Brian MacMillan was the player I nearly took over Hazare - in the end I decided he wasn't quite good enough in either discipline to merit a place in the kind of competition these teams would provide.
Be an interesting exercise now for people to list their biggest regrets, in terms of
1) players they really thought would last til their next pick but didn't (realistically thought/hoped - ie. don't say Sobers when you didn't have a pick in the top 5),
2) players they completely forgot about but would have taken before someone eventually did, or
3) players who no one picked, but who they very nearly did.
And conversely maybe, the selection they were most pleased with in terms of it feeling like a smart or bargain pick.
For me
1) Andy Flower - I didn't think Gilchrist would last til my pick 11, and was briefly excited when he had slid as far as 10, but then I hoped I could pick Imran first, and O'Reilly second and still realistically hope keepers might not occur to people until another round or two (everyone was mad for pace bowlers at that point), snagging Flower in round 3. Would have allowed me to keep Imran at 7, but have five specialist bowlers without hurting my batting. Him lasting til only 4 picks before my third round selection shows this was nearly right.
2) Aubrey Faulkner. Would definitely have taken him as a genuine batting allrounder rather than Alan Knott with my 7th, or even maybe Neil Harvey with my 6th selection, but I had in my head that he played pre-WWI for some stupid reason. Was gutted when Goughy took him.
3) Seymour Nurse or Brian McMillan - was a 4 way toss up between Inzi, Hazare, and those two for the final pick. I very nearly took Jason Gillespie rather than Reid as well.
Selection I was happiest with was Reid - at that stage of the draft, I'd resigned myself to my third seamer having an average in the high 20s, and was really pleased when I thought of Reid, especially as a taller leftie he compliments my other bowlers so well.
