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Taking guard - the first post

After a fair bit of rumination on what the first post on my first personal blog should be about, I decided that it couldn’t be about anything other than my favourite XI. From the time I started following (or obsessing as some would say) about the game, I’ve always made lists of XIs of different kinds. One of the first books on cricket I bought was called ‘The Book of Cricket Lists’ and that was what started me off. Left Handed XIs, Bespectacled XIs, Tomato-hating XIs (ok I made that last one up :-)), but you get the point. So another XI it shall be.

A few notes before I start the list. I’ve restricted the list to players I’ve seen in action, hence the post 1990 bias. Also, these are not necessarily my favourite eleven players of all time. Picking a balanced playing XI necessitates having two openers, three or four middle-order batsmen, a wicketkeeper and four or five bowlers. So within these limitations, these guys are amongst my favourite players. And of course, I’ve picked a Test XI. One-day and T20 are good time-pass but Test cricket is the only consistently fascinating format for me. So without further ado and in batting order, here is my favourite XI (countries in parentheses) –

Mark Taylor (Australia) (captain)
Gary Kirsten (South Africa)
Mohammad Yousuf (Pakistan)
Sachin Tendulkar (India)
Steve Waugh (Australia)
Carl Hooper (West Indies)
Adam Gilchrist (Australia) (wicket-keeper)
Wasim Akram (Pakistan) (vice-captain)
Shane Warne (Australia)
Curtly Ambrose (West Indies)
Allan Donald (South Africa)
12th Man: Jacques Kallis

Had a very hard time picking these guys (and felt really bad leaving out Kallis so I cheated and made him 12th man ;-)). To avoid making this post interminably long, I will not go in to the details of why this XI etc. One thing I will point out is that there are no players from England, New Zealand or Sri Lanka here. The first two of those were consistently poor through the time I’ve seen them and Graham Thorpe and Chris Cairns were the only Pom and Kiwi (respectively) who caught my imagination. As for our southern neighbours, I’ve always loved watching Aravinda de Silva and Mahela Jayawardene but neither of them are opening batsmen and hence couldn’t be fit into my XI.

So, that’s it for this time. I’m going to try and blog at least once a week from now on but we’ll see how long I can keep that up :-) Happy Independence Day!

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