11 for all formats
Sukumar Ranganathan -
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 4:56 PM
Reuters has an interesting story on Virender Sehwag today. It quotes an article by former New Zealand cricketer Martin Crowe that says: "Given his innings in test cricket, triple hundreds, exploits in Twenty20s and, obviously, one-dayers, he continues to defy really what batsmen have been trying to do for ages."
The reference -- what batsmen have been trying to do for ages -- is to the ability to play and dominate all forms of the game. And it isn't a challenge restricted to batsmen alone -- bowlers face it too.
Indeed, several experts and cricketers have said that countries will probably need to have three different teams for the three formats: test cricket, one-day cricket, and Twenty20 with few overlaps.
I am not convinced about that.
From the players I have watched (in person or on TV) I set out to pick a World XI that could play all three forms of the game, and probably win most of the matches it played.
That wasn't very difficult.
For the record, I'd pay money to watch any of these guys.
1. Virender Sehwag
2. Gordon Greenidge
3. Aravinda de Silva
4. Derek Randall
5. Kevin Pietersen
6. Adam Gilchrist
7. Andrew Flintoff
8. Imran Khan
9. Wasim Akram
10. Shane Warne
11. Michael Holding