Really, I don’t think there could be anyone else but Donald Bradman to captain Cricinfo’s all-time World XI.
You may show your approval by voting for the Don in the following poll. Or be totally misguided and pick any of the other ten.
update: happy to see some people voting, but please, also let me know who you are and what you voted 
Cricinfo completed its selection for an all-time World XI.
I have no complaints about the final eleven, but Cricinfo has left one question unanswered: who should captain the side?
The World XI combines some of the greatest players in history, with ego’s to match. It would require someone special to earn the respect of these players and get them playing as a team.
The World XI: Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Adam Gilchrist, Malcolm Marshall, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Dennis Lillee.
So who to pick as captain?
Adam Gilchrist and Sachin Tendulkar are both out of the question. They seem too gentle to captain this team.
And as a rule, I don’t think fast bowlers should captain any side, so that is another three out of the question.
Garry Sobers has enough on his plate as the team’s allrounder and Jack Hobbs never captained his county of country, ruling him out too.
So that leaves me with Len Hutton, Don Bradman, Viv Richards and Shane Warne as possible captains. Four formidable cricketers.
The most exciting choice would be to pick Warne (“the greatest captain Australia never had”), but I am not sure he is the man to lead this eleven.
Warne’s captaincy is about being daring and inventive. Great when your the underdog, but the World XI is just about dominating the opposition into submission.
That’s something you could leave up to Richards, who never lost a Test series as captain of the West Indies and won the first two editions of the World Cup. And Richards is a man who knows how to handle fast bowlers off course.
But he won’t be my pick for captaining the World XI.
And neither will Hutton, despite his cunning captaincy of England on some of the hardest tours ever in Australia en West Indies, leading England to victories there.
Lets be honest. There really is only one man fit to captain the all-time World XI. The greatest cricketer ever: Donald Bradman.
In every sense a world beater, both as batsman and captain, Bradman is the natural leader for the all-time World XI.
The ICC do so many stupid things, it’s hard to keep track. One of their most recent ones was a proposal from their Chief Executives’ Committee to reduce the number of teams in the World Cup.
A proposal that hasn’t gone down well with the Associates and their ‘voice’ on internet; CricketEurope.
The website is doing a large number of opinionated articles on the subject (which makes good reading btw).
And there is more, they want your help:
Do you disagree with the ICC’s proposal to reduce the number of teams in the 2015 World Cup to just 10?
If so then sign up to our online petition, now.
Do it, and do it immediately!
The list of names will be forwarded to the ICC in advance of their 11 October Board meeting where the proposal will be discussed.
Despite Kevin Pietersen’s mishap on Twitter, he hasn’t given up on using the service. And I am glad he didn’t.
A lot of people don’t really like Pietersen – to put it mildy. But this “arrogant” and “cocky” man is one of the few international sport stars who takes time to answer questions on Twitter:
The barrage of questions is part of a competition; the best question wins a signed shirt and bat.
Cynics will probably say he’s doing a bit of self-promotion, and yes, that could very well be part of it.
But Pietersen has taken time to answer hundreds of questions – even the really bad ones – in a manner that shows he is enjoying engaging with fans.
I say hats off to Pietersen.
He doesn’t have to do this, but he has given numerous fans a chance to connect with him in a way other cricketers – and athletes in general – could learn from.
A shameless plug, especially for all you cricket bloggers: visit my new site Guide for Bloggers. I put it up with you lot in mind
First real post is on why I abandoned self-hosted WordPress and returned to the mothership at WordPress.com.
Yesterday, as India were closing in on victory thanks to the mighty VVS Laxman, Cricinfo’s servers crashed.
Not the first time Cricinfo suffered from “indiamadites” (a condition when webservers overload due to India’s cricket madness), the last time being when Tendulkar made an unbeaten 200 in an ODI.
But when Cricinfo suffers, we suffer. Where to go when they are out? This is a question more people have. Why else would my post on Cricinfo’s crash yesterday bring in the extra traffic?
So I thought we should talk alternatives; where to go when Cricinfo fails?
I kept track via Cricbuzz’s live commentary. Ball-by-ball commentary, almost as elaborate as Cricinfo’s. A bit slow yesterday, but at least they were still up and running.
Want I really don’t like is how they mix editorial content with advertorial content, without making clear when the line is crossed. To me, that is just wrong.
Perhaps an even better way to keep track on what’s happening is Twitter.com. I said it before, Twitter is a great tool for cricket fans to stay close to all the action.
And when Cricinfo is out, you can always count on someone to keep you posted of what is happening on the field.
There must be more alternatives for Cricinfo and their live commentary.
How did you keep track of India vs Australia when Cricinfo broke down? Do you even use Cricinfo for live scores and commentary?
