Australian cricket’s best ever team

 
The Crowd Roar Pro

By sheek, 26 Mar 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

Tagged:
 ,

21 Have your say

Related coverage



It’s been a decade since since sixteen eminent Australian ex-cricketers and commentators, plus four international ex-cricketers, selected Australian cricket’s ‘Team Of The Century’.

It was as follows:

Arthur Morris
Bill Ponsford
Don Bradman(c)
Neil Harvey
Greg Chappell
Keith Miller(vc)
Ian Healy(k)
Ray Lindwall
Shane Warne
Dennis Lillee
Bill O’Reilly
Allan Border(12th man)

The SMH ran an accompanying reader’s poll and the team differed slightly.

Trumper, Border and Tallon came into the XI for Ponsford, O’Reilly and Healy, respectively, while Waugh became 12th man. Here is the readers team, with percentages of readers preferences per player:

Arthur Morris – 65%
Victor Trumper – 46% (Ponsford 35%)
Don Bradman (c) – 100%
Neil Harvey – 62%
Greg Chappell – 73%
Allan Border – 58%
Keith Miller – 77%
Don Tallon(k) – 46% (Healy 31%)
Ray Lindwall – 85%
Shane Warne – 69% (O’Reilly 42%)
Dennis Lillee – 100%
Steve Waugh (12th man) – 50%

You will note that only Bradman and Lillee polled 100%, while next popular in order were Lindwall (85%), Miller (77%), G.Chappell (73%), Warne (69%) and Morris (65%).

Other luminaries polled as follows: Benaud, only 19%, Davidson 31%, Grimmett 8%, McGrath 19%.

Nineteenth century heroes Fred Spofforth, Bill Murdoch, Jack Blackham, Charles Turner, Hugh Trumble and George Giffen are all but forgotten (who speaks for them).

Remember, this was January 1999, and Gilchrist had not made his Test debut, while Hayden, Ponting and MacGrath had yet to add value to their illustrious careers.

So, if picking Australian cricket’s greatest ever team in March 2009, how would it differ from 10 years ago?

Well, here’s my team for what it’s worth:

Matt Hayden
Victor Trumper
Don Bradman (c)
Ricky Ponting (vc)
Greg Chappell
Keith Miller
Adam Gilchrist (k)
Ray Lindwall
Shane Warne
Dennis Lillee
Bill O’Reilly
Steve Waugh (12th man)

Okay, before anyone screams “what about McGrath?”, seriously, who are you going to drop out of Lillee or Lindwall?

And “what about Border,” I hear you say? Again, who are you going to drop out of Ponting, Chappell and Waugh?

My team is designed to take on all-comers in all conditions. It has five specialist batsmen, a keeper-batsman and five specialist bowlers (of which Miller is also a specialist bat).

There are three pacemen and two spinners (although both are leggies, they are entirely different types of bowlers). There are two lefties in the top seven (Hayden and Gilchrist).

Backup players for a touring team of 16 would be:

Charlie Macartney – opener and top order cover (also slow left arm spinner)
Ian Healy – backup keeper
Alan Davidson – leftarm pace bowling all-rounder
Glenn McGrath – backup paceman

An all-time second XI would look as follows:

A.Morris, W.Ponsford, C.Macartney, N.Harvey, A.Border (vc), S.Waugh (c), I.Healy (k), A.Davidson, C.Grimmett, F.Spofforth, G.McGrath.

What do Roar readers think?

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

Get a daily cricket email

Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it.

We value privacy. More.