I'd like to propose a couple of discussion threads, mainly as I'm fed up with talking about England's implosion
The first comes from a thought I had towards the end of the recent Ashes series where Australia created a record by fielding the same XI for five tests of a series. It got me thinking that even though we think of great teams, such as Waugh's Australia or Lloyd's West Indies, the teams themselves tend to be fluid. You rarely see the same XI more than a dozen times, and some players that are associated with a great team actually rarely played together. For example, the foursome of Marshall, Holding, Croft and Garner only actually came together in three test matches, none of which the West Indies actually won.
So, what was the best, strongest, greatest XI to ever actually take the field together?
I'll propose one team as a start for the debate, which I think is the greatest XI I've seen. I don't know enough about the players of the 80's West Indies, or the Invincibles, for example, to be able to pick XIs from those eras, but I hope someone will be able to enlighten me.
My team:
Australia v England, 5th Ashes test, the Oval 2001
ML Hayden
JL Langer
RT Ponting
ME Waugh
SR Waugh
DR Martyn
AC Gilchrist
B Lee
SK Warne
JN Gillespie
GD McGrath
Not a weak link among them, and probably five of the greatest players ever to play for Australia (Warne, McGrath, Ponting, Gilchrist and S Waugh) in the same team. It was a close run thing between this XI and the 1st-3rd tests (same XI, but Slater for Langer), but for my money Langer was better.
So, who's your pick?