman and for that reason he’ll be afforded the opportunity to play in my best XI purely for his batting skills.

His best Test innings that I remember him playing in England came during the 2014 game at Lord’s where he hit a century in the first innings and made a gritty 60 odd in the second to ensure that Sri Lanka escaped with a draw. However, it was after he retired from Test cricket that I really got to see a lot of him playing when he signed for my local county Surrey as their overseas player. He had a good season in 2016 scoring over a 1000 runs in division one of the County Championship but it was in 2017 that he really excelled scoring 1491 runs from 16 innings with 8 centuries at an average of 106.5! He retired from all cricket at the end of the same season and while it’s tempting to ask why given the year he’d just had you also have to respect the man for wanting to go out at the top!

In fact, respect is a word that is frequently associated with Sangakkara. Still studying as a Law student when he first broke into the national team, Sangakkara is very well educated and very well spoken. In 2011, he became the youngster person ever to deliver the MCC’s Cowdrey Lecture on the Spirit of Cricket and the way he speaks about the game whether as a commentator or player is always inspiring. England have done very well out the time he spent in county cricket later on his career when you consider that several of their rising stars include his former teams Sam Curran and Ollie Pope who must surely have benefited from sharing a dressing room with him during his time at Surrey.

Andrew Flintoff

How lucky have England been to have had 3 great Test all-rounders in my lifetime in Botham, Flintoff and Stokes where most Test playing nations around the world have struggled to produce one. I could have included either of the other 2 players on this list but I’ve gone for Flintoff because he was at the heart of what was perhaps the best 6 weeks of my sporting life back in 2005 when England finally overcame 16 years of hurt to regain the Ashes.

I guess for me I was very fortunate with the timing of that series as it happened the year I graduated from University, in fact, the 1st day of the series was the day of my graduation so rather than listening keenly to the speeches being given I was sneaking looks at my phone in order to get updates on the score! England of course ended up losing the 1st Test of that series badly and all of the feel good factor that the side had built up over the last 2 or 3 years during which time they’d been playing an exciting and entertaining brand of Test cricket seemed to get blown away by the likes of Warne and McGrath once again.

Then came the 2nd Test at Edgbaston a game which I was fortunate to attend in person and which England won in the most thrilling of circumstances. Flintoff’s role in that comeback win and the 3 games to follow were monumental with both bat and ball and it’s worth remembering that these performances came against an Australian side who provide 2 of the players in my squad here and would probably have players in any cricket lovers best XI. With the ball Flintoff simply bullied Australia’s batsmen with his pace and bounce and no shortage of skills particularly in getting the old ball to reverse swing from around the wicket to Australia’s left-handers. With bat he struck a momentum changing knock in the 2nd Test and then a brilliant hundred in the 4th handing England victory in both games.

He was talismanic figure for English cricket and I always felt it was a mistake for the management to have burdened him the captaincy of the team in much the same way it was a mistake 25 years earlier for them to have made Botham captain. Still at best and free from the shackles of responsibility and injury he was a devasting player capable of turning the course of a match on his own.

Adam Gilchrist

Referring once again to that magnificent team Australia had in late 90s and early noughties, you used to look down their batting line-up and just see world class player after world class player all the way down to Gilchrist at number 7! Of course, Gilchrist’s greatest talent was to counter attack so even if a side thought they were on top having gotten rid of the first 5 wickets without much damage this man would stride to the crease and more often that not turn the game in his team’s favour which is exactly why he occupies the number 7 spot in my team.

He played many great and painful innings vs England over the years, flaying our bowlers to all parts of the ground with an uncanny knack of being able to hit the ball through exactly the area where our hapless captains had just moved a man from in the hope of plugging another gap in the field.

Gilchrist was really a man ahead of his time. Not only did he change the way most Test nations view the keeper batsman role with everyone beginning to look for players who could average 40+ with the bat and keep wicket, he was also perfectly made for the T20 era albeit that he came along 10-15 years too early to really take advantage of it.

Shane Warne

Again it’s difficult to like Warne when you’ve watched him so routinely torment the side that you support but he is without doubt one of the greatest cricketers and competitors in sport in general that has ever lived and in that sense ended up being a very easy pick. What is more, Warne is a magnificent innovator and thinker on the game of cricket, bringing the art of leg spin which was dead outside the subcontinent by the early 90s back to life. Much like Gilchrist, once Warne broke onto the scene almost every other nation was left playing catch-up as they sort to find a wrist spinner who could win them matches on his own.

Despite his off-field antics I’ve always quite liked Warne the man. There is at least an honesty about his character and while that might not have always translated into professionalism during his career it undoubtedly contributed to the aura that he held over opposition batsmen which was just as effective as any of his variations or ripping leg-breaks. Warne also wasn’t a bad number 8 although he holds the unenviable record of having scored the most Test runs without scoring a hundred. Add to that his catching at slip and you’ve got a pretty decent all-rounder.

I was also lucky enough to meet and face Shane Warne in the nets once, a story you can read about here

Zaheer Khan

I’d like a left-armer in my side and there have been a few high quality ones with the likes of Mitchell Johnson and Wasim Akram very strong candidates but I’ve gone for Zaheer Khan because of the tremendous amount of skill that he had with ball even when playing in conditions that didn’t always favour seamers which was often the case during his career playing in India. These days the Indian authorities have realised that to compete outside the sub-continent they have to produce wickets at home that give seamers something to work with so you can only imagine how many more wickets he might have added to his tally of 311 Test victims if he were coming through the ranks now.

I remember the 2011 India tour of England which saw the number 1 ranked team in the world (India) take on the number 2 ranked team in the world (England). On the first morning of the first Test Zaheer was all over the English top order dismissing both Cook and Strauss cheaply and bowling 13.3 overs for just 18 runs before limping off injured. England would go onto to whitewash India 4-0 and claim the number 1 ranking but I often wonder whether we might have at least seen a more competitive series had Zaheer have been fit to lead the Indian attack.

Curtly Ambrose

One of my cricketing heroes and in fact the man I wanted to be when I grew-up! It broke my heart when my mum told me I wasn’t tall enough or black enough to be the next Curtly Ambrose.

Like any great fast bowler, Ambrose hated batsmen. A mild mannered man off the pitch and all fire and brimstone on it again he was a player that captivated me during the 1992/93 tour of Australia bowling with pace, bounce and a tremendous amount of skill to run through the Australian batting line-up a couple of times. It was difficult to leave out the likes of Glenn McGrath given his record but I couldn’t name a best XI without big Curtly.

Waqar Younis

What a bowler this guy was and in partnership with Wasim Akram they just used to terrorise sides. Famed most of all for his in-swinging yorker, I think the best thing about it was that batsmen knew it was coming and yet it was still such a good delivery that they couldn’t do anything about it. What I like about Waqar and indeed a lot of sub-continent bowlers is their ability to get the ball to move even when it’s old and scuffed up. Indeed, you could argue that Waqar was a better bowler when the ball did reverse and for that reason I feel like he compliments the other quicks in this side very well giving me options regardless of the conditions and match situation.

Posted as part of the 22yards writing initiative

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