The All-time Greatest World XI of the World

Many years ago, while in college, I was a member of very tight group of 17 friends. We travelled together, bulk-booked movie tickets, partook of food and beverages together, and watched many foreign films together - except the climax, which we always experienced individually.

However, when you think about it, 17 is an odd number of people to have in a group. In every sense. Both 15 and 20 are round numbers and ideal for restaurant-table bookings, buffet discounts and so on. We frequently ran into situations where we wished we had more friends, or could occasionally jettison a few of the more boring types.

Eventually we arrived at a compromise. We developed a reserve of five or six "emergency friends", who could be called upon whenever we needed to. This way we could round up to 20 whenever we wanted to, with a few back-ups in case of dropouts.

To this day this arrangement comes in handy when one of the gang decides to get married and we need to collectively buy something expensive. (I think these emergency friends must have accumulated hundreds of thousands in savings for all the rest of us.)

Similarly, many cricket journalists have an "emergency friend" as well, who they can depend on to bail them out when a deadline is looming and they have nothing remotely interesting to write about. For instance, the Champions League is over, the IPL is yet to start, there are no interesting triangular series anywhere, and the only thing happening is Test cricket.

... THUD ...

Sorry. I started thinking of Test cricket and passed out. I am okay now. I took some Revital.

So what do journalists do?

They write one of those "World All-time Great Superb Unsurpassed Magnificent Rajnikanth XI" articles.

Desperate for content, they pull together a list of 11 or so players. And announce that this is their selection for the greatest possible cricket team that could be selected from all the people who have ever played this glorious game.

First of all, this is not too difficult to do. Most of the people who figure in such Great XIs are dead and you can say whatever you want about them. And secondly, these lists will almost always cause great consternation and debate among readers.

Every cricket fan has a personal Great XI in his mind. (This is usually seven Tendulkars, one Dhoni and four Kapil Devs.) Any expert who dares disagree with this list must be hung, shot, hung again, and then mercilessly thrown into a cricket stadium while Test cricket is going on.

I am joking of course. Test cricket is without doubt the greatest, purest form of...

THUD.

I am fine.

Now there are several secret tricks to writing this genre, which can add variety. One trick is to say that this is Greatest Team Of the Something-th Century. Or you could restrict your selection to only players from a certain era or location, or those who have played a minimum number of matches. Basically you can just freak out. For instance: "The Greatest World XI From All Left-handed Players Who Played Test Cricket While The Berlin Wall Was Still Standing But Not In A Month That Ends With An R, With No Prior History Of Measles And With Valid ID Proof. Bring Your Own Booze."

Thanks to ESPNcricinfo's extensive database it is actually very easy to draw up this list.

There are an additional few tricks you can use to make the effort look sophisticated. For instance you can refer to a few players who played so long ago, before, say, World War I, that nobody knows anything at all about them. This makes you look pundit-y.

You can also pick highly unlikely people and write lengthy justifications. This will use up at least three or four paragraphs.

And finally you must shrewdly not pick some obvious candidates. This makes you stand out from all the other also-ran commentators.

As you can see, there is a method in the madness behind these controversial all-time lists.

What about me? Since you ask, I will share the following:

Vadukut's Greatest World XI Of All Time
Two Opening Batsmen: Kris Srikkanth, Salvador Dali
Two Middle-Order Batsmen: Inzamam Ul Haq
One Allrounder: WG Mulligatawny (played for Crimpstontonshire between the wars)
One Spinner: Manoj Prabhakar
Two Fast Bowlers: Wasim Akram, Javed Akhtar
One Wicketkeeper: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (with long hair)
Mandatory All-Time Greats: Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar
Controversial Exclusion: Mandira Bedi.

Next fortnight I will write in detail about my rationale for this list.