Ravichandran Ashwin only Indian in current World Test XI by commentators

It was surely a herculean task to select such team, which is full of star players.

We have often come across cricketers picking their XI according to their expertise, knowledge and on the fact who played against/alongside them. But it is quite rare when a group of commentators selects the XI with their mutual understanding. It happened during the second Test between South Africa and New Zealand earlier this year in August 2016. The commentators were anchored by another famous commentator Pommie Mbangwa. The commentators who were discussing on picking the current Test XI were Kepler Wessels, Shaun Pollock, Simon Doull and Eric Simmons. They started picking their XI from bowlers after looking into the players’ batting and bowling rankings. The first few choices were quite obvious as they were Mitchell Starc and Ravichandran Ashwin.

They also included Yasir Shah along with two pacers — Dale Steyn and James Anderson, followed by Ben Stokes as an all rounder in the team. Further, after having a bit more discussion they agreed with three pacers, one spinner, all rounder and left Yasir Shah. Moving to batting department, it started with Alastair Cook and David Warner but later, they chose Kane Williamson as opening partner with Warner, followed by Hashim Amla at number three. Well, there were a lot of discussions on number three batsman as there were many in contention, such as Joe Root, Steven Smith, etc.

Coming to the middle-order, they picked Joe Root, AB de Villiers as wicketkeeper, Steven Smith followed by the all rounder and bowlers. Also, Yasir who was left out earlier, was later picked as the 12th man in the team. It was surely a herculean task to select such team, which is full of star players. Here’s the XI:

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