Now the quibbling can begin: Glichrist over Knott? © Associated Press

I am yet to meet a cricket fan who doesn’t fancy himself as a selector. This of course makes the job of professional selectors among the most hazardous in the business. Everyone thinks they could have done a better job than you and, no matter what team you pick, there would be a billion people disagreeing.

But picking all-time XIs is always fun because it allows you to enter the realms of fantasy with nothing material at stake. So we stand accused of having indulged ourselves for over 15 months in picking all-time XIs of each major Test-playing country and then capping it off with a World XI. Judging from your whole-hearted participation, though, it’s clear that we haven’t been the only ones enjoying ourselves.

However, fun was only part of the deal. While it can be argued that picking fantasy XIs are ultimately exercises in futility, they also serve the worthiest of causes. They give us a reason and opportunity to peek into the past, and regard the present in its context. Cricket is so incessant, so over exposed and, if you live in the subcontinent, so pervasive that it allows little room for contemplation. And the modern game can get so raucous, so frenzied and so over-hyped that it can feel too rarefied for its own good.

The word “great” is bandied around so casually and so carelessly - and never so insincerely as on TV commentary - that it has been stripped of all value. An exercise like picking an all-time team is to force yourself to examine greatness in proper context and restore it to its rightful place.

Picking an all-time XI is never about whom to include but whom to leave out. Selectors regard the problem of plenty as a happy one, but this is a problem of obscene abundance. Picking one player means leaving out at least five others who could have done the job as well. But, as Ian Chappell has said, the best way to examine great players is to judge them by their opposition. We can go on quibbling about the players we would have had in our team, but is there anyone in that XI who didn’t earn his place?

Happily, my role was restricted to picking the jury and I can explain that part of the selection. We chose eight Test captains, most of whom started their first-class career in the 1960s; assuming they all started watching cricket at least ten years prior to that, that would have given them a span of almost 60 years. As captains, they were all keen students of game and were closely involved in selecting teams. Additionally, we chose three cricket historians for obvious reasons and one of world’s most-travelled cricket writers who has been a captain himself.


Now we can go on quibbling about the players we would or should have had in our team – Where’s Imran? Why not Hadlee? No Gavaskar? Gilchrist over Knott? Why not both Murali and Warne? – but to a great degree that’s what it is all about: getting involved, digging into memories, caring and feeling for your heroes and celebrating them.

And in keeping with the spirit of things, I have allowed myself the indulgence of picking my own team. I would make two changes. Alan Knott wins my vote for being the better wicketkeeper and because this team might not be so reliant on Gilchrist’s batting.

And because I saw him tackle the most fearsome bowling attack of our times with the assuredness none of his contemporaries could manage, and because so much my childhood and youth was spent worshipping his batting, I would have Sunil Gavaskar open the innings. But who would I drop - Hobbs or Hutton? - is a question to contemplate over the next few days.

	Everyone wanted a slice of him and Tendulkar was in the mood to oblige © AFP

At first glance, the setting wasn't befitting of the occasion. It was an invitation-only media session with Sachin Tendulkar on the eve of his completing 20 years in international cricket. The Taj Land's End hotel was the perfect venue because it was only a few minutes’ drive from his home in suburban Mumbai. But the room was small, tucked away in a corner of the second floor; dimly lit; and had such a narrow entrance that the television cameramen struggled to get their equipment through.

Of course only a few had been invited. Inevitably, though, word got around and inevitably everyone piled in. Could it really have been any other way? So there were nearly as many television cameras as Tendulkar’s Test hundreds; the chairs were taken up quickly so many of the journalists squatted on the floor, almost engulfing Tendulkar in a semi-circle. Coverage of the event was embargoed till November 15, the actual day of Tendulkar’s landmark, but word came soon that a couple of television channels were broadcasting it live. It felt shambolic.

Even so, the organisers couldn’t have made it more charming had they tried. There was no flash or ostentation, no grand stage and no barriers; Tendulkar was in such proximity that some of us could have extended our arms and touched him. It felt intimate and cosy and the most colossal of superstars felt endearingly human. It was apt too, because he has been the most human of superstars. I use word human here to describe simplicity and humility, not frailties and misdemeanours associated with fame and glory.

Throughout his life Sachin Tendulkar has worn his celebrity lightly. He could have hardly been unaware of it yet somehow he has managed to stay impervious to it. Perhaps it’s just been easy: that’s the way he has grown up. When asked if has found the mantle of greatness tedious or the scrutiny by the media suffocating, he has an uncomplicated answer. “This is the way I've known my life from the age of 14. I'm comfortable with it.”

Not everything about Tendulkar has stayed the same. His game has changed, evolved rather. It has become more nuanced, more mature, subtler, more versatile and, to the occasional chagrin of his fans, more watchful. His voice has got more timbre in it and he speaks a lot more at press conferences. He is father to two children, and the 10-year-old Arjun tries to hit as many balls into the stratosphere as he can. In a newspaper interview published on the occasion, his wife Anjali was tickled by the idea, however improbable, that father and son could play together.

But there is a Tendulkar that hasn’t grown up. Cricket for him is not a vocation, not a ticket to stardom and riches, and perhaps not even about the India cap he so cherishes. It is what defines him, what makes him, and he has no hesitation in admitting that he needs cricket as much as cricket needs him.

I asked him how he has managed to retain his enthusiasm for the rigours of practice after so many years. He didn’t have to search for an answer. “Cricket lives in my heart,” he said with striking simplicity. “Whenever I'm on a cricket field I enjoy it, and somewhere there's still a 16-year-old hidden inside who wants to go out and express himself.”

It was meant to be a 90-minute session; it lasted close to five hours. Everyone wanted a slice of him and Tendulkar was in the mood to oblige. He switched effortlessly from English to Hindi to Marathi; dignified the most inane question with an answer; even took on a politically-loaded one that provided newspapers with a front-page headline (Mumbai belongs to India, he said when asked, indirectly, about the recent campaign by a party that has made Marathi chauvinism its central plank); but had the wit to not to be drawn into the Warne-Murali debate (Whom would you rather face if they were bowling together? “I’d rather be in the dressing room.”); and didn't lose patience with the photographers who all wanted that final shot.

I left while he was getting ready for another one-on-one session. “Must be the most varied attack you have had to face in a day’s play,” I remarked, attempting lame humour. He flashed a wide smile. His face is beginning to show signs of age but the smile retains its boyishness. “Yes, a lot of variety,” he said. He still looked alert and fresh. The cricketer in him would have approved.

This message landed in my Facebook message box: “How good are u as an editor I wonder? Why don’t u ponder how really good the likes of Laxman and Sehwag are?”

I wouldn’t say I am surprised by the feedback to my previous post. But a bit disappointed, yes, because the point I was trying to make seems to have been largely missed.

My intent was not to put Thilan Samaraweera, or Sri Lanka batsmen, down. I was trying to use Samaraweera to illustrate the devaluation of batting averages in the 21st century. I pointed out how reality has caught up with Mike Hussey too. Perhaps a lot of you have responded to the headline, which read: “How good is Samaraweera?” With hindsight, we could perhaps have used “The truth about batting averages”.

Now let me use the example of another Sri Lankan batsman to further argue my case.

Aravinda de Silva played his Tests between 1984 and 2002. He was a breathtaking strokeplayer who came to be called Mad Max after he brought up his first Test hundred hooking Imran Khan for six. He scored another century in the same series, 105
out of a team score of 230. The second-highest score was 25. By then he had been promoted to No. 3; and his runs came against Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir.

His next century came in Australia, a quite brilliant 167 in Brisbane, in only his second Test in that country. In the following Test, in Hobart, he scored 147 (75 and 72). And his next hundred was 267 off 380 balls, in his first appearance in New Zealand.

He finished with an average of 42.97 from 93 Tests. It felt right. De Silva was a good batsman who played some great innings. He could have scored more
runs, but he played too many strokes for his own good. He left a lot of memories, perhaps none better than the half-century and hundred in the semi-final and final of the 1996 World Cup.

In a few months we will be picking an all-time Test XI for Sri Lanka. I will bet that de Silva will be one of the first names on the shortlist. I am not so sure about Samaraweera.

VVS Laxman? He is perhaps a bit like de Silva: a good batsman with some great innings. But is he as good as GR Viswanath, who had a lower average? I
love watching Laxman bat, but he wouldn’t make my all-time Indian XI. Vishy would.

Sehwag is a different story. I don’t think he would have averaged 50 in the 1990s. But wherever he has played and whoever he has played against, he has made runs. Big runs and in an emphatic manner. But is he as good as Sachin Tendulkar? Let’s not even go there.