Good Areas, Work Hard, Keep It Simple

As I was eating lunch, I was pondering what would be the best Test XI you could pick from all the current Test players. So I thought I'd give it a go (you may have noticed, I love selecting hypothetical teams).

The first opening slot would without a doubt go to Virender Sehwag. He's an artist in his savagery. Picking his partner was a bit harder. For pure entertainment, I'd like Chris Gayle there. But if we wanted to win, I'd want the chemistry Gotham Gambhir provides.

Some see first-drop as the most important position. It may be. Usually I'd say Ricky Ponting, but he hasn't done anything of late to really warrant that. I could have also gone for King Kumar, but there's one player that interests me more. Hashim Amla scored an ass load of runs against England, and according to JRod, he could be the next batting powerhouse.

The number four slot was the hardest spot. The names Hussey, Tendulkar, Kallis and Jayawardene are thrown around. However the winner is Kevin Pietersen. His rise has been as great to watch as his batting. And now he's captaining his adopted country, it's a fairy tale is what it is.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul occupies the number five spot. His batting is just immense. Not pretty, but effective.

The all-rounder's spot, or the counter attacker's, was a fun one to pick. This is basically the person who brings in the most crowds and empties the most bars. de Villier's I like but it's a straight shoot-out between Flintoff and Symonds. This isn't actually an easy decision. Symo is clearly the better batsman but Flintoff is a very good bowler. Symo offers more in the field though, and this team is short of fielding expertise. So the nod goes to Andrew Symonds.

The wicket-keeper. It'd be Dhoni, except I don't really like him. And since I'm picking this team, that's a good enough reason to exclude him. So the next clear option is Brendon McCullum, our favourite Kiwi.

It's always hard to pick the bowlers. To make it easier, we'll pretend it is an absolute road of a pitch. So if that is the case, the men I'd want throwing the ball down would be Ishant Sharma, Dale Steyn, Ajantha Mendis and Shoaib Akhtar. Sharma and Mendis explain themselves. I would have preferred Bond over Steyn but Mr Modi doesn't like those ICL kids, Asif also fits into this category. And I picked Shoaib because he is my favouritest fast bowler in the world. Half because of his talent, the other half because of the sideshow he provides.

And that is the team. The captain? The only current captain in the team is Pietersen, but he doesn't really count as a captain yet. But it was never really a question, my favourite captain that isn't actually a captain is Virender Sehwag, and he gets to wear the (proverbial) captain's armband.

Now I am much too lazy to look around if anyone has noticed but does anyone else find it weird that Matthew Hayden is facing the first ball of the innings? For most of his career he has been down the other end while Langer did it, and now Jaques. But it seems Katich has usurped the sissy role from him and he has been forced to take on a little bit of respnosibility.

And the result? He's been dismissed in the first over twice in this Test series. For goodness sake Katto, let the baby have his bottle.

Labels: hayden