Jim Maxwell's 50 Year XI
*Gilly
Sangakkara
V Richards
Lara
Tendulkar
Ponting
Ben Stokes
Warne
Lillee
Thommo
Warne
Kallis (12th)
Thanks, Gough.
I think you meant to include McGrath at number 11, rather than repeat Warne.
An interesting selection for various reasons. I wouldn't have Thommo in the top 25 bowlers I have seen, let alone as one of the three specialist fast bowlers in the side. The selection of JR Thomson gave Maxwell his cue to re-tell the tedious Lillian Thomson bit.
How no West Indian quicks from the 1980s or 1990s made it, particularly Marshall, is beyond me.
Gilchrist was a fine opener in ODIs, but it's questionable whether he would perform consistently in this position in a fictional Test match on top of his workload as a 'keeper.
Maxwell originally selected Sobers, but then remembered he had never called a Test match in which Sobers was playing. Which led to 'The Voice of Summer' shoe-horning Ponting as the number 6 (yes, I remember Ponting playing his early Tests at 6 before he was dropped a few times and later starred as a number 3).
There is no clear-cut choice as captain. Maxwell opted for Richards and, to his credit, admitted that Richards was an ordinary tactician and implied that the Windies of the mid-to-late-1980s were so imposing that the captain's role was merely incidental.