When do we play South Africa?I think we need to beat them to be crowned the real #1 team in test cricket.I know we're officially the top team but beating SA will top it off.

SA come here next summer.

After this series we don't play another test until the new year, so they have the chance to go above us as they play the Aussies and Sri Lanka before we are back in action.

I don't think there is much us and SA, two very evenly matched sides.

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Best England XI that you have seen play:-

Boycott
Gooch
Vaughan
KP
Gower/Lamb - Probably Gower
Botham
Flintoff
Prior
Swann
Gough
Anderson

Four great seamers, Swann as spinner backed up by KP and MV. Bats down to 10 also.

That would be an entertaining side.

Michael Vaughan
Martyn Moxon
Anthony McGrath
Craig White
Adil Rashid
Richard Blakey
Tim Bresnan
Ajmal Shazhad
Darren Gough
Matthew Hoggard
Ryan Sidebottom

A bit light in the top order but plenty of bowling options!

My serious offering would be:

Cook
Trescothick
Vaughan (pre captaincy form but as captain - is that allowed!)
Pieterson
Thorpe
Bell
Prior
Swann
Harmison (2004 version)
Gough
Anderson

I think it's easy to pick players from this current side because of the success they've had. I didn't consider the likes of Gooch and Gower and I only saw the very back end of their careers. I wanted to pick Flintoff but he wasn't in the best 3 bowlers or even close to the top 6 batters. Picking him at 7 meant Prior batting at 6 and with the length of the tail compared to present times I wanted a stronger top 6.

It'd be interesting to see how a side of the best players from the last 90s where we achieved very little would have competed against todays XI.

Cook v Atherton
Strauss v Stewart
Trott v Hussain
KP v Thorpe
Bell v Ramps
Morgan v Hick
Prior v White
Bresnan v Cork
Broad v Croft
Swann v Gough
Anderson v Caddick

There's barely a name that you'd pick in front of todays players but had they played in the same era I bet many would have been in the reckoning

I can't believe no-one has picked Michael Andrew Atherton or Alec Stewart. And Darren Gough???? Ahead of Caddick or Fraser? Or Matthew Hoggard for that matter?

FWIW here's my effort...

Michael Andrew Atherton (captain)
Marcus Trescothick
David Gower
Robin Smith
Graham Thorpe
Alec Stewart
Jack Russell (wk)
Graeme Swann
Jimmy Anderson
Gus Fraser
Andy Caddick

Not the longest batting line-up but I would back that top 6 to get more than enough runs.

People harp on about this current England team being the best ever but name me more than 1 truly great bowler (Dale Steyn) currently playing Test cricket? The likes of Gooch, Atherton, Stewart and Thorpe had umpteen top top bowlers to contend with. Even the team of 2005 had to cope with an awful lot better bowlers than they do now. Not that this is a slight on the current England team who are are a superb team and fully deserve to be ranked number 1.

Darren Gough - 229 test wickets at 28
Andy Caddick - 234 wickets at 29
Angus Fraser - 177 wickets at 27
Matthew Hoggard - 248 wickets at 30

Not as much between them as you might think - notable that you chose a Lancastrian as your prime opposition to Gough's selection though, before adding in another Yorkshireman as an afterthought to reduce accusations of bias.

I went for the 2 who had the most 5 fers and 10 wicket matches, honest! I would have picked Hoggard (ahead of Fraser) as I thought he was a massively underrated bowler then and still is now until I saw Fraser had got 13 5 fers!!

Actually forgot about Stewart, stick him in for Prior and put him in front of Botham in the batting line up. I considered Trescothick and Athers but went for Boyc's as he could sit there for the day whilst all the shotmakers went for it.

Boycott
Gooch
Trott
Gower
Thorpe
Stewart
Botham
Swann
Underwood
Anderson
Willis

As I've got a genuine all rounder I'm going to have a second spinner. The tail is a bit long, but with that top seven it shouldn't matter too much.

Main weakness is the lack of a captain who was a notable success, despite six of them having done the job for England.

I have to say I'm a fan of picking the better wicketkeeper, and Stewart was nver quite so prolific with the bat whilst keeping wicket, so I thought hard about picking Knott ahead of him with Botham a place higher, but I guess my Surrey bias swung it there.

Trott isn't the most glamorous option, but he's simply the most prolific run scorer in a key position. The rest of the batting harks back to yesteryear, but I felt batsmen had it tougher then as I feel there are fewer world class bowlers in the contemporary game compared to ten, twenty or thirty years ago.

Gooch
Trescothick
Vaughan
Gower
Thorpe
McGrath
Russell
Swann
Hoggard
Anderson
Caddick

BUMP......



I stick by this assessment.....he will never be a Test batsman of any repute.

Aggers seems to have grown tired of some of the online indian support, blocking loads of them twitter.com/#!/Aggerscricket

Aggers seems to have grown tired of some of the online indian support, blocking loads of them twitter.com/#!/Aggerscricket

I've always thought the same myself, although my judgement may be clouded by the fact I don't think he should be playing for England in the first place. I accept there are going to be players with dual nationality, or individuals who relocate to another continent and make their home there, but "upgrading" to a better neighbouring national team when you've already played at senior level for your native country just doesn't seem right to me. Boyd Rankin has even playded ODIs for Ireland and England (Lions) in consecutive months now.

what about 'downgrading' like Gavin Hamilton?

Quite amusing how all the cricket fans in the office today were hoping for Sachin to get his ton, as soon as he was out the sentiment quickly changed to let's finish them off ASAP, which we did.

I'm now a bit sad that there's no more England test cricket until 2012.

India won the toss and will bat = India will win.

kieswetter has got the iron gloves on i see

Not good enough is he? Admittedly he is a great clean hitter but does his one in a few decent score justify the dropped catches and missed stumpings? I dont think so.

A couple of stats re. keepers...

Prior ODI average 24.18 ODI SR 76.76
Kieswetter ODI average 31.64 ODI SR 88.19
Davies ODI average 30.5 ODI SR 105.62

Prior IT20 average 21.16 IT20 SR 127
Kieswetter IT20 average 24.18 IT20 SR 117.18
Davies IT20 average 20.40 IT20 SR 124.39

I can't see the harm in picking Prior in the ODI team especially considering the form he's currently in. And anyone a little surprised that Davies hasn't been picked for England since his coming out???

I'm assuming you're being facetious there. I'm a big Davies fan but I don't think he's really produced in his outings in international cricket. Also, as a Surrey fan, he makes a huge difference when he plays for us - so I would say that, wouldn't I?

I'm a big Davies fan as well and don't think he was given the chances to perform for England. I wasn't being facetious neither I was just saying that one minute he's in the squad, the next he isn't once he's come out....didn't mean anything by it, just one of those coincidences.

Davies is without a shadow of a doubt the best gloveman in the country, does Kieswetter's apparent bigger hitting (which I haven't particularly seen for England yet) negate Davies' better keeping??

I think there's something about Kieswetter, he showed it when we won the T20 world cup, he's feeling his way into International Cricket but there's enough to work with, Prior's keeping was crap for a long time, Willis & Co hammered him with the 'Iron Gloves Prior' comments.

I think he's the best option, Prior never got to grips with being the one that gets England off to a flier, in ODI & T20 cricket.

It was certainly very odd the way the selectors reversed their decision to include him in the World Cup squad after they'd already picked him. Maybe this was related to the timing of his coming out, and maybe he wouldn't have been in the right frame of mind to be playing in a high profile tournament at that time, but if so they should have come clean and said so. The explanation that he wasn't vocal enough behind the stumps smacked of an excuse - surely the selectors must have known that a bit earlier if that's the case?


Davies was execellent with both bat and gloves in his first season at Surrey last year, hence his selection for the Ashes tour, but he hasn't been quite so consistent this year especially in the four day games, and I still think Chris Read is the best keeper in the country although we all know the selctors won't pick him again. Young Michael Bates at Hants looks an exceptional keeper, especially standing up the stumps either to spinners or the likes of Mascarenhas and Cork, but as he's something of a tailender in the Bob Taylor mould he won't even get close to the England set up unless he can improve his batting.

Davies is a high class opening batsman in the limited overs game; he's not what you'd call a brutal hitter, but he's got all the shots, and as the stats in your earlier post reveal, he can score faster than the ostensibly bigger-hitting Kieswetter. Given the selectors' obsessive requirement that a limited overs keeper has to open the batting I can't think of a better option for ODIs or T20.

Matt Prior has rightly made the Test spot his own with consistently impressive and dominant displays, but it will be interesting to see who is picked as back up for the forthcoming Test series this winter. If it's not Davies I'll want to know why, because if you want someone to replicate Prior's batting contribution it's a no brainer. He's batted regularly in the top five for Surrey and has a first class career average of 40. With the possible exception of the less experienced Jonny Bairstow, who I haven't seen in the flesh since his early games a couple of years back, Davies is the best batsman of all the comtemporary English wicketkeepers and his keeping is good enough.