Would Botham make it to your England ATG XI?

[zaremba]

A team with Stokes, Botham and Flintoff would would make for box office viewing.

I'd probably replace Prior with a specialist keeper as the team already bats deep. Maybe Russell, or Foakes or even James Foster.

Fair enough! Loads of options to be fair. Good keepers - Foster, Russell - and good keeper/batsmen - Prior, Bairstow, Stewart, maybe in time Smith or (who knows?) Rew.

Will stick with Prior though, superb punisher in the lower/middle order, plus has the enormous quality that comes from playing for Sussex.

 

[AndrewB]

You do really need to find a place for him. Amazing player until he got fat, lazy and useless.

My ATG team for today is based on players from the modern era. It has twin advantages that (a) I've actually seen them play and (b) they played the game in modern conditions. It's fun to have arguments about whether, say, Rhodes was better than Botham, or an opener who faced spinners is better than Gooch, but if we're going to be honest it's meaningless. (On another day I'd say the opposite).

Anyway:

Gooch
Cook
Gower
Root
Pietersen
Stokes (c)
Botham
Prior (w)
Flintoff
Swann
Anderson

All the double-o's in the top 4 made me wonder about who'd be in the all-time England OO-team: Cook, Gooch, Woolley, Root, Brook, Collingwood, Spooner+, Larwood, Lockwood, Wood, Underwood.

 

[capt_Luffy]

All the double-o's in the top 4 made me wonder about who'd be in the all-time England OO-team: Cook, Gooch, Woolley, Root, Brook, Collingwood, Spooner+, Larwood, Lockwood, Wood, Underwood.

Washbrook for Collingwood, despite being out of position

 

[zaremba]

All the double-o's in the top 4 made me wonder about who'd be in the all-time England OO-team: Cook, Gooch, Woolley, Root, Brook, Collingwood, Spooner+, Larwood, Lockwood, Wood, Underwood.

I literally lost sleep doing this exact exercise a few months ago. I think my team was much the same as yours.

Then I got into the "ends in ee" team. Decent pace attack, but not a lot after that:

Hadlee
Southee
Lee
Lillee

You're then looking at cheating, with the likes of

Kohli
Kambli
Woolley
Dhoni
Willey
Dilley
Bedi

 

[Red]

The thing is, if you can pick peak Botham, he makes it as a pace bowling all rounder. His first six or so years with the ball were phenomenal. So if you can have that Botham:

Hobbs
Hutton
Hammond
May
Barrington
Gower
Botham
Knott
Larwood
Trueman
Laker