The Bestest

A cricket post after quite long.
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Some days ago, I undertook the arduous task of picking a team of the greatest eleven from a century-and-a-quarter of Test Cricket. The task was made trickier by a shortlist of eighty-eight players who made their country elevens. Sanath Jayasuriya was available for selection, but not Herbert Sutcliffe or WG Grace, Chaminda Vaas was there, but no Courtney Walsh or Joel Garner, Prasanna wasn't allowed, while Underwood was. You could argue, of course, that if a player didn't make his country eleven without question, he can't be on the all-time eleven. But logic and all-time lists aren't happy bedfellows. You compare and choose players you haven't even seen. I know Sachin's genius like I will never know Hammond's or Ponsford's. Yet, I have to select one. Similarly, I am forced to give some weight to Sobers' pronouncement on Subash "Fergie" Gupte's genius even though I've never seen him bowl. Statistics guide me, yes, but ultimately, it is a gut-feeling. No, a guess.

For the first opener, I can't look beyond Jack Hobbs. Amongst the early masters of batting, three names stand out the most influential - Grace, Ranji and Hobbs. Grace was the first to develop back-foot and front-foot play - a child learns these osmotically today by just watching people around him bat. Ranji showed the world the art of leg-side play and wrist work. But it was Hobbs who mastered all these principles of batting. He was the coaching manual. A question remains - which Hobbs am I picking - the early, Trumperesque Hobbs, or the post-war Jedi? I don't really know. I'm okay with either. Opening with Hobbs, I would have loved Sutcliffe - Hobbs' long-time collaborator at Surrey and England, and an expert on batting on unplayable wet wickets. His sixty-plus average is still the highest for an opener with over 4000 runs. But the England eleven went for the other stalwart, Len Hutton instead. So, I chose the greatest modern opener to partner Hobbs - Virender Sehwag. If Hobbs conquered the complex art of batting, Sehwag simplifies it. Which is why I think they would make such a great pair - at one end, you would have the calm, solid, immovable genius, and at the other end, an edgy, unpredictable, frightening one. For the record, Hutton and Gavaskar were probably better batsmen than Sehwag, simply because they played against much fiercer bowling in more difficult conditions. But I'm choosing a pair of openers, and not the two best. Which is why Sehwag makes it.

In the middle order, Don Bradman is a no brainer. Critics say that the bowling he faced wasn't as good, the fielding was poorer and he played all his cricket only against three teams, but ignore the fact that there were uncovered pitches, primitive protective gear, inferior bats. I think if you made adjustments for all this with a sophisticated statistics model, you would find that Bradman's record would remain untarnished. No batsman has ever scored even nearly as heavily, consistently and quickly as Bradman. He's in at No. 3. George Headley, the "Black Bradman" is the second middle order batsman. The first great black West Indian batsman, he played only twenty-odd Test Matches, but scored runs at an average of over 60 in a batting line-up where he accounted for nearly half the team's output. Until the Ws made their appearance, Headley was the West Indies' only world-class batsman. Batting in an order like that would have had an effect on his batting, as he found himself battling with the tail very quickly. Still, he managed that average, that record and had such an impact on the game that his loving fans described Bradman as the "White Headley", and Ramachandra Guha describes him as the greatest West Indian batsman ever - even above Lara and Richards.

Arguably, the most complete cricketer of all time, Sobers was born to play the game. He was one of the greatest batsmen of all time, he could bowl spin and medium pace and was a great fielder. He walks into the team as a batsman and an extra bowler. So far, the middle order has selected itself. Now comes the difficult part - picking one between Lara, the two Richards (Viv and Barry), Chappell, Hammond and Tendulkar - a list so diverse and distinguished that it would be criminal to leave anyone out. Ultimately, I went for the most complete batsmen I've seen - one of those guesses - and chose Sachin Tendulkar. For all the allegations on not finishing games, or scoring against weaker teams, Sachin Tendulkar remains the purest, most selfless, most beautiful, batsman of the last two decades. He has invented shots - the guide over the slip cordon, that perfect straight bat while playing the paddle sweep behind the keeper, that cover-drive on the up, or those million ways in which he manufactures singles of absolutely any ball.

This brings us to the wicketkeeper. When the batting line-up has Hobbs, Sehwag, Bradman, Headley, Sobers and Sachin, the wicketkeeper need not be a great batsman. Even as far as wicketkeeper batsmen go, Andy Flower, whose batting I rate higher than Gilchrist or Sangakkara is not available. When I chose the list on cricinfo, I picked Sangakkara. But after some research, I'd rather go with Alan Knott, who stands up there with the most skillful keepers of all time. Knott's art came to the forefront when he stood up to Underwood on wet wickets in the County circuit, when each ball had a mind of its own, and Knott still managed to collect them noiselessly. When you have Sydney Barnes swinging and spinning at the same time, and Muralitharan flummoxing batsmen with his doosra, there better be a keeper who can keep pace with what is thrown at him - the batsman isn't going to touch much.

This leaves us with the bowlers. The combination I prefer is two quicks and two spinners with Sobers bowling according to the pitch, and Tendulkar pitching in if another hand is required. Malcolm Marshall, with his extreme speed, skid, seam, swerve, swing and smartness picks himself. He was the greatest fast bowler of them all - at an unconventional five-feet-ten, and a bustling open-chested action, he could decimate batting orders. Ask England - he bowled once with his left hand fractured and still destroyed them. Just like Ranji invented leg-side play and changed the way the game was played, the Pakistani quartet of Nawaz, Imran, Akram and Younis rejuvenated old-ball bowling with reverse swing. The most skilled of that lot was Akram, bowling with the cleanest of actions and doing things with the ball that pacemen before and after him have only dreamt of. Plus, he adds left-arm variety to the attack.

Sydney Barnes was an unclassifiable bowler. He bowled a cocktail of swing, seam and spin - it was hard to tell one from another. He bowled at a Kumble-esque pace, and made turned the ball as much as O'Reilly or Warne. When someone remarked that O'Reilly was a better bowler because he bowled the googly, Barnes said, "I didn't need to." A temperamental character, he once bowled badly because his captain refused to give him the new ball. He skipped a Test Match because the English Board refused to pay for his wife's accommodation. The reason he makes it here, quite apart from his incredible numbers, is because for three generations (he played cricket for almost forty years), batsmen said he was the greatest of them all. The slot for the second spinner is a toss up between the game's two most successful - Warne and Muralitharan. Arguably, Warne was more skilful, while Murali was more successful. Warne bowled, very often, when teams had been softened by McGrath and Gillespie before him. Murali bowled when batsmen were well warmed up. Warne bowled in spinner-unfriendly, bouncy Australian tracks, but Murali bowled on pitches that were built for him. The litmus test, for me, is how they fared against the best players of spin of their generation. On this analysis, Warne, for all his wizardry, comes a distant second. Murali might not have murdered India like he did England, but he did trouble India more than any other spinner had done since Richie Benaud. Murali, in one sense, was like George Headley - he was the only world-class bowler amongst a string of also-rans. He had more opportunities, therefore, but he had more pressure as well. He rose to the challenge and ended up as the greatest matchwinner of all time. For that, he makes it as my No. 11. (This is also a change from the selection I made on cricinfo.)

The team, in batting order:
Jack Hobbs, Virender Sehwag, Don Bradman, George Headley, Sachin Tendulkar, Gary Sobers, Alan Knott, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall, Muttiah Muralitharan, Sydney Barnes.
Twelfth Man - Sunil Gavaskar. (If the pitch is difficult, or the opposing team has West Indian fast bowlers of the 80s, Gavaskar sneaks in ahead of Sehwag.)