IT IS always fun to pick imaginary cricket teams. In this case, for myself at least, it is also going to be painful. I have been asked to choose, over the next two weeks, the best England XI and the best from the Rest of the World from the players that I have seen. Every selector must have regrets when it comes to leaving good players on the sidelines, but few exercises would leave so many behind as this one must. I stand braced for the inevitable backwash.

By way of advanced mitigation I should perhaps make it clear that this apparent self- indulgence was not my own idea. Who, however, could resist the temptation to try to sift in the memory all the wonderful players of what might be called the era of televised cricket?

Like so many British families, mine bought a television for the first time to see the Coronation of 1953. That, therefore, is where the starting line will be drawn. I was only 8 when the series for the Ashes started a few days after the Queen had been crowned by Archbishop Fisher, but it was not a bad summer in which to get hooked for life. England, lest it be forgotten, won the Ashes back after 20 years and six barren series.

It would be tempting, indeed, to name the XI that won the famous final Test at the Oval -Hutton, Edrich, May, Compton, Graveney, Bailey, Evans, Laker, Lock, Trueman and Bedser -and to question whether any other combination could do much better. Certainly it would save a fair amount of heartache.

For the purposes of the exercise, however, these men and their Rest of the World counterparts will be judged only on their form during and after that momentous year. Thought was given to making judgments only on those players I have been lucky enough to watch professionally since the late 1960s, but it is some indication of the relative decline of England since those heady days of the Fifties that an XI chosen only from players of the past 35 years would hardly have been able to challenge the Rest of the World on equal terms.

That decline, in any case, is more fairly viewed less as a retrogression in England than as the spread of greater opportunity, and, with it, of much more widespread professionalism in other countries, thus expanding the pool of great players and powerful teams. Selection is going to be hard enough for England, but just consider for the moment that a choice of all-rounder in the opposing side must be made between, inter alia, Keith Miller, Garry Sobers, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Mike Procter and Chris Cairns.

These mythical sides are traditionally chosen to play an XI from Mars at Lord's. To add reality and veracity to the hypothetical, my teams, with the assistance of computer technology, will play each other over a series of five games, played at venues designed to test their ability and versatility to the full. It will be assumed that the matches are played over several months, to allow for the players' recovery (a luxury that they no longer enjoy) and to ensure that each ground is staging its game in peak condition.

So many great and evocative grounds from which to choose: it is a difficult enough exercise in itself. To be fair to England, perhaps two of them should be at home, but they are up against players from many other countries, so I have chosen grounds for the variety of conditions that they offer, the atmosphere that they evoke and the traditions that they hold.

The first game will be held at Lord's, by common consent the home of cricket. When it is full these days, it holds almost 30,000 spectators and it will be full every day for these teams, for sure. So, burstingly so, will be the Kensington Oval at Bridgetown, Barbados, where for the second Test the groundsman will have prepared, I hope, one of his quickest pitches, glistening in the sun. Next to Newlands in Cape Town, once a country ground famous for its oak trees, now a no less beautiful modern stadium, dominated by Table Mountain, with a square that gives strokeplaying batsmen and fast bowlers the best chances.

On to a fourth match at Eden Gardens in Calcutta, before 100,000 or so, all expecting the ball to spin, but also hoping for plenty of runs over a vast green outfield in perfect condition.

The final match -is it too much to hope that it will be two-all when it starts? - will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where those seated in the old green pavilion and the sparkling new stands in sufficient of a breeze to temper the heat and to allow for the ball to swing, will, alike, look down on a pitch that has enough of a green tinge to warm the hearts of the quick bowlers, but which is certain to take increasingly vicious spin as the game proceeds.

A certain amount of personal prejudice in these choices is inevitable, for which reason alone it is hard to leave out the Basin Reserve at Wellington, by far the truest cricket ground in New Zealand; or the WACA ground at Perth on the basis that it produces the fastest pitches and invariably much spectacular cricket; or the Adelaide Oval, because it is beautiful and a wonderful place to bat; or the MCG, because of its grandeur and tradition; or the Queen's Park Oval in the steamy heat of Port of Spain; or Kandy, in the hills of tropical Sri Lanka, where matches are almost always close with the bowlers on top; or Trent Bridge, of all the English Test grounds the least like a modern stadium; or the Oval, which would in many ways be the obvious place for the fifth Test.

These were easy choices, however, compared to those that must now be made, beginning, crucially, with the balance of the sides. Part of the point of having a variety of grounds is to make that balance a necessity rather than just a desirable virtue. The rules laid down editorially will not allow for a spinner to be left out here and a fast bowler there. The same XI will be assumed to be fit for each match but this only makes the exercise more rigorous. It is, after all, almost a truism that great players will be worth their place whatever the conditions.

Therefore we shall have two specialist opening batsmen -no cheating by slipping in a Cowdrey or a Tendulkar as an opener, tempting though it is -plus a specialist No 3, two more middle-order batsmen, an all-rounder at No 6, a wicketkeeper, two specialist spinners and two fast bowlers. If any of the last five can bat usefully, too, it will, naturally, be added to the equation.

So to the library at Lord's; there, in solitary confinement, to ponder, to reminisce, to assess and to decide. Who, in his right mind, would ever agree to be a selector?

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