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English cricket fans just picked their all-time best XI and it's absolutely ridiculous

(Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Expert
31st July, 2018
62

Oh dear. England. What are you doing?

The ECB have allowed the fans to choose their all-time best XI and, to put it bluntly, it’s way off the mark.

Before we go any further, here is the team.

1. Alastair Cook
2. Leonard Hutton
3. David Gower
4. Kevin Pietersen
5. Joe Root
6. Ian Botham
7. Alan Knott (wk)
8. Graeme Swann
9. Fred Trueman
10. James Anderson
11. Bob Willis

That team is quite unbelievable, leaving out some of the greatest players to ever step foot on a cricket field.

How five players from the modern era, three of whom haven’t even finished their career yet, made the cut is beyond belief. Alastair Cook, Joe Root and James Anderson are still going about their business for the English national team. As we speak, the trio are getting ready for the first Test against India.

Let’s just repeat that.

Out of 999 Test matches (their 1,000th starts tonight against India), spanning 686 players, three out of the 11 ready to take on India are in their top XI and two have only retired in the last couple of years.

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This isn’t a golden stretch for English cricket by any stretch of the imagination either.

That tells you all you need to know about this team.

Credit where it’s due, all three have been incredible servants of English cricket and have good numbers to go with it, but for all three to be named doesn’t make sense.

In saying that, Cook is the highest run-scorer in English cricket history at Test level with 12,145 runs to his name and an average of 45.65 as it stands. But is he really better than Jack Hobbs, he of the 199 first-class centuries, 61,760 first-class runs, and a Test batting average of 56.94?

You can’t argue too much with Hutton, given his career average of 56.67, although Hobbs’ opening partner Herbert Sutcliffe (4555 runs at 60.73 in 54 Tests, over 50,000 first-class runs) deserves a mention.

Root is still in the prime of his career, so it’s a staggering statement to say he already makes a best XI, while James Anderson has more wickets than any other bowler, but has struggled with various conditions around the world.

Bowling aggregate can be a misleading statistic, and his average 27.23 is a more accurate reflection of the career the quick bowler has had.

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It’s hard to argue with the selections of his fast-bowling partners though, with Fred Trueman (301 wickets at 21.57) and Bob Willis (325 wickets at 25.20) selected.

Still, you could easily argue the selection of Anderson with names like Sydney Barnes, who is arguably one of the best bowlers in history (although Barnes was adamant he spun the ball in addition to bowling at decent pace). By the time he retired, Barnes had claimed 189 wickets in 27 Test matches, holding one of the lowest averages in history at just 16.43.

Maybe the most staggering selection though is that of Graeme Swann as the greatest English spinner to ever walk on a cricket ground. It’s laughable that he was selected over Derek Underwood and Jim Laker, who once ripped Australia to shreds with the best match figures in history – 19 for 90.

Laker, who played Test cricket between 1948 and 1959, took 193 wickets at 21.24, while Underwood had a 16-year Test career and ended up with 297 wickets at 25.83. How Swann makes the grade with 255 wickets at 29.96 is a question only English cricket fans can answer.

Kevin Pietersen has also been included in the side ahead of players like Ken Barrington (6806 runs at 58.67) and Wally Hammond (7249 runs at 58.45).

The only decisions we really can’t dispute are those of all-rounder Ian Botham and wicketkeeper Alan Knott.

So, there you have it. The weirdest all-time best XI.

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Never change, England.

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