Cricket's greatest XI: Which team would play for pride, with emotion?

For many days now, I have been thinking of what an all-time cricketing World XI would look like. At first, I decided I would pick out the players from our times whose feats I was familiar with. And those I would add to the names, actually only two, whom I had not seen but who everyone agrees are the two best cricketers in history. 

Those two are, of course, Donald Bradman and Garry Sobers, both knighted. Bradman, a right-hander, batted, in this team of mine, at number 3 and Sobers, a leftie, at number 6. Most of us are familiar with the fact that Bradman averaged around 100. Sobers averaged a little under 60 with the bat and a little over 30 with the ball (meaning he gave up on average those many runs each time he took a wicket). 

They are indisputably the world’s greatest batsman and world’s greatest all rounder and so will find their place in anyone’s world XI. So this was easy. Now what? I had a look at my favourite cricketing website Cricinfo’s side, which they put together in 2010. Their team was: Jack Hobbs and Len Hutton opening, Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards and  Sobers in the middle-order, Adam Gilchrist as wicket-keeper and then Malcolm Marshall, Wasim Akram, Dennis Lillee as fast bowlers and Shane Warne as the spinner. 

A few things struck me about this team. The most obvious one was pointed out by the website itself: Tendulkar was then the only current player. Hobbs, an Englishman, who averaged about the same as Sobers, played in the 1920s. Hutton, also an Englishman and also knighted like the others two batted again at an average of 56. He played in the 1940s and 1950s. 

Bradman played in the era between the two, and World War II curtailed his career in terms of the number of matches played substantially. Richards played in the 1970s and 80s, as did Lillee and Marshall. The others, Gilchrist, Akram and Warne are from the modern era. Australia abolished knighthoods some time ago and therefore none of the other Australians except I think Lillee is a “Sir”.

The top half of the main batting line up is from a very different era than ours. How would this affect their playing? Let us, of course, assume that this World XI would be playing in our time. There were some very specific things different in cricket then; to what extent would these matter and change the effectiveness of the players from a different era? The logic of including them, other than their greatness and their averages, is that they were far ahead of the other players of their time, and the others of their time not very different in averages from our time. And so our chosen three were pure geniuses and would have been talented enough to fit in even today. That makes sense but still we must examine the differences. 

The first of these is the wickets, meaning the pitches, and the rules that have changed. 

Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar stride out to bat for the International XI against Pakistan in an earthquake relief fund charity match in 2006. This columnist’s World XI, however, has space only for Lara. Photo: Reuters

Pitches were left uncovered till about half a century ago and so rain would make them more difficult to bat on. All the top three batsmen in that team would be accustomed to playing on surfaces more difficult than the ones the middle order were familiar with. 

Australia used to have eight ball overs till, I think, the late 1970s. This would also matter (you had less of the good bowler to face consecutively and more of the weak one). The rule on bouncers and the one on LBWs has changed and so has the front foot rule for bowling. All these rules help the batsmen. 

Then there have been changes in equipment. These have brought protection and lightness and efficiency, from helmets and guards to pads and bats. Again, all of these would favour the men from an earlier period who batted without them. But then there are also things that would go against them. The modern players would be fitter, trained to have better fielding techniques, equipped with better tactics and, of course, already accustomed to the things that would be new. 

The other thing that occurred to me was: where would this imaginary World XI be playing? If they were at Perth or Lord’s that would be very different from, say, Kolkata or Colombo. The subcontinent’s wickets would take much of the sting out of this fast bowling attack and even an otherwise average batting side could hold their own against this line-up on a totally dead wicket. Warne, the spinner, and Akram, because he is from our parts, would likely be more effective than the others. 

That meant that an imaginary World XI should depend on where its imaginary match would be played. You might want more fast bowlers and no spinner on some tracks and two spinners or even three on others. Similarly, when the match would be played was also important in two different ways. One, what time of the year? Second and more important — at what stage in their playing career would these 11 men be? That would matter. Even Bradman in his 20s was a different player than he was in his final matches. Then there was the matter of form on the day. It isn’t as if Akram always bowled like a dream. He had bad days as did Richards and the rest. 

And then, of course, was the question of who the other side was. Surely that would also affect the team’s composition to some extent.

We now seemed to have covered all the questions. And it was clear that there were too many variables to be able to say with any confidence that any particular side was the all-time-best World XI. 

And then it occurred to me that the most important question had not been asked. And it was: why were these 11 men playing? To what end? What were they playing for? How would they perform not as individual geniuses but as a team? It was obvious that this was actually the most important question. 

This led me to think of the all-time World XI in an entirely different way. The main consideration was: which 11 players would be the best team against any other no matter the conditions? Which team would play for pride and with emotion? The answer now seemed obvious. 

And so my World XI is: Roy Fredericks, Chris Gayle, Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Clive Lloyd, Sobers, Jeff Dujon, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Curtly Ambrose. 

All West Indians, all but one of the top six batters left-handed (it makes a big difference to opposing bowlers) and all with the same lived experience of division and race and pride. 

This, with all its question marks and flaws, was a real team. I would love to see it go up against an imaginary one.