INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my “100 cricketers” series. This post concludes the look at my sixth XI with a look at the all-rounders and introduces the seventh XI in batting order. The introductory post to the whole series can be found here, the post in which I introduce the sixth XI here and the most recent post in the series here.

+AMY JONES

Her overall batting record looks modest (ODI average 27.33, T20I average 18.20, no tests played yet), but her last seven innings have been 56, 79, 54, 76, 18, 36 and 57, all of them in winning causes. At the age of 25 she should still be improving, and I firmly expect that international centuries will appear against her name sooner rather than later. Sarah Taylor’s absence has given her an opportunity for an extended run at international level and she has taken it splendidly. 

DEEPTI SHARMA

Given that I do not set huge store by records in T20 and that she is yet another top woman cricketer who has had no opportunity to show what she can do in test cricket it is her ODI record that earns her a place in this squad, and her figures in that form of the game are: 48 matches, 1,330 runs at 41.81 with a highest score of 155 and 56 wickets at 27.39 (economy rate 3.87) with a best of 6-20. This means that she is worth a place purely with the bat, and is a genuine front-line spinner to support my West Indian pace quartet (better than anyone who actually provided spin back-up to a WI pace quartet, most often the part-time stuff of Viv Richards, and even Roger Harper, though officially a front-line bowler did not have that great a bowling record), which really strengthens the overall squad. To complete the record on the bowling front, Sanath Jayasuria’s slow left-arm would be the sixth bowling option and Chloe Tryon’s left-arm medium fast would be seventh in the pecking order. Deepti Sharma is a youngster, just 21 years old, which means that her finest years are still ahead of her – look for an already impressive record to get even better. This completes the look at the sixth XI, meaning that it is time to introduce…

THE SEVENTH XI

Here is my seventh XI in batting order:

1. Gordon Greenidge
2. Desmond Haynes
3. Ricky Ponting
4. Hashim Amla
5. Heather Knight – vice-captain
6. *Imran Khan
7. +Mahendra Singh Dhoni
8. Daniel Vettori
9. Pat Cummins
10. Anya Shrubsole
11. Amanda Wellington

Note that in this XI I have gone to to the extent of naming a vice-captain – I will explain this in more detail in later posts. For the moment, all I will say is that there are those who would advocate that the no3 in this XI get the captaincy and I wanted to emphasise just how far away he is from that in my thoughts.

PHOTOGRAPHS

The usual finish…