Who's in your "All Time XI"?

[Aislabie]

So this used to be one of the most common discussions on any cricket forum, but after a while it kind of died out. So I'd like to open up the conversation again in the form of almost a writing prompt.

The scenario is that you're a video game developer and you've got to put together an "All Time XI" squad like the "Classic XI" you'd get on Brian Lara cricket. Your squad must contain 18 players (probably a bit arbitrary, but I'm sticking with it), it must contain no current players, and it must be a squad for all formats (you can specify your desired XIs for each format too if you want).

It's up to you whether you want to go all-out and pick the best possible team, a team of the most "legendary" players, or by some other criteria of your choosing. But the task is to create an All Time XI!

(I'll put mine together with a write-up, but it might take me the rest of the evening.)

 

[Till Valhalla]

must contain no current players

I was going to post it but this stops me as Shahid Afridi still plays.

 

[CerealKiller]

I was going to post it but this stops me as Shahid Afridi still plays.

Sindh Premier League is truly blessed to have him

 

[ahmedleo414]

This is my all time favorite 11 (plus 7), these are all players I've watched play

1. Ijaz Ahmed (I tried to model my batting stance after him)
2. Wasim Akram
3. Shane Warne
4. Murali
5. Ricky Ponting
6. Sachin Tendulkar
7. Jacques Kallis
8. Brian Lara
9. Allan Donald
10. Curtley Ambrose
11. Adam Gilchrist
12. Sanath Jayasuriya
13. Arjuna Ranatunga
14. Saqlain Mushtaq
15. Rahul Dravid
16. Anil Kumble
17. Saeed Anwar
18. Abdul Razzaq

 

[Till Valhalla]

This is my all time favorite 11 (plus 7), these are all players I've watched play

1. Ijaz Ahmed (I tried to model my batting stance after him)
2. Wasim Akram
3. Shane Warne
4. Murali
5. Ricky Ponting
6. Sachin Tendulkar
7. Jacques Kallis
8. Brian Lara
9. Allan Donald
10. Curtley Ambrose
11. Adam Gilchrist
12. Sanath Jayasuriya
13. Arjuna Ranatunga
14. Saqlain Mushtaq
15. Rahul Dravid
16. Anil Kumble
17. Saeed Anwar
18. Abdul Razzaq

Nice batting order.

 

[ahmedleo414]

Nice batting order.

I mean they're in the order that I remembered them in, I'm sure I can put them in a specific ordered if I was actually making a team with them. But these are all the players that I grew up watching in the 90s and loved watching

 

[Bevab]

I was going to post it but this stops me as Shahid Afridi still plays.

I’m a time-traveller from 2050 and this is still true so we may never see your post.

 

[Aislabie]

Okay so this took me a little longer than anticipated because I had to spreadsheet it and then I had to make artwork for my team. Anyway, here is my squad:

	Test XI	ODI XI	T20 XI
1	WG Grace	Sachin Tendulkar	Virender Sehwag
2	Virender Sehwag	Adam Gilchrist	Sachin Tendulkar
3	Don Bradman	Don Bradman	Viv Richards
4	Sachin Tendulkar	Viv Richards	AB de Villiers
5	Garry Sobers	AB de Villiers	Garry Sobers
6	Imran Khan	Imran Khan	Mike Procter
7	Adam Gilchrist	Mike Procter	Wasim Akram
8	Shane Warne	Wasim Akram	Daniel Vettori
9	Malcolm Marshall	Shane Warne	Jack Russell
10	Muttiah Muralitharan	Muttiah Muralitharan	Shane Warne
11	Glenn McGrath	Glenn McGrath	Lasith Malinga

So the first thing I will say is that selecting just 18 players to represent the entire history of cricket across three formats was incredibly difficult. It took me a couple of hours and a very beaten-up spreadsheet before I settled on a squad I was happy with. So, working through those players:

• WG Grace (Test #1) - "The Doctor" is quite simply the father of cricket. He turned the sport from a relatively niche pastime into a national obsession, and he did so by being the best cricketer in the world for a sustained period of about 30 years. There were years where he made more first-class centuries than every other player combined. He was also an enormous bellend, as I think most of us would if we found ourselves with such status.
• Virender Sehwag (Test #2, T20 #1) - Sehwag is probably the greatest match-winning opening batter in cricket history. He didn't just average 50 as an opening batter, he did it in the most dominant way cricket has ever seen. Bowlers feared him, especially off-spinners, and when T20 cricket came along late in his career he was a perfect fit.
• Don Bradman (Test #3, ODI #3) - 99.94. The most famous number in cricket, possibly in sports. Bradman had finished his career long before one-day cricket was invented, but if he had been then he'd have been the perfect batter there too. The obvious choice as our Test captain; they weren't called The Invincibles for nothing.
• Sachin Tendulkar (Test #4, ODI #1, T20 #2) - One of only two players to make my team in all formats, Tendulkar has one of the most complete bodies of work of any modern cricketer. Slotting him into the T20 side is perhaps a bit of a stretch given that his record in that format is quite average, but had he been able to play it at his peak I expect it would have been quite different.
• Viv Richards (ODI #4, T20 #3) - Viv just narrowly missed out on Test selection as well, but his power game in one-day cricket was so far ahead of his peers as to be faintly ridiculous. When you dig into his stats, he was quite literally the Bradman of one-day cricket and deserves to be recognised as such.
• AB de Villiers (ODI #5, T20 #4) - The original 360-degree player, AB de Villiers at number five in ODIs is genuinely the best anyone has ever been at any batting position, in any format of cricket. He almost certainly also gets to field as 12th man in the Test side because he was also just that good in the field.
• Garry Sobers (Test #5, T20 #5) - It was between Viv or Sobers for the number five slot in Tests, but Sobers just edges it both for how prolific he was with the bat, and the extra balance he can lend the team with the ball if needed. His six-hitting prowess was also far ahead of his time, and I think that skill-set helps him fit into the T20 XI as well despite his career finishing long before the format was even thought of.
• Adam Gilchrist (Test #7, ODI #2) - Adam Gilchrist changed the game in terms of the standards and impact expected from a wicket-keeper. He was an automatic pick in both his preferred Test and ODI roles, where his explosive batting and world class glovework made him one of the game's great all-rounders.
• Jack Russell (T20 #9) - In my opinion the best pure gloveman in cricket history, Russell has to make the cut here. It's difficult to squeeze him into any team that already has Gilchrist in, but fortunately that's why god invented all-rounders. He slots into the T20 side at number nine, playing strictly as a specialist. I want to imagine him standing up to the stumps against Mike Procter.
• Imran Khan (Test #6, ODI #6) - I consider Imran Khan to be cricket's greatest-ever all-rounder; his statistical record, especially in the second half of his career speaks for itself. His inspirational leadership (cricketing leadership, not political leadership - I don't know nearly enough about that to form an opinion) will also be of huge benefit to the ODI team.
• Mike Procter (ODI #7, T20 #6) - One of cricket's biggest "What if?"s is what might have been if Mike Procter hadn't lost out on his international career. The consummate one-day bowler, he would keep Joel Garner out of my team in this format. His batting is another boon: 48 first-class centuries don't come cheap, even if six of them did come in consecutive innings.
• Wasim Akram (ODI #8, T20 #7) - Only the presence of Malcolm Marshall was enough to keep Wasim Akram out of the Test XI, but his one-day skills are also the stuff of legend. And again, we're only talking about his bowling here: with the bat he was also the biggest six-hitter of his era and boasts a Test-best of 257 not out. Cricket's greatest ever left-arm bowler.
• Malcolm Marshall (Test #9) - It would be extremely difficult to pick an all-time Test XI and not include Malcolm Marshall in it. No bowler in the last 100 years has taken even half as many Test wickets as Marshall's 374 at a better average than his 20.94. His control over length, line, pace, swing and movement off the pitch made him the complete bowler.
• Glenn McGrath (Test #11, ODI #11) - In many ways, McGrath was the opposite of Marshall: tall and operating at a less than express pace, McGrath's game was built around doing one thing and simply doing it really well. He certainly did that, dismantling the techniques of all the best batters to cross his path.
• Lasith Malinga (T20 #11) - It was a slightly left-field choice for an all-time XI to include Malinga, but his ability to do something completely unique with his round-arm action and to do it with complete effectiveness make him a legend of the shortest format. He had to make the cut.
• Daniel Vettori (T20 #8) - The second straight player to make the squad for their T20 prowess alone, Vettori's supreme accuracy meant that throughout his T20 career batters simply couldn't score off him. He also has the most international wickets of any left-arm spinner, and like most of my bowlers could also bat very well.
• Shane Warne (Test #8, ODI #9, T20 #10) - The second of my two all-format players, Warne is almost personally responsible for leg-spin bowling being what it is today. The highlights packages show the flashy stuff - the big turn, ripping leg-breaks, subtle variations, and the grin that dared the batter to get himself out. His cricket brain was world-class too, and his place as T20 captain is a nod to his success with the Rajasthan Royals.
• Muttiah Muralitharan (Test #10, ODI #10) - Murali was to off-spin what Warne was to leg-spin, but with a catch: suspicions of throwing never stopped following Murali around throughout his career, no matter how many laboratory tests he submitted himself to that proved his action was legal and that his elbow simply wasn't able to straighten. The man himself is a cricket and movie nerd, and undoubtedly the most normal man ever to take 800 Test wickets - not least because nobody else has ever done it.

Wow that was a big effort-post. I hope I've not overwhelmed everybody with that. I was genuinely shocked by how many of my chosen players are very recent indeed, but I think that reflects just how much the sport has changed in the past 20 years or so.

I hope you all enjoyed it!

 

[Aislabie]

Ijaz Ahmed

Imagine turning up to watch the greatest cricket XI of all time, and Ijaz Ahmed wobbles out to open the batting.

 

[icyman]

Ijaz Ahmed (I tried to model my batting stance after him)

Man had a weird stance. His posterior jutted out and was quite prominent. I imagine it would have been difficult in trying to emulate him.

Yet another one with a weird stance was a WI player- I am not able to put a name to the face, but it could have been either Roland Holder /Roger Harper.

 

[ahmedleo414]

His posterior jutted out and was quite prominent.

There have been many a times I had been called out bbw

 

[pillowprocter]

Jack Russell (T20 #9) - In my opinion the best pure gloveman in cricket history,

he was so good at fetching the ball, they named a dog breed after him

 

[icyman]

he was so good at fetching the ball, they named a dog breed after him

Nope, the breed is named after Jack Russell, the dog breeder/hunter and not Jack Russell, the British keeper!

 

[pillowprocter]

Nope, the breed is named after Jack Russell, the dog breeder/hunter and not Jack Russell, the British keeper!

twas merely in jest

 

[Archer6K]

1. Hobbs
2. Sutcliffe
3. Bradman
4. Tendulkar
5. Hutton
6. Sobers
7. Gilchrist
8. Hadlee
9. Marshall
10. McGrath
11. Muralitharan
Not sure how to rate players like Grace and Barnes.