Are you actually mental? Hobbs not good enough?
1st XI:
Sir Jack Hobbs
Herbert Sutcliffe
Sir Donald Bradman
Greg Chappell
Steve Waugh
Keith Miller
Ian Botham
Alan Knott +
Shane Warne
Sydney Barnes
Glenn McGrath
2nd XI:
Len Hutton
Victor Trumper
Ricky Ponting
Wally Hammond
Ken Barrington
Allan Border
Andrew Flintoff
Adam Gilchrist +
Dennis Lillee
Fred Trueman
Jim Laker
I never said Hobbs was not good enough in general. I specifically said he isn't good enough to be the 1st XI/best ever Ashes XI. Clear difference.
When picking these XIs as i always say. People need to decide if they are picking wall of fame XIs or XIs for serious hypotetical match-ups. If its a wall of fame XI, then Barnes, Trumper, Hobbs would always be picked given the impact they had on the game.
But if we are considering a serious hypotetical match-ups, then picking such players becomes a serious problem. Reasons being because all pre-war batsmen for me except of Bradman, Hammond, Headley (McCabe to a level) are questionable. Given that they played in a era of where quality fast-bowling/90 mph bowling was non existant & pitches where flat. Compared to post war batsmen (1945-1999 mainly) who had to deal with those type of bowling & less flat pitches in general.
Theirfore picking them/him (Hobbs, Trumper & Sutcliffe) in these hypotetical Ashes XI, England All-time XI or even world XI & expecting him to do well is to big of stretch for me, given he never faced anything remotely close to quality bowling consistently, that the likes of Gooch, Boycott, Hutton, Gavaskar. They become serious achillies heels in your team, since they would need time to adjust & could very well & fail.
Thus i prefer to go for & open with the likes of Gooch, Boycott, Hutton, Gavaskar in such teams, given they faced such bowling that would be present in these hypotetical matchups & would be able to adapt to type of quality pace bowling far more quickly.
Same thinggoes for bowlers like Barnes, Lohmann, Blythe etc. They had the unfair advantage of having to bowl on uncovered wickets back then. In these hypotetical match-ups where UCW would not be used, to expect them to bowl well to batsmen of the calibre of Bradman, Tendulkar, Richards, Sobers, Ponting normal wickets & be equallly effective is naive IMO. You just have to look @ how the great Derek Underwood lost some of effectiveness when UCWs ceased to exist in the 1970s, to know that adjustment would be super hard.
Lillee, Lindwall, Trueman, Snow, Statham, Larwood, Davidson should all be picked ahead of Barnes in any Ashes XI.
