Ricky Ponting's XI to play Australia

[bagapath]

Ricky selects a XI from the players he has played against.

Sehwag
Smith (c)
Kallis
Tendulkar
Lara
Sangakara (wk)
Flintoff
Pollock
Akram
Murali
Ambrose

Eleven talents that kept me very busy | The Australian

a superb team, imo

[Sir Alex]

Laxman unlucky to miss out imho. But yeah, hard to disagree with that. Loving Ambrose included.

Also nicely distributed :

India -2
SA - 3
SL - 2
Pak -1
Eng - 1
WI - 2

[vcs]

Originally Posted by bagapath

Ricky selects a XI from the players he has played against.

Sehwag
Smith (c)
Kallis
Tendulkar
Lara
Sangakara (wk)
Flintoff
Pollock
Akram
Murali
Ambrose

Eleven talents that kept me very busy | The Australian

a superb team, imo

Missing this man IMO. Though TBF, he didn't exactly detain Ricky long enough at the crease to keep him busy.

[Sir Alex]

I guess it's fair to say the Sachin Tendulkar of the 21st century hasn't been quite as good as the Sachin of the 1990s, but he's still been a fantastic player who remains the wicket every bowler in world cricket would most like in their resume. The way he batted against us in Hyderabad a couple of months ago is proof he's still a genius.

He's referring to the 170 back in 09... which means he wrote this in Dec 09, after which Tendulkar has continued his glorious run of form...

[Sir Alex]

Originally Posted by vcs

Missing this man IMO. Though TBF, he didn't exactly detain Ricky long enough at the crease to keep him busy.

Lol! How'd he miss him!! Maybe just that for the obv fact picking him over Murali would make him look an idiot, and self centred. While he admits these guys kept him busy, he is basically picking the best XI he played against overall.

[vcs]

On a more serious note, the all-round talent in that team is pretty stunning. Three bowling all-rounders, one batting all-rounder + Sangakkara.

[BoyBrumby]

Pretty hard to argue with any of those calls, really.

Argree with his assessment of Fred too, "I can't help thinking he should have achieved more than what he did".

[kingpin]

This is best best XI

[Streetwise]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

Pretty hard to argue with any of those calls, really.

Argree with his assessment of Fred too, "I can't help thinking he should have achieved more than what he did".

I think that Flintoff is the token pom, I'm sure the ECB would have demanded that at least one pom is included regardless.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Streetwise

I think that Flintoff is the token pom, I'm sure the ECB would have demanded that at least one pom is included regardless.

Of course. Ponting's dream XI falls into the ECB's jurisdiction; silly of me not to realise.

[Noble One]

It would have been nice had Ponting thrown a curveball selection in, like selecting Vass over Pollock.

The above XI hardly creates any discussion points as it such a well rounded team and almost spot on.

[Matt79]

Originally Posted by Streetwise

I think that Flintoff is the token pom, I'm sure the ECB would have demanded that at least one pom is included regardless.

Yeah, because Ricky would not have thought Flintoff was any kind of good player after watching him first hand in 05

[Sir Alex]

Edited

[JBH001]

I don't think Ponting's ever really rated Harbhajan, falling to him numerous times notwithstanding. I don't think he has much reason to rate him either, so his exclusion is all good.

[Sir Alex]

Originally Posted by JBH001

I don't think Ponting's ever really rated Harbhajan, falling to him numerous times notwithstanding. I don't think he has much reason to rate him either, so his exclusion is all good.

On the contrary as a batsman he has plenty to rate him.

The other day someone was arguing Sehwag dominating Steyn in India is not good enough and that he should dominate him in SA also to qualify as a great batsman.

If similar analogy is applied here, Ponting has every reason to count Harby as actually a better bowler than Murali, solely from his experiences and travails.

However as I said before that was not the intention of this list.