Former England skipper Alastair Cook has named his all-time playing XI. He also justified that he is picking players with whom he has played with or against with the exception of his mentor and England batting legend Graham Gooch. The team seems to be an invisible one with just one distinctiveness – it has no Indian players in it. Apart from that, Cook’s former England teammate Kevin Pietersen is a notable omission.

Despite the omission of Indian players, Cook did end up picking a side that would be tough to beat on any given day. He said, So Goochy is going to be my captain and opening the batting. He can open the batting with Mathew Hayden.” He had picked Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, AB de Villiers, Kumar Sangakkara and Jacques Kallis and asked them to bat in any order they want. He also said that either of Sangakkara or De Villiers can don the wicketkeeper’s gloves and he reckons that in order to watch that middle-order bat, he can spend any amount of money. 

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In the bowling department, he decided to go with two spinners – Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and Australia’s Shane Warne – while James Anderson and Glenn McGrath were the two fast bowlers. In the video released by the International Cricket Council (ICC), Cook revealed his team. Here is the video:

https://www.facebook.com/HomeOfCricket/videos/504968313299348/

On Monday, Cook announced on Monday that England’s fifth Test against India that starts on September 7 will be his last. That will be his 116th Test match and he has thus far scored 12,254 runs, making him England’s all-time highest scorer. He is also the sixth highest scorer overall, behind only the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis, Rahul Dravid, and Sangakkara.

Here is the All-time XI of Alastair Cook:

Graham Gooch (c), Matthew Hayden, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, AB de Villiers (wk), Kumar Sangakkara (wk), Jacques Kallis, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, James Anderson, Glenn Mcgrath.