Right, I've had a chance to analyse the figures, and it's safe to say that the side we come up with is pretty conclusive (a quick check tells me that 9 of the 11 are identical to mine
)
Openers:
In all, 9 were selected, including somewhat bizarrely Bashar, Tendulkar and Sangakarra.
At the end of the day, there were only 3 in contention, and Graeme Smith (16 votes) and Herschelle Gibbs (17) were selected to continue their successful opening partnership for South Africa ahead of Michael Vaughan (12)
Into the middle order, and my intention was to have 4 batsmen, then a keeper at 7 and 4 bowlers.
10 different names cropped up here, but amazingly Andrew Flintoff (10) got the same number of votes as the other 5 who weren't selected - VVS Laxman (5), Inzamam (2), Fleming (1), Thorpe (1) and for some reason Yuvraj (1).
That left 4 clear picks, one of whom was actually selected by all 29 managers, Brian Lara, followed by Rahul Dravid (26), Jacques Kallis (24) and Sachin Tendulkar (22).
Despite a couple of people each nominating Tatenda Taibu and Geraint Jones (another strange pick IMO), it was always between Kumar Sangakarra and Mark Boucher, and the Sri Lankan's superior batting appears to have swayed people rather than Boucher's keeping, as he took the vote by 13.5 to 11.5 (one person cheated and picked both as an either or!). It was a strange move IMO, as the number of people who listed Sangakarra at number 7 (where he has precious little experience) rather than where he's normally placed in the order was high, and suggests to me the continual demise of the specialist keeper as a commodity in the eyes of the modern cricket fan.
Anyway, onto the bowlers, and again we had 4 fairly clear leaders, and then a large gap to the rest. Most people favoured the 3 seamer and 1 spinner approach - hence Muttiah Muralitharan (27) was clearly going to give Anil Kumble (5) and Harbhajan Singh (1) no hope of selection.
With the seamers, there were honourable mentions for Chaminda Vaas (5), Makhaya Ntini (5) and the seemingly perpetually injured Shane Bond (4), as well a couple of more random votes for Tino Best and Mohammad Sami (1 each).
Nothing however was going to stop Shaun Pollock (25), Steve Harmison (22) and Shoaib Akhtar (16) from completing the eleven.
All that was now left was to sort the batting order, which came obviously from the pattern of selectors and pick a captain.
This was the closest call of the lot, with 5 of the selected 11 receiving votes (in addition to Vauaghan (3) and Fleming (1). In the end Graeme Smith's experience as a captain meant his 7 nominations just pipped Rahul Dravid (6) and Brian Lara (4) - Pollock and Tendulkar picking up 1 each.
So there you have it, the 11 selected by you lot to take on Australia if it were played tomorrow:
Smith (c)
Gibbs
Dravid
Tendulkar
Lara
Kallis
Sangakarra (wk)
Pollock
Akhtar
Harmison
Muralitharan
so a NZ also will be there at the ground
