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[Manormanic]

Leading on from the Greatest T20 side,I thought it might be time to do the "greatest team ever" debate.  I'm going to limit this one to player who have played a substantial amount of their cricket after World War II so that we are talking about players of whom we will at least have seen reasonable quality TV footage.

[The_Bird]

I'll throw Barry Richards name into the hat,

http://youtu.be/XyHvFArouAM

Quote from Cricinfo

'In a nutshell No other cricketer made such an impact, and gave rise to such speculation of what he might have been, in a career of four Tests. Nine hundreds before lunch and 1000 runs in a season 15 times in first-class cricket add to his legend.'

[Manormanic]

Gordon Greenidge used to say that Richards was a better batsman than him, which is saying something...

[charlie15]

Sir Garfield Sobers, need I say anymore!

[Manormanic]

Sir Garfield Sobers, need I say anymore!

well, another ten names would help...

[The_Bird]

Here's mine,

1.Gordon Greenidge
2.Sunil Gavaskar
3.Sachin Tendulkar
4.Barry Richards
5.Viv Richards
6.Jacques Kallis
7.Adam Gilchrist
8.Malcolm Marshall
9.Shane Warne
10.Dennis Lillee
11.Glenn McGrath

12.Brian Lara
13.Murali

[Manormanic]

This is really, really tricky because you have to consider how you want to view the "great" batsmen of the last fifteen years with their possibly inflated averages against guys who gutted it out against the amazing bowling attacks of the 70s and 90s.  You also have to consider how you want to balance your side because there are so many all rounders who you could consider; Sobers is an obvious one - a lock as a batsman but a perfectly serviceable front line bowler to boot but it gets more difficult when you look at someone like Imran who is not one of the six best batsmen or four best bowlers, but as a package is something special.  Then you have the issues of the great South African side of the 70s that barely played test cricket - would Pollock, Proctor, Rice and Richards be your choices without knowing how they eventually did? 

Oddly, there are a lot of candidates for some places (fast bowlers, numbers four, five, six) but relatively few top order candidates...

[Alvaro]

1. Gavaskar
2. Greenidge
3. Greg Chappell
4. Graeme Pollock
5. Zaheer Abbas
6. Keith Miller
7. Garfield Sobers
8. Imran Khan*
9. Alan Knott
10. Shane Warne
11. DK Lillee

How did I forget IVA and Malcolm Marshall!
Zaheer would have to go. And maybe Imran. Warne to captain.

[Manormanic]

Okay, so I've got to the stage where I have a fifteen man squad I'm happy with:

Batsmen: Gordon Greenidge, Geoffry Boycott, Graeme Pollock, Viv Richards, Gary Sobers, Greg Chappell, Steve Waugh

Wicketkeeper: Adam Gilchrist

All Rounder: Imran Khan

Spinners: Shane Warne, Bishden Bedi

Pace Bowlers: Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Freddie Trueman, Wasim Akram

The last one was much the hardest - I felt bad leaving Alan Donald, Dennis Lillee, Andy Roberts, Richard Hadlee and Curtley Ambrose out...

[Manormanic]

As a final XI, I think I'd go for:

Greenidge
Boycott
Pollock
Richards
Sobers
Khan
Gilchrist
Warne
Marshall
Trueman
Holding

[Buzz]

Boycott?? he isn't even the best opener to play for England Yorkshire, let alone the world...

Further again Bradman played after the war, so can be picked...

[Manormanic]

Boycott?? he isn't even the best opener to play for England, let alone the world...

Further again Bradman played after the war, so can be picked...

I discounted him on the basis that he played the vast majority of his cricket before the war (only three series, one of them the Victory Tests, afterward - for the same reason I didn't go for Len Hutton, who would otherwise open the batting.

As for Sir Geoffry, a bit of a private joke there I'm afraid!

[alba caerulea]

Here's mine,

1.Gordon Greenidge
2.Sunil Gavaskar
3.Sachin Tendulkar
4.Barry Richards
5.Viv Richards
6.Jacques Kallis
7.Adam Gilchrist
8.Malcolm Marshall
9.Shane Warne
10.Dennis Lillee
11.Glenn McGrath

12.Brian Lara
13.Murali

Barry Richards didn't score 100s before lunch batting at 4 

[The_Bird]

Barry Richards didn't score 100s before lunch batting at 4 

the other openers just nicked the two spots with 53 test match centuries between them

[trypewriter]

I'd pick Colin Milburn as an opener