0I-England XI ebalaseleyo ye-20 edlulileyo

Abafundi abasoloko befunda i-witterings yam baya kuyazi ukuba i-Cricket yeTest indiphethe. Yeyona nto iyenza ibehle kakhulu ikhilikithi.

Ke i-Champions Trophy edlalwa eNgilane ngoku kundenze ndacinga ... yeyiphi eyona XI ibalaseleyo eNgilani kumaxesha akutshanje?

Umbuzo wokuqala, kanjalo, na ukuba uchaze indlela 'kutsha'? Ewe, ngenxa yeli nqaku ndenze isigqibo malunga novavanyo lwe-DUTT lwendlela ephakathi nendawo ekhoyo yokunikezela amalulwane uGraham Thorpe.

Thorpe wenza bt kwi kuzotywe Uthuthu uvavanyo yesithathu 1993 zabanjwa phakathi 1 kwaye 6 EyeKhala. Thorpe wenza Makhesenze on bt. umfana Good.

Ngoko ke, ukuthatha kubalingane bakhe ukuba uvavanyo:

The Eng­land open­ers for that test were Mark Lath­well and Mike Ather­ton. Lath­well only ended up play­ing two tests so can be eas­ily put to one side. I will revis­it ‘Ath­ers’ later.

Umyalelo phakathi yayiyilwe Robin Smith, wick­et-keep­er bats­man Alec Stew­ar as well as Gra­ham Gooch, Thorpe and lastly Nas­s­er Hussain.

Robin Smith and Gra­ham Gooch were bril­liant play­ers but were com­ing to the end of their careers in this test so I’ve left them out. Thorpe, Nas­s­er and Stew­art make the short­l­ist. All three were excel­lent ser­vants for their coun­try, scor­ing in excess of 25,000 uvavanyo ubaleka phakathi kwabo. umgudu omkhulu.

Fast medi­um pace bowl­er Andy Cad­dick who took 234 wick­ets for Eng­land led the attack. Umelwe ukuba kuqwalaselwa.

But the oth­er three bowl­ing spots were occu­pied by Mark Ilott, Peter Such and Mar­tin McCague and they only played 19 iimvavanyo phakathi kwabo.

So out of Thorpe’s debut test we have a short­l­ist of Ather­ton, Stew­art, Hus­sain, Thorpe kunye Caddick.

Mov­ing for­ward and bats­men to con­sider are, in the open­ing pos­i­tion, Andrew Stauss, Mar­cus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, cur­rent cap­tain Alastair Cook and Mark Butcher. I’m con­sid­er­ing Stew­art as a middle order keeper/batsman. It’s a dif­fi­cult choice – six qual­ity bats­men but only two places. Ndicinga Cook kufuneka abe khona. He is pure qual­ity and has delivered the goods time and time again for Eng­land and seems to rev­el in the role as cap­tain. The one remain­ing spot goes to Michael Vaughan. He was an incred­ibly classy play­er and brings a use­ful back up spin option to the side. He is also my cap­tain. nzima kakhulu Tresco, Strauss kunye Butch kodwa kunzima izigqibo ezifunekayo!

In the middle order I have four spots avail­able. iindlela zam? kakuhle, Thorpe, Hus­sain and Stew­art are already short lis­ted. Add into the mix Kev­in Pieterson, Paul Colling­wood, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell noMarko Ramprakash (only kid­ding) and I have some very dif­fi­cult choices to make. Thorpe kufuneka abe khona mna. Ndingu fan oxandileyo. Kev­in Pieterson needs to be in there too – when on song there is no one bet­ter. I’m going to plumb for Trott as my anchor of the innings so one more spot.…I’m going to go for Alec Stew­art. Just. Hus­sain and Colling­wood were very gutsy play­ers with Colling­wood present­ing a use­ful backup bowl­ing option. He was also a word-class field­er. Ian Bell usenokuba amanqaku phantse 6,000 test match runs but I’ve nev­er been 100% con­vinced he fully belongs. Stew­art ulti­mately gets the nod because he can keep wick­et, free­ing up anoth­er bowl­ing position.

So that means no place for Mat­tie Pri­or in the middle-order. That was an incred­ibly close call – there is so little to choose between Stew­art and Pri­or – both destruct­ive bats­men, both good keep­ers. On anoth­er day Pri­or could have eas­ily got the nod.

Ngoko ke sibheka kuzo kwindawo le-rounder yonke ngayo. That goes to Andrew ‘Fred­die’ Flintoff. No dis­cus­sion needed. He would have made it in as a bowl­er even if he couldn’t bat. But by good­ness could he bat as well when hit­ting bemused Aus­sies to all-corners of the ground. Mar­vel­lous stuff.

Because I have Stew­art as my keeper/batsmen I have room for five bowl­ers (includ­ing Fred). Ndiza kuba ukuhlaselwa ngesantya ezine-ntathu kunye ukhetho esukela. UFred ndawo yokuqala. Cad­ddick has already been short­l­is­ted so those being added to that are Dar­ren ‘Dazzler’ Gough, Ashes her­oes Mat­thew Hog­gard, Simon Jones and Steve Harmis­on and then the cur­rent crop of quicks Jimmy Ander­son and Stu­art Broad. Domin­ic Cork can per­haps count him­self unlucky not to make the shortlist.

Gough­ie should be in there. A great bowl­er and a genu­ine char­ac­ter, wayenako bat kancinci kakhulu.

His one-time York­shire team-mate Mat­thew Hog­gard gets a spot too. Per­haps it’s a little bit of my York­shire bias shin­ing through. But there’s an old say­ing in Eng­lish crick­et – when York­shire are strong, Eng­land are strong.

Omnye ndawo ngaphezulu kwaye uya Jimmy. His sheer weight of wick­ets gets him in.

As for the spin option – there can only be one bowl­er surely? Graeme Swann is in there head and shoulders above all oth­er con­tenders (Monty and Ash­ley Giles).

kwaye yam 12^th indoda? Ingaba ukuba super-sub Gary Pratt kunjalo. Sorry Mr Pont­ing – I couldn’t resist!