Kohli, Ashwin not in Indian ‘Dream’ team

After more than 50,000 votes, Cricket Australia selected India’s Greatest Test XI as voted for by the fans. 

Over the past week, Cricket Australia has been asking the fans who they think deserve to be selected in India’s Greatest XI as a way of celebrating their 500th Test match, starting on Thursday in Kanpur. 

From the greatest openers, the best of a swathe of middle-order batting stars, the wicketkeepers, the quicks and a host of spinners, Cricket Australia finally found their eleven. The fans preferred Harbhajan Singh to Ashwin and Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman to Kohli. Evidently, they went by the players’ performance against Australia. The full breakdown of the results is below, showing several clear-cut winners in their respective categories, led by MS Dhoni who won 93 per cent of the vote as India’s greatest wicketkeeper-batsman. The tightest battle was for the No.5 and No.6 positions, with VVS Laxman a clear victor for one spot and former skipper Sourav Ganguly just edging out current captain Virat Kohli for the other spot in the batting order. 

Not surprisingly, the side had a distinctly modern feel; all but Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev played Test cricket since the year 2000, underlining the unprecedented period of success Indian cricket has enjoyed so far this century. Gavaskar is joined by Virender Sehwag at the top.