Keshava's All-Time Indian Test Team

Creating fantasy elevens of all-time greats is one of the oldest games that cricket fans like to play. It's a pastime that I learned from my father and have spent countless hours on. Despite the somewhat spurious attractions of 50-50 and 20-20, these have invariably been Test elevens. This is not a cricket blog, so I shall not use its space on an all-time World XI to Mars and the like. But an all-time Indian Test XI, to play the greats of Australia, England or Pakistan is, I think, just as interesting.

The openers

In our 76 years of Test cricket, apart from finding wicket-taking quick bowlers, our greatest challenge has been a capable opening pair. We've produced a reasonable number of average-to-good openers: Mushtaq Ali, Pankaj Roy, Madhav Apte, Nari Contractor, Chetan Chauhan, Navjot Sidhu, Gautam Gambhir; but only three of genuine world class. Vijay Merchant was our first great Test player, the scorer of elegant hundreds on two tours of England and the owner of the best first-class average after Bradman, an incredible 73. Sunil Gavaskar, in many ways, inherited Merchant's legacy, using all the traits of the Bombay School of Batsmanship- a solid defence, unfailingly classical strokes, a tendency towards caution and remarkable powers of concentration- to become the best batsman in the world during the 1970s. He scored 13 hundreds in 27 Tests against the best bowling attack of his time, the West Indies, and retired as the highest run-scorer in Test history. While his stats are somewhat padded by two glorious years against substandard opposition (the Packer era), he remains among the true greats. Michael Manley, the former Jamaican PM, chose Gavaskar to open in his all-time World XI (A somewhat unfair selection, with the likes of Trumper, Grace, Hobbs and Hutton available).

Until two or three years ago, the openers picked themselves in any all-time Indian team. Merchant and Gavaskar had no serious competition, even if it this meant that my fantasy team would always have one eye on a draw. But Virender Sehwag has established himself as a player legitimately great enough to challenge for selection. By scoring runs in all conditions against all kind of attacks, at strike rates often close to a run a ball, he has done much more than merely delight the spectator. Unlike Merchant and Gavaskar, he has no regard for old-fashioned technique, but as a result he is far more destructive, better setting up a win than a draw. And thus, crusty old traditionalist as I am, he shall have to displace one of the two Bombay greats. It is difficult to choose one or the other as the better player, but Gavaskar's record means that he must play- if Merchant had played more than ten Tests, it might have been different.

No.3
Typically where you're supposed to play your best batsman- the position of Ponting, Hammond and Bradman. Rahul Dravid is the perfect no. 3- capable of wearing out the new ball on a helpful pitch after an early dismissal and, at his peak, of piling on the runs at a decent rate once the bowlers have tired. From his 180 in Calcutta in March 2001 (an innings played while somewhere short of his best form) to his matchwinning knocks of 81 and 68 at Kingston in June 2006, he was the best player in the world.

No.4
India's greatest-ever cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, has chosen this spot as his own and there can be no question of him batting anywhere else.

No.5
Of all the slots in this eleven, this is the most difficult to decide upon. Few have as a strong a case for selection as Vijay Samuel Hazare, the first Indian to score a hundred in each innings- against Bradman's invincibles, no less. Other contenders include GR Vishwanath, India's most attractive and likable bastman, and a prolific matchwinner; VVS Laxman, who played the greatest innings ever by an Indian and is renowned particularly in Australia as a great player; Dileep Vengsarkar, scorer of 17 test hundreds, all of them in India or England; and Vijay Manjrekar, our finest batsman in the 1960s. Even Sourav Ganguly will have his advocates, who might note that without him the side has no left-handers. And with two good eyes, the Nawab of Pataudi (jun.) would surely have no serious rival. If our team was to play at the original Home of Cricket, Lord's, or its Indian rival, the Eden Gardens, a serious case could be made for Azhar- Mohammed Azharuddin, the exhilarating batsman and terrific fielder whose last test hundred I was privileged to watch in the flesh. But Azhar's weaknesses against quick bowling and bouncy wickets rule him out. Crusty traditionalist as I am, I feel that no. 5 has to be India's first great cricketer: CK Nayudu. The Colonel would rival Virender Sehwag for six-hitting while providing useful medium-paced offbreaks and excellent fielding. And, of course, he would captain the side.

The all-rounders
Opposed as I am to the idea of perforce including an all-rounder, the best sides have always had them, and this side is no exception. No. 6 is Vinoo Mankad, that rare all-rounder who could not be described as either a batting all-rounder or a bowling all-rounder, so skilled was he both as a right-handed top and middle-order player as well as a crafty, accurate left-arm spinner who did the double in an astonishing 23 Tests.

No. 7, of course is Kapil Dev. Unlike Mankad, Kapil was recognizably a bowling all-rounder, but it is his batting that brought the most pleasure to the punter, being an unabashed six-hitter in the mould of Flintoff or Symonds but with much more grace than either. India's most athletic cricketer was, naturally, also an asset in the field. And the Kapil of his early twenties, while never express pace, was a world-class outswing bowler with a deadly in-dipper. Lala Amarnath once said of L Amar Singh: "woh tha dil ka cricketer" and the same could easily be said of Kapil.

The 'keeper
Most Indian fans blogging today would, doubtless, choose MS Dhoni as the wicket-keeper and not think twice about it. If one doesn't count Vijay Manjrekar, then it is conceivable that Dhoni's fighting qualities make him the most effective batsman to ever keep wickets for India. But at no. 8, and with quality spinners in the side, you need someone who can really keep, and that isn't Dhoni. For all Farokh Engineer's effervescent charm and the attractions of Hindlekar and More, it comes down to NS Tamhane and Syed Kirmani. It is a difficult choice, but Kirmani has to get the nod for his long record as a first-rate keeper to spin. I suspect that at least some of the praise heaped on Tamhane by those who saw him (all of whom are now above seventy) is nostalgia.

The bowlers
Indian bowlers, as a rule, cannot bat, and thus I will discuss their selection as a block of three. With Mankad and Kapil in the side, it is clear that two spinners and a fast bowler are required. One of the spinners is an easy choice- the recently retired Anil Kumble, one of the gutsiest players and hardest triers in the game's history and the taker of over 600 test wickets. The second spinners' slot comes down to four players: Subhas Gupte, BS Bedi, BS Chandrashekhar and EAS Prasanna. Ghulam Ahmed, S Venkataraghavan, Dilip Doshi and Harbhajan Singh are all high-class bowlers, but not quite in the same league as these four. My instinct would be to pick Bedi, of all Indian cricketers the favourite of the aesthete, but the composition of the side demands a rethink. Just as Chandra, despite being a matchwinner, can be ruled too similar to Kumble (although the idea that anyone can be similar to Chandra is, I admit, a slightly strange one), can we really have two left-armers? This leaves us with Gupte and Prasanna, both magical bowlers. I go with Prasanna because of the variety that the off-spinner provides and because, unlike Mankad and Kumble, he relied on flight. Not only was he described by Ian Chappell as the best off-spinner that he had ever seen, let alone played against, but he has a uniquely good record among Indian spinners in Australia and New Zealand, difficult places at the best of times for a visiting spinner to take wickets.

That leaves us with one final space- that of the second seamer. If we reject out of hand the worthy but middling Ramakant Desai and Karsan Ghavri, it is plain that there are two rival camps of fast bowlers. One is the 1930s pair of Mohammad Nissar and the aforementioned Amar Singh. The other consists of the members of Indian cricket's pace revival post-Kapil. The hyperbolic mass media would, no doubt, propose Ishant Sharma, but excellent bowler and dizzying prospect as Ishant is, it is far too early to make such assessments. After all, only three years ago Irfan Pathan seemed a cert to make an all-time Indian eleven as a left-handed Kapil Dev. Zaheer Khan has his magical moments, but his career figures don't really hold up to the competition. I am tempted to choose Nissar, but given that he and Amar Singh played a combined 13 Tests, it is not easy to do so. Our second fast bowler, then, will be Javagal Srinath, like Kumble an unfailingly hard trier who, only five years after his retirement, seems already forgotten. Srinath took 236 wickets at 30 and his inswing will provide a nice complement to Kapil. Perhaps he is warming this particular seat for Ishant Sharma, but five years is the minimum required to make that judgment.

This, then, is my all-time Indian Test team:
1. SM Gavaskar
2. V Sehwag
3. RS Dravid
4. SR Tendulkar
5. CK Nayudu (capt.)
6. MH "Vinoo" Mankad
7. N Kapil Dev
8. SMH Kirmani (wk)
9. A Kumble
10. J Srinath
11. EAS Prasanna
12th Man: E Solkar
Coach/Manager: BS Bedi

Solkar, the greatet short-leg produced by any country, is a natural choice for twelfth man. And while Bedi doesn't play, he shall play the role of relentlessly controversial manager.