Who Gets In An England-South Africa XI

First topic message reminder :

Today on www.alloutcricket.com David Green picks his composite XI from the two best sides in the world:

http://www.alloutcricket.com/blogs/comment/who-gets-in-an-england-south-africa-xi

Agree? Disagree? Let us know what you think.

JDizzle wrote:No Anderson Gregers? And I wondered how you had managed to fit in both Bell and ABDV until I worked out who you had dropped!

Glad you liked it!

Now being serious, how about:

Smith (c)
Cook
Amla
Kallis
KP
ABDV (wk)
Bell
Bresnan
Broad
Swann
Steyn

Bat first and destroy them with the sheer amount of batting!

I must say, I am surprised the English bolers are rate so much better than the SA bowlers

Smith (c)
Cook
Amla
Kallis
KP
De villiers (wk)
Bell
Broad
Swann
Steyn
Anderson

biltongbek wrote:I must say, I am surprised the English bolers are rate so much better than the SA bowlers

It's an British forum on the whole, bound to be some bias towards the English bowlers. But the way I looked at it was I am going to play a 4 man attack, plus big Jacques, with 3 seamers and 1 spinner. Anderson and Steyn are the two best fast bowlers in the world so they both have to play. Then Swann is a far better, and more proven Test match spinner than Tahir so he has to play and that makes it 2-1 to English bowlers so the most SA bowlers that can be in the attack is 2 out of 4, and that is a fairly easy selection for me. Then it just comes down to between Philander, Morkel and Broad for the third seamer slot. And Morkel is a good bowler, but Vernon and Stuart are the men in form over the past year so it comes down to between those two. Whilst Vernon has been the sensation in the past year, he has played on more helpful pitches than Stu and of course Stuart has his batting and the fact he is a taller, bouncier bowler than Philander who would compliment Steyn and Anderson better than Vernon, as Philander is quite similar to the two I have already selected.

So I don't think a composite XI best illustrates the attacks. I put England's a nose ahead, with Swann making the difference but they are a lot closer than a composite XI shows.