The great off-spinner on his dream team
Vinoo Mankad: He is the best opening batsman ever and the best
left arm spinner.
Sunil Gavaskar: The all-time great opening batsman.
Vijay Manjrekar: One of the best batsmen India has ever
seen. He was the only one who could play both pace and spin with equal ease.
Sachin Tendulkar: He is really a prodigy. Undoubtedly, one
of the most attacking players I have ever seen.
Mohammed Azharuddin: A great batsman and excellent
fielder.
Gundappa R Viswanath: The most accomplished player and
an excellent close-in fielder.
Kapil Dev: An all-time great fast bowler, excellent
batsman and fielder.
Syed Kirmani: The greatest wicket keeper India ever
produced.
E A S Prasanna: I am really the only good off-spinner the game
has ever seen.
Javagal Srinath: He is the fastest bowler India has ever produced.
Subhash Gupte: An all-time great leg spinner that the
country could ever be proud of, and this game could ever see anywhere
in the world.
Here is the logic for my team selection:
I have two fast bowlers, Srinath and Kapil
Dev, backed by three spinners Prasanna, Gupte and Tendulkar, who can bowl
with any type of wicket. Then we have an all-time best wicket-keeper,
Kiri, and five batsmen, one of whom, Tendulkar, is an opening batsman-cum-bowler. Two of the others, Mankad and Kapil Dev, are all-rounders.
All five
batsmen I have chosen are people who have more than 200 runs each per
innings, and have performed marvellously on foreign soil.
My choice for 12th man would be Eknath Solkar, as he is the only player who
could field very well without headgear. I would love to have him any time,
any moment, on any team I chose, because he is such a good fielder.
As told to M D Riti
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