Friday, November 30, 2012

A dream of a DREAM XI

I thought of taking a little break from analyzing India – England series. For a change, I wanted to do something different. At the same time I don’t wish to do anything far from cricket.

Here, we go!!!
In today’s cricket world, it’s a growing concern that there is a dearth of all-round cricket talents. After Kallis and Watson, I really don’t know if there are any all-round cricketers in near vicinity. It was not too far (may be it is too far now) when a South African side featured McMillan, Cronje, Pat Symcox and Kallis in the same line up. Even after the exit of McMillan and Cronje, cricketers like Klusener, Pollock kept emerging. The South African cliché spread its wings to the rest of the cricket world. When teams could not unearth all-round talent from their system, the exploration continued in their own pool. The names like Mark Waugh, Prabhakar, DeSilva, Tendulkar, Warne, Bevan, Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh etc., for their contributions outside their specialist skills are more an offspring of this discovery.

In the 90’s, the importance of being an allround cricketer was felt in the wicketkeeper role too. As a result, the Gilchrists replaced Healys and the Dhonis replaced Mongias with time. Ultimately, the Bouchers, Moin Khans, Sangakaras became the new order of wicket keeping world.

So much happened in the past and so much the impact these all-rounders made, it is so much a surprise that all-rounders are a rare breed again.

I now come back to the exercise I began. I’m compiling a list of genuine all-rounders I’ve enjoyed watching over the years and selecting my dream XI from there. Feel free to join the fun. You have the comments sections to share your XI.

Australia
Steve Waugh, Shane Watson, Adam Gilchrist

England
Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff, Alec Stewart

South Africa
Brian McMillan, Hansie Cronje, Jacques Kallis, Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher

India
Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Manoj Prabhakar, Mahindra Singh Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Ashwin

Sri Lanka
Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumara Sangakara

New Zealand
Chris Cairns, Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Adam Parore

West Indies
Carl Hooper, Jimmy Adams

Pakistan
Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Moin Khan

Zimbabwe
Andy Flower

My Dream All-Rounders XI

1. Shane Watson
2. Sanath Jayasuriya
3. Kumara Sangakara
4. Jacques Kallis
5. Steve Waugh
6. Adam Gilchrist (WK)
7. Imran Khan (Captain)
8. Wasim Akram
9. Carl Hooper
10. Chris Cairns
11. Daniel Vettori

The order of XI defines their specialist role despite them being allrounders. More than the playing XI, choosing the captain was a tough call. Between Steve Waugh and Imran, I tilted towards Imran.

Bottom line: Not sure, somebody started watching cricket from now will be able to build an All-rounders XI, 25 years later. I wish them all the best.

Dinesh
Cricket Lover

PS: The 1983 World Cup winning Indian Team side was mostly made of all-rounders.

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