Just following on from bradluen's comments, once we have selected these 11 players what 'players' do we get? Shall we consider each player to be at the top of their form or perhaps their average form? The start, middle, end of their career? It makes a big difference. The final 5 years of Cairns career produced incredible results (batting av 43, bowling 25). Astle would be a shoe-in if we only think of 'top' form - his 222 ensures that. However, I personally do not think such distinctions can be made. It must be on average form - which is why I believe career statistics should be the primary mode of selection. I know it's a kind of silly, moot point, but just something to think about, and interesting to consider when selecting each player. I'd rather have the younger attacking Vettori bowler, in the knowledge that stronger batting will be available in the all time eleven. But how can we possibly select players on such a basis?

Vettori will probably take this this one.

Vetori, by default and mostly because of his batting. Can we speed this thing up please? I am losing interest in this. Take 6 weeks a pick a NZ side? By the time you are through with all 10 teams for test, ODI and twenty20, The sun would cool down.

Yeah, Grimmett would make it interesting. But if we went by nation of birth, the Aussies would get Matthew Sinclair. How would we cope? ...As much as I like Boock (whose figures would be much better without that 1/229 that led to his final dumping and a nation of "bring back Boock" signs), the main choice is between the 21-year-old Vettori who attacked batsmen and nearly won us a Test against Australia single-handedly (if only our top order were decent) and the current seasoned pro who is kind of a stock bowler but saves us again and again with the bat (and really shouldn't be coming in lower than number 7). And actually, if you prefer the latter, might you not be better off forsaking spin in order to play both JR Reid and CL Cairns?

The categories for this selection are all wrong. Two openers and three middle order players are fine, but only being able to pick one all rounder, when NZ has possibly 3 all rounders that could fit into this team, being three of Cairns, Reid, Hadlee and Vettori. And yet Taylor is included as an all rounder when both Vettori and Hadlee are superior batsmen? And having a spinners category for NZ is ridiculous, as shown by the quality of the nominees. Howarth had a strike rate of 102 for goodness sake! Spinners should just be included with pace bowlers for the final three spots if they are good enough. I would have had two openers, three middle order, three allrounders and three bowlers as the makeup of my team.

Clarrie Grimmett was clearly a Kiwi, and would have been by far and away our best spin bowler had he had the opportunity to actually play test cricket for us. He only left NZ at the age of 24 in 1914 after several seasons of first class cricket for Wellington. He had debuted at the age of 17. There was no opportunity for him to play test cricket in those days, as New Zealand were not made a test playing nation til 1930. In fact Grimmett did play against the touring Australian team when they toured NZ in 1914.