A feature in today’s Graun on left-handers in sport brings home to me a dereliction on my part: I have never picked a Test XI composed entirely of lefties. I have offered XIs of both writers and philosophers. There was also the Feuerbach XI. And my friend Bob selected a team of food-related cricketers. But an XI of Test left-handers – this has been sadly neglected. I make amends below.
I have confined myself to cricketers who played after the Second World War, which means that I’ve seen all of them play, most of them in the flesh, one or two only on TV. I had better say also that this is my XI, and you may not judge it to be the best one possible under the above – postwar – constraint. One selection here may be particularly controversial. But you are free to pick your own left-handers’ XI, as I hope, indeed, you will.
1. Graeme Smith (South Africa)
2. Trevor Goddard (South Africa)
3. Graeme Pollock (South Africa)
4. Brian Lara (West Indies)
5. Allan Border (Australia)
6. Gary Sobers (West Indies)
7. Clive Lloyd (West Indies – capt)
8. Adam Gilchrist (Australia – wk)
9. Alan Davidson (Australia)
10. Wasim Akram (Pakistan)
11. Derek Underwood (England)
The disputable selection here is Trevor Goddard. There are plenty of left-handed opening batsmen with a much better batting average than he had. But Goddard also took 123 Test wickets at an average of 26.22 and, with Adam Gilchrist coming in at number 8, this team is not short of batting. David Gower can be twelfth man.