One of the best things about our game isn’t just the great players and their great achievements or the sensational feats alone that they come to accomplish including amazing elite tournaments or series’ that they happen to win in different parts of the world. It’s the very fact that a lot many of them cricketers happen to pick their dream XI- a cherished collection of 11 of their most trusted or bankable names- which are often picked from the units that served their respective country from different eras.
For instance, Mr. Gavaskar’s best India XI may not only include cricketers from his era or time. Likewise, a Tendulkar or Dravid’s best XI may not necessarily be restricted to talents that played only during their time.
And similarly many great players of the world have elected and chosen to share their respective best XI in a cricketing line up, whether you talk of a Ponting, S. Waugh, Ambrose, Kallis, Gavaskar, Cook, Rhodes et cetera.
Now, interestingly none other than Ravi Shastri and Eoin Morgan have submitted before the fans their combined India and England ideal XI and the following players happen to be in their combined team featuring 11 special talents.
Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, MS Dhoni (C), Kapil Dev, Harbhajan Singh, Adil Rashid, Jasprit Bumrah.
12th man: Zaheer Khan.
What’s interesting here besides the obvious fact that this is indeed a commanding line up involving some great cricketers from the Indian and English cricket teams is the very fact that quite a few present day names are in the line up.
For starters, there’s hardly a surprise about the fact that the team is being led by legendary and preeminent captain MS Dhoni. The presence of Virat and Rohit, two long standing legends of the game who have presided over considerably long careers makes this a commanding pack. Bumrah is there as a skilled exponent of fast bowling. But what’s surprising is that Mr Ravi Shastri didn’t include either Dravid, Pujara or even Kumble and Ganguly and has stuck with noted off spinner Harbhajan Singh in his line up.
On the other hand, the presence of arguably England’s finest all rounder Ben Stokes makes Eoin Morgan’s inclusions look very promising alongside the icon with the cricket bat that Joe Root is. Remember in the recent series against India, Root, the player of the series hit meaningful scores and one 99 run knock and India failed to get him out in any of the innings.
It’s also heartening to see Jos Buttler in there as well. Must it also be asked- how often is that the case, does Buttler get the recognition he deserves after having excelled for such a long time for England across formats?
