A team picked on aesthetics and character is a team to be enjoyed

PAUL EDWARDS: I am struck by how much pleasure I would derive from watching these cricketers play together. But I also know that it would pale when set against my feelings when county cricket does resume and we return to the green fields of praise

The last couple of months have seen the making of many lists and that is perfectly understandable. I quite see why every media outlet has been trying to rank the best batsmen, bowlers, tea-ladies and jockstraps: they have pages and hours to fill.

Yet such lists are necessarily subjective and supposedly scientific attempts to analyse such things across eras should be approached with extreme scepticism. For every Don Bradman, where the statistical difference is so colossal as make his claim virtually irrefutable, there are twenty cases where opinion and argument are all we have.

And I like opinion as long as it is courteously expressed and other views are welcomed. I want to know why Neville Cardus revered Archie MacLaren or Jim Kilburn thought the world of Len Hutton. Cricket, perhaps above all games, will always attract individual appreciation and over the last week I have been trying to select a team I would like to see take the field when cricket finally resumes.

The choice has been restricted to the last 15 years or so and has been made in the knowledge that four of the players picked have now retired. A couple of rules were imposed: no more than two players from any one county and only one overseas cricketer, the selection of whom can bring a county’s representation up to three. And this is nothing more than momentary preference; my view may have altered by next week. I’d also love to hear the teams selected by readers although please remember our criterion is enjoyment.

My openers could not be more contrasting and that was one reason why they were picked. I’ll never forget my first sight of Haseeb Hameed playing for Lancashire’s second team when hardly anyone knew who he was. I’d never seen such serenity and composure in a 17-year-old and whatever has happened to Haseeb since that day, I’ll never forget that innings.

Indeed, if I could have one wish for a cricketer when our game resumes, it is that he makes a success of his career at Trent Bridge. However, since he hasn’t yet played a game for Nottinghamshire I’ll keep him as one of my Lancastrians.

^{VVS Laxman unfurling a big slog-sweep during his Lancashire days...}

To partner Haseeb I’ve picked Phil Salt of Sussex. Either side of the Second World War there was a batsman called Hugh Bartlett who used to thrill crowds at Hove by taking attacks apart with displays of uninhibited hitting. Salt is his natural heir and my hope for him is that he doesn’t confine himself to white-ball cricket and franchise tourism. I’m not sure any current cricketer bats with more freedom and fewer regrets and I’d be intrigued to see what Salt and Hameed learn from each other.

My other specialist batsmen are all chosen on aesthetic grounds although two of them were once regarded as among the best cricketers in the world. Ian Bell can go in first wicket down because he is capable of playing any sort of innings and makes batting look as graceful as anyone in England apart from my No.4, James Hildreth.

I suppose we must call Hildreth a veteran now – he will be 36 in September - and it is clear his chances of playing for England have gone. I have seen him make four centuries and my memories of them are very clear. His cover drive is one of the finest in the land. Some of his innings have given me as much pleasure as anything I’ve seen in the game.

My overseas player is VVS Laxman, whom I have selected as much for the influence he might have on the younger cricketers in the team as for his batting talent, although that, of course, was colossal. Laxman whipped balls to the leg-side boundary which other batsmen would have struggled to defend.

Some of his centuries were monuments to his art and yet he was so humble about his achievement you might have thought he’d scratched his way to twenty or so. Although Lancashire players still talk about Laxman’s cricket with awe they remember the person even more clearly.

I’ve already picked three Test cricketers but the remainder of the team have all distinguished themselves solely in the domestic game. The first of them will captain the side and he is Steven Mullaney of Nottinghamshire. Underestimated at Lancashire, overlooked by many of the press, Mullaney has long been totally devoted to Trent Bridge and Nottinghamshire are fortunate to have a player of his unsparing commitment. He bowls usefully, bats very much better than that from any position and is a shrewd skipper.

The wicketkeeper is another underestimated foot-soldier of the county game. Perhaps I have been lucky but whenever I’ve watched Sussex play, Ben Brown has made runs. He is also a proficient keeper and the sort of person who will stroll up to the County Ground at Hove chatting to the members. It should be clear by now that I’ve picked players partly because their characters appealed to me.  I would enjoy seeing these players do well.

We’ve reached the four specialist bowlers and my spinner has come straight from left field. I was at Taunton last year when Liam Patterson-White made his debut for Nottinghamshire. On the first day he was off the field with tonsillitis; on the second he made a four-ball duck; on the third he took five wickets with his slow left-arm bowling but his team lost the game.

^{Jack Shantry has since retired but became a cult hero at Worcestershire}

Yet through it all Patterson-White conducted himself with good humour and modest courtesy. He was plainly utterly delighted to be a first-class cricketer. One member of this team was always going to be a wager on the future and the neutrals at Taunton last July all wished Liam well.

The first of my three seamers is Jack Shantry, about whom I have already written far too much. So perhaps only two things should be added now. The first is that no player I have seen had a stronger relationship with the people supporting his team; you always had the feeling that if Jack had not been playing for Worcestershire he would have been supporting them. The second is that if I asked ten of my colleagues to select their own team based on my criterion of enjoyment I’m fairly confident at least half of them would include Jack.

The new-ball bowling in my team will be shared by Glen Chapple and Alan Richardson. Chapple was the most popular player at Lancashire in the early years of this century, not least because spectators saw in his efforts a reflection of their own commitment. With every year that passed and full England honours eluded him their love for him deepened and it was never difficult to see why that was so. No seam bowler worked harder to improve his skills and that work never ceased, even when Chapple was in his late thirties. He was the first name on this team-sheet.

Opposing batsmen will not thank me for pairing Chapple with Richardson. They will have to play every ball and if the pitch has a bit in it they will do well to survive long. Richardson was one of those cricketers for whom the last few years of his career were a glorious autumn rather than a gentle winding-down.

He made a couple of technical adjustments to his grip and became one of the very best seamers in the land. Worcestershire were the main beneficiaries but Richardson’s contribution at New Road extended far beyond taking sheaves of wickets. He was an advisor to young seamers like Shantry yet he wore his wisdom lightly. He advised rather than lectured and it is the county’s excellent fortune he is now their bowling coach.

So my team is as follows: Hameed, Salt, Bell, Hildreth, Laxman, Mullaney (c), Brown (wk), Patterson-White, Shantry, Chapple, Richardson.

As I review it I am again struck by how much pleasure I would derive from watching these cricketers play together. But I also know that such pleasure would pale when set against my feelings when county cricket does resume this season and we return to the green fields of praise.

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