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I had a wealth of choices at wicketkeeper, primarily looking at glovemanship. I shortlisted 4 - all Aussies: *Rod Marsh, has the second most dismissals in Ashes history (just 4 behind Healy), and would be the best batsman of the remaining keepers. *Don Tallon, the keeper Bradman chose in his...

Just popping in to post my picks - will clean up the thread tomorrow and post my writeups. There were about 4 keepers that very difficult to split, and probably 5-10 choices of batsmen of various skills and abilities that I considered, but I ended up going back to the beginning and finishing...

I think this was the clincher. Was looking back through the cricinfo commentary because my recording stopped with 7 overs to go :mad but it said: That's the first mention of Clarke and umpires. Makes sense. When the ball is flying around to all parts you need to be able to see it. If it...

Woodfull was an opener! I think he played a couple of times in the middle, but was definitely known for his opening. Edrich played a bit at #3 I think so you could shift Leyland down to 6, and have Edrich-Hammond-May in the middle. Really like that team though :thumbs Hogg, Alderman and...

I couldn't watch it all live...but I have it on tape and I'll get into it ASAP. Disappointing to hear that Clarke might have let the situation get to him. That's one thing Australia could have taken from this series: knowing that they were the team playing to win for the majority of the...

Happy to admit I wouldn't have picked some of the players you picked :p but I particularly like the variety in the pace attack: consistency of Stuart Clark, raw pace of Thomson, skiddy reverse swing of Simon Jones and the bounce and aggression of Flintoff. And I loved your note about Barnes...

No! :D _______________________________________________________ I was massively tempted to pick another older legend here, but I've got a distinct lack of modern players in the XI thus far (Ken Barrington being the most modern!), so I've decided to honour some modern players this time. Dean...

I guess it just depends what you want from your bowlers. They all can't take 2-3 wickets per innings, just like you can't expect your batsmen to make 50s, or even 30s, each and every innings. If my team is Harris, Siddle, Swann, then I'm happy for a random performer like Broad to be in there...

You've touched on the main problem with Paynter. His stats are great, but why didn't he play more matches? If he was one of the greatest batsmen ever, why couldn't he keep his spot in the England team? Glad he's been mentioned though...his innings in Brisbane in the Bodyline series of...

I would! Even though I picked that side when Anderson only had 17...sneaky :spy But yes, mainly because of quality of wickets. Look who Anderson's dismissed this series...of his 21 wickets only 9 have been top 7 batsmen (Rogersx2, Clarkex2, Haddinx2, Smith, Watson, Warner). Compare the other...

Mark Waugh :clap Thought hard about picking him too. Continues your theme of crowd pleasing players too. Yep you are fine :p Leyland gives you 3. As for Davidson, yes his strike rate was pretty high. Most of the bowlers in the 50s and 60s were. A lot of defensive cricket in those...

Yep Watto's the #2 run scorer in this series which I find amusing. In fact if you made a combined XI for the series I think there'd be more Aussies in it than English! Let's have a go: 1 Rogers 2 Root? Guess it has to be, unless Watson opens 3 Watson - even if he hadn't made big runs this...

Australia's pretty tough for spinners too Mr Smurf. Murali's average in Australia was 75! Ajmal's only played 1 Test in Australia, MCG 2009/10. Didn't enjoy much success: 2/223 for the match Swann has 15 wickets in 5 Tests @ 39.80 Herath has 12 wickets in 3 Tests @ 33.91 Ashwin found it...

^Yep Alan Davidson was the other guy I was deciding between. If I'd been worried about my lower order I would have taken him, useful batsman as well as his very good left arm stuff. Just an update on our only rule: 3 players from before World War 2. A few drafters have 3 in their team...

^England couldn't have expected Watson to go past 20-40 though, you can understand their planning :D Oh hell yeah...Watson in particular has been walking around with King Kong on his back. Couldn't be happier this morning, I've always stuck up for him. Please do it again soon Watto...

We haven't got a replacement for User, so I'll just mark him absent and we move on! My 2 picks...There was 2 bowlers I really liked, but I'm only going to pick one of them: Sir Alec Bedser. My other pick is a guy I wanted from the start, but wasn't sure when to pull the trigger. He doesn't...

User has called for the supersub...so if any of our thread readers want to step in and take over his team, speak now!