With no international or domestic cricket going on due to the Coronavirus pandemic, former and current cricket stars are keeping themselves occupied by engaging with fans on social media.
On Wednesday (April 1), legendary spinner Shane Warne hosted an Instagram live video session and named his greatest Indian Test XI. In the line-up, he picked only the players he played against during his illustrious career and thus the likes of Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni failed to make the cut.
See More: Shane Warne picks his all-time Australian Test XI; Smith, Warner miss out on selection
Warne, who has represented Australia in 145 Tests, opted to go with Virender Sehwag and Navjot Singh Sidhu as his two openers.
While Sehwag scored more than 9000 runs in the longest format, Sidhu made just above 3000 runs but the Spin King has his reasons to pick the latter.
"I had to pick Navjot Singh Sidhu because he was the best player against spin I have ever played against, all the other spinners I have played with, they have also told me that Siddhu was brilliant against them," Warne said.
For the crucial No. 3 position, he preferred the legendary Rahul Dravid, who has 13000+ runs in Tests.
"Dravid became a friend over the years, I got to know him during a stint with Rajasthan Royals, he made plenty of hundreds against us," the former leg-spinner stated.
Warne picked Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammed Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly for the three middle-order slots. While the great Tendulkar is the all-time highest Test run-scorer with nearly 16000 runs to his name, Azharuddin and Ganguly have also aggregated 6215 and 7212 runs respectively in red-ball cricket.
Warne handed over the reins of the star-studded team to Ganguly, who led India to 21 wins from 49 Tests.
"I went for Ganguly because I wanted him to be the captain of my side, that is why VVS Laxman missed out," he said.
Nayan Mongia, who represented India in 44 Test matches, would don the gloves in Warne’s greatest Indian Test XI. He named Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh as the two spinners while Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath form the pace attack of the side.
Shane Warne’s greatest Indian Test XI:
Virender Sehwag, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammed Azharuddin, Sourav Ganguly (c), Kapil Dev, Harbhajan Singh, Nayan Mongia, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath.
(With ANI inputs)
