Alan border was our best captain, of the last 40 years, followed by Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and ponting close behind... Strong era we had there..
My best 11 had ambrose and akram and Donald, leading the attack, warnie the spinner.
Sangakkara has to be the keeper I think, 12000 runs at an average of 57..Middle order of Lara Sachin and kallis. Ponting at 3 Hayden and dravid as the openers...
Hayden
Dravid
Ponting
Lara
Tendulkar
Kallis
Sangakkara
Akram
Warne
Ambrose
Donald
My team will always have 2 players fixed, Donald Bradman(best batsman) and Jacques Kallis(best all rounder).
As the Don comes in at 3 Ricky automatically goes out.
Most difficult to choose are the fast bowlers and the openers.
For the openers based on average I wanted to pick Jack Hobbs and Leonard Hutton of England. Both averaging 56+ as openers. What the hell!!!
Gavaskar and Hayden both average 50.
But I haven't seen Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Hutton bat so I will just stick to Gavaskar and maybe Hayden. Another choice could have been Sehwag. But he fails miserably in English and South African conditions.
While Gavaskar is super strong almost everywhere. I want Hayden to be there just coz of the explosiveness. He too has a bad record in English conditions. After giving it a second thought it seems to me that SIR Don can provide me with the needed explosiveness at no. 3. Don't need an opener for that. Afterall Don's the only one to score 300+ in a freaking day. So instead of Hayden I will choose Dravid as my number 2 coz he has a spotless record in England and almost everywhere except SA.
1st will be Gavaskar.
2nd is Dravid.
3rd is Don.
4th is Tendulkar.
5th goes to Lara.
6th to Kallis.
7th to Sanga.
8th Hadlee.
9th Warne.
10th Marshall.
11th Akram.
There are so many great fast bowlers. So few places. Honourable Mentions: McGrath, Steyn, Anderson, Donald, Lillee and the other West Indies greats.
12th Ambrose(in case you want to intimidate the batsmen).
13th Ponting(in case one of the batsmen gets injured).
14th Murlidharan(in case Subcontinent happens).
15th Ian Botham(in case Kallis gets injured). Wanted to have Gilchrist here in case Sanga gets injured but Dravid can pitch in if Sanga gets injured.
So we have the best leg spinner and the best off spinner with us. Fast bowlers who can ball all kinds of swing bowling be it outswing, inswing or reverse swing. Ambrose and Malcolm with the bouncer and the slower one. Then there's the two best all rounders ever. And a batting line up headed by the Don. What else does one want?