My NZ team would be,GM Turner,JG Wright,B Sutcliffe,MD Crowe,SP Fleming,JR Reid c,RJ Hadlee,KJ Wadsworth,DL Vettori,RC Motz,SE Bond.My 12th man would be,CL Cairns.

With all due respect - and a piece of my cricketing heart goes out to Chris Cairns cos I loved to watch him play - but when you need a man to do the job and put everything into it every time you can't go past John Reid. Cairns was incredibly talented but... you know the rest. And slipping back to the openers, while Richardson has great stats and worked incredibly hard and blew everyone away with his success i suspect if he'd kept playing his average - like many kiwi batsmen of his era - would have kept going down. John Wright on the other hand just kept getting better and in the last few years of his test career was world class. Lastly, Cowie must be a must-pick. He can't be left out because of his low number of tests; for crying out loud he played every single test going over a long period. Just read his bio on this website. I think this separates him from the likes of Donnelly, who there is some debate about. Dempster, I'm still thinking about. Not that my opinion means anything.

My NZ XI 1) Glenn Turner, 2) Mark Richardson, 3) Bert Sutcliffe, 4) Martin Crowe, 5) Stephen Flemming, 6) Brendon McCullum, 7) Chris Cairns, 8) Daniel Vettori, 9) Richard Hadlee, 10) Shane Bond, 11) Jack Cowie 12th man: Martin Donnelly Five specialist batsmen, one of the finest wicket-keeper batsman around but have yet to really prove his worth at the test level, one of the better allrounders the world has seen and injury permitting, could have been one of the best ever, four extremely good bowlers capable of destroying any line-ups on their day. Martin Crowe and Bert sutcliffe could be used as partnership breakers and Martin crowe would be the captain cool with Stephen flemming acting as his deputy. Not a perfect XI but capable of beating any XI on their day.

What a team this would be - 1. G Turner 2. M Richardson 3. A Jones 4. M Crowe 5.J Ryder 6. C Cairns 7. B McCullum 8. D Vettori 9. R Hadlee 10. S Bond 11. J Cowie

Have you seen the top seven of the Aussie all-time XI? Trumper, Morris, Bradman, Chappell, Border, Miller, Gilchrist. As handy a player as Oram is, he's not making a dent in that lineup... Hadlee, Cowie and Vettori are workhorses, so even with a crock like Bond in the lineup, you only need 10-15 overs a day from your fifth bowler, but they have to good overs... It's correct to call C. Cairns a bit of an underachiever as a batsman. He had more natural talent with the bat than, say, Craig McMillan, yet Macca's average is five runs higher. (As for Botham, he too should have scored more runs than he did.) I think that Cairns was the better player, but Reid balances the lineup better. This is New Zealand we're talking about, you know our number six is going to come in at 4/96. With Cairns at six, we'd be 5/98 in no time. 1962 John Reid was a world-class batsman, with sound defence and a threat of game-changing power hitting. This is true of Cairns as well, but JR did it more consistently.

If you're looking for out and out pure breed allrounders with bat and ball your choices have to be Cairnsy and Reid. Reid's test numbers are good for an allrounder and his first class numbers excellent. Cairnsy was New Zealand's matchwinner for a decade, and as pointed out he shares similar averages to Ian Botham. I feel that Bruce Taylor falls into the same category as Hadlee and Vettori, a bowler who was a useful bludger of the ball but not an out and out batsman - his numbers point to this, and I think his return of 111 wickets at 26 would have him near the team as a bowler alone.

The fact is, you have Chris Cairns and Bruce Taylor deserving spots in an NZ Line Up. My team out of the names you've given so far 1. Richardson, 2. Donnelly, 3. Sutcliffe, 4. Crowe, 5. Fleming, 6. Cairns, 7. Taylor Looking into the future, 8. Parore, 9. Vettori, 10. Hadlee, 11. Bond

This will be my all time NZ team: 1. GM Turner - NZs most prolific first-class run scorer, 103 first-class centuries. 2. B Sutcliffe - Simply one of NZ's best ever players, and he was best first opening the batting. Held the world record highest first-class score by a left-hander for decades (385). 3. SP Fleming - Makes the team because he's the best captain NZ's ever had. 4. MD Crowe - Best NZ batsman ever. Most test 100s, NZ's highest first class average, NZ's highest test score.....etc 5.JD Ryder young talented left hender with great potantiol 6. CL Cairns - NZ's best batting allrounder 7. BB McCullum will be my wk with great batting talent 8. RJ Hadlee - NZ's best bowling allrounder & NZ's best ever bowler. 9. DL Vettori - Great left arm spinner - outstanding batter too (better than any other NZ spin bowler 10. SE Bond - NZ's most effective and controlled bowler of those who could bowl upward of 150 km/h. 11. DL Morrison another fastman.

I feel we should make an exception with NZ and pick 2 all rounders (plus Hadlee and Vettori). NZ's strength is their multiple dimensional players. Cannot pick between Cairns and Oram but know for sure that all 4 combined i.e. Cairns, Oram, Hadlee and Vettori (even though the latter 2 are sure to be picked as specialist bowlers) would greatly strengthen the NZ side.

cloudmess you are absolutely correct. But you know why Beefy gets all the accolades and Cairnsy gets downtrodden? Because he is English. Plain and simple. For years England players, commentators and writers have always cast the view that New Zealand are a third rate team of dibbly dobbler no hopers that do the best with thier limited resources. Even when we outplayed them in the test series in 99 they still blamed the fact that they had got it wrong and not that NZ were the better team. They continually believe that they are a more exciting outfit then NZ even though we have won pretty much every one day series and match up with them in the last 7 or 8 years. Chris Cairns was an outlandish talent that leaves Flintoff Broad and co in his wake and more then matches up to Beefy!! People do not give him enough credit for how correct he use to play and how straight he use to hit a ball. I will always remember the slower ball to C Reid that bowled him all ends up. It was Pure Magic!!