Former England captain Michael Vaughan has named his favorite XI from the 1960s to 2010s. There was a caveat though that he could only pick players from the 60s until date. And most importantly, he wasn’t allowed to go for more than two players from each decade.
He began by picking one of the best openers of his time, England’s own Geoff Boycott, and coupled him with South Africa’s Graeme Smith. Boycott ended his career with 8114 runs in 108 Tests, while Smith made more than 9,000 runs in 117 tests and almost 7,000 runs in 197 ODIs.
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Steve Smith, Sir Viv Richards, and Sachin Tendulkar were chosen next by Vaughan. Smith is widely regarded as one of the best in Tests currently, while Tendulkar is the only man to play 200 Tests and make 100 international centuries. Richards, on the other hand, redefined aggressive Test batting, taking it to the new level.
He picked Australia’s Adam Gilchrist as the wicketkeeper, who changed how teams looked at their glovesman. Gilchrist made every team go for a keeper that was also a very good batsman. He picked Shane Warne, who picked 708 Test wickets as the only spinner in his team.
Sir Ian Botham is the only all-rounder in his team. Beefy, as he was known, picked 383 Test wickets in 102 games and 5,200 runs to go with that.
For the fast bowlers, he picked Pakistani great Wasim Akram, England’s own James Anderson, and Australia’s Pat Cummins.
Akram is the only bowler with two hat-tricks each in Tests and ODIs and over 400 wickets in both formats. James Anderson is England’s leading Test wicket-taker with 584 scalps. And Pat Cummins made a tremendous return to the game in 2017 after missing five years due to a career-threatening injury to his back.
He is currently the best Test bowler with 143 wickets to his name in 30 matches.
Michael Vaughan’s favorite XI:
Geoff Boycott, Graeme Smith, Steve Smith, Sir Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Adam Gilchrist, Ian Botham, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, James Anderson, Pat Cummins
