Hey! anybody can skipper the Jury"s team.The team will still win!I dont understand why people are so caught with that!Someone said that Gayle av.is about 40,the min.av. for an opener,and what ,may I asked is the min.av.for the middle order?@Eddy 501,Lara was the most selfish record breaker,not the most talented,big man!wrong choice of words.I dont understand your LOGIC" playing along side a man for several years,and choosing someone who you have not seen",and relying solely on rep/av.!Yet you used STATS to highlight the most self centred cricketer the WI have ever produced!another RECORD!This record,I am sure will not be broken!but all the others will eventually be broken ONE by ONE,and some of them YOU will not SEE in your lifetime!By the way EVERTON WEEKES at the height of his career was av.a whopping 136,and at that time tests were few and far between.Walcott at the height of his, scored a then record breaking series total of 827,but had to wait 2 YEARS,for another test.

@waspsting. Heck dont get me wrong. I love Lara. Just thinking of the best possible combination. Lara was King against spin and handled the medium pacers like Mcgrath etc too very well. His only weakness, relatively speaking ofcourse, was against raw pace. Away vs. some serious pace the ideal WI team would probably be better with Kanhai, Fredericks etc...

The perfect team, except for the fact Clyde Walcott should have been there for Hendricks and Andy Roberts for Curtley Ambrose. Amby is very good, but Andy was better, he bowled in an era when there were superb batsmen and lively wickets. From Gavaskar to Ian & Greg Chappell, Majid, Gower, Barry Richards, Asif Iqbal…all rated him the best. He had it all, pace, swing, cut, bouncers and slower deliveries, could extract life from any pitch. Imagine no place for Weekes, Lloyd, Kallicharan, Garner, Kanhai…very difficult to leave this players out. Glad that Sir Viv got all 10 jury votes and 90% of people's votes, he was the best, complete destroyer who massacred bowling attacks like no one could. He had style and was the king on the field. Surprised that Late Macko Marshall got 9 jury votes, wonder who was that who voted against. He is the best quick of all times. Missed the Windies glory of 1960s to mid 1990s.

Posted by   on (July 28, 2010, 22:35 GMT)

Fredericks, Richards, Kanhai, Headley (Captain), Weeks, Sobers, Dujon, Gilchrist, Roberts, Garner, Gibbs, Collie Smith (12th man) I know it is absurd to choose players because they simply amassed great numbers especially during long and extended careers. The main point is to make an analysis of their performance against outstanding quality of the competition they encountered. The first victim would be Gordon Greenidge. Just look at his numbers for that test series. One has only to recall his abysmal performance against Lillee and Thompson and the other bowlers on the 1975-76 West Indies tour of Australia. Greenidge was the only recognized batsman who failed to record a century against the Australian in test cricket on that tour. He was badly exposed as a fraud. He did not make a score higher than 8 in the four innings he completed. In fact, he amassed the handsome total of 11 runs in four innings an average of 2.75. He was dismissed on several occasions without scoring.

@prashant1 - check Weekes and Walcott's records against England and Australia in England and Australia. Not extraordinary.

For those who are wondering why Lara only got 6 votes, it had to be due to his off the field antics. On the field however, he was peerless. Whenever he was batting, love him or hate him, the cricket was compelling and the game revolved around his wicket. Among the modern greats, Tendulkar is closest to him but sometimes he was just a spectator at the other end to Azhar, Dravid, Laxman or Viru as they controlled proceedings. Never with Lara. A century from Lara was often not enough...in Antigua he was once blamed for WI losing a match because (get this!), he scored a hundred against Mcgrath and Co in 1998 TOO QUICKLY! He had reduced them to schoolboys (the great Warne wasn't even picked having suffered in the previous 2 tests) but when he was 3rd or 4th out it was almost game over. Lara came into a team where thegreats Viv, Greenidge, Dujon, Marshall and later Haynes were discarded like used tampons by the WI and with no man in the house he took adv.to act out- and hurt his legacy also

Interesting selection - however, a parallel XI may beat this team, perhaps even handily. That would be Haynes, Walcott (wk), Kanhai, Weekes, Lloyd, Worrell (c), Constantine, Hall, Roberts, Garner, Ramadhin. Toothpick Gibbs had two great feats, the 8 wkt haul against India (completely battered by then) and the tied series (tail-enders), Ramadhain had greater variety and better results against better teams. Dujon or Murray are better choices than Hendricks, the latter being first choice even during Hendricks' reign. The batting line-up was always a selection headache but leaving out the 3Ws is sacreligious - among fast bowlers, Hall, for his fearsome bowling action and stats, Roberts for his intelligent bowling, and Garner for his unplayable toe-crusher deliveries and delivery from nearly 9 ft down - add to that Constantine and Worrell - we can create a computer simulated model to see which WI XI would win!

WI best x1 vs Aussie best 11.... WI 9-1 ( the one is if we use the current squad)

Great team selection, only real complaints would be that Dujon has to be in the team, and the argument that he never really was tested againts spin bears no merrit here as Garner should have been selected as the 4th bowler instead of Gibbs, though no disrespect intended to him. It would have been nice to have seen Walcott, but he kept too few games to truely qualify as a full time keeper. This team would only be possibly tested by the Australian 11 and they am quite sure they would fall as well.

Finally why wasnt Tony Cozier included as a juror, him Reds and Faz are the 3 most respected observers of this great game in the c'bean.

Its tough to pick an all time eleven given the number of great players. However, if I were to compare this team with the all conquering 80's team (probably the best ever) there are two things that fall short. The 80's team had a fearsome pace attack that attacked in packs (4 fast bowlers) and an effective captain. Lloyd was the best captain they had for his steady influence and was responsible for forming and mentoring the 80's team - remember Richards who took over was no half as effective. I would add Garner/Roberts as the fourth pace bowler instead of Gibbs and fit Lloyd in as captain in place of Headley- the team would truly be unbeatable.