No Virat Kohli in Cricket Australia's Greatest India Test XI, MS Dhoni Finds Place
India Test captain Virat Kohli did not find a place in Cricket Australia's all-time greatest India Test XI, based on a fan poll, though former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's name is there. Indian team will play its 500th Test on Thursday
Highlights
-
Virat Kohli hasn't found a place in Cricket Australia's all India Test XI
-
MS Dhoni, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar's name is there
-
The team list was made out of a fan poll with more than 50,000 votes
Cricket Australia, after analysing more than 50,000 votes from fans, has released their list of India's all-time greatest Test XI and it doesn't have captain Virat Kohli in it. India will play their 500th Test in Kanpur, starting on Thursday against New Zealand.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who was Kohli's predecessor as India Test captain, has found a place in the team as has other former captains Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly.
Kumble is currently the head coach of Indian Test team that recently won an away series in West Indies. He believes that the Kohli-led Indian team can dominate Tests for the next decade.
"This team is something special. We want to raise the bar in every Test. This team certainly has the potential to make Indian cricket something special in the next five to 10 years," Kumble said.
Clear-cut winners
After analysing 50,000 fan votes and its patterns, there were some clear-cut winners. Dhoni, with 93 per cent of the vote, won the tag of India's greatest wicketkeeper-batsman hands down.
Also, 63 percent of the votes went to Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag to be the best opening combine.
The No. 3 position went to Dravid with 76 per cent votes while Tendulkar got the No. 4 position with 77 per cent votes.
Competition between Ganguly, Laxman and Kohli
But for the No. 5 and No. 6 position there was a close fight between Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Kohli.
For the No. 5 spot, Laxman got 37 per cent of the votes while Kohli came second with 28 per cent votes. Ganguly was third with 18 percent votes.
For the No. 6 slot, again, Laxman was the first choice with 44 per cent votes while Ganguly was second with 25 per cent. Kohli was third with 16 per cent votes.
Kapil, Zaheer in pace department
The fans who voted in Cricket Australia's poll went for a two-man pace attack with Kapil Dev (58 per cent) and Zaheer Khan (48 per cent) being the preferred choice.
In the two-pronged spin attack, Kumble (75 per cent) and Harbhajan Singh (44 per cent) were the fans' favoured choice.
India's all-time greatest XI:
Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni, Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan