I would prefer not to have been given this assignment. Picking a Sussex side was one thing - there are only so many people in the county who can threaten never to speak to you again for failing to pick Duleep or whoever - but having to plump for a single county threatens excommunication from 17 others. I have always admitted that it is much easier to be a critic of selectors than actually to be one.

Some of our willing and brave Times selectors have made the task easier. The fearless Glamorgan one, for example, who appears not to have considered that even a single Welshman in the team might have given the exercise greater veracity. Was Alan Jones really inferior to Matthew Elliot, for example? Or Rodney Ontong fit even to tie Don Shepherd’s bootlaces? Only a modern-game follower could elect for John Crawley ahead of Johnny Tyldesley. And I am afraid that a Kent side without Frank Woolley, to mention only one, of their immortals ...

On the other hand I think the eyebrows of a few Australians resident in Worcestershire might have risen when they saw that there was no place for Glenn McGrath.

But it is not easy and we all have our prejudices. The longer the history and the stronger the pool of players, the harder the selection. Our Surrey man, for example, plumped for Sylvester Clarke to accompany Alec Bedser and Tom Richardson, but a strong case could have been made for Waqar Younis (who was picked for Glamorgan) or Peter Loader, or Alf Gover, or George Lohmann etc

Stop prevaricating and procrastinating and get to the point, Jenkins. You have lost too many friends already.

From the elevens as presented on this site last week, I have shortlisted Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. The one that I finally drew from the envelope before 5200 invited guests in dinner jackets and long dresses at the Albert Hall was ... Yorkshire.

I think it could be argued that the Notts attack (Larwood, Hadlee, Sobers, Dooland and Shaw) is the strongest of the lot and that Surrey’s batting (Hobbs, Edrich, Ramprakash, May, Barrington and Stewart A.J.) bears comparison with anyone’s, but they have a bit more of a tail do Yorkshire, with Wilfred Rhodes at seven and I like the balance as well as the sheer class of the eleven representing the county that has won the Championship 30 times. Hutton and Sutcliffe to open the batting; Trueman and Bowes (who took his first class wickets at 16 runs each) to take the new ball, with Hirst to swing it from left-arm over or round and Verity and Rhodes to provide the accuracy and guile: it is a powerful combination. Leyland and Lehmann were as tough a pair of left-handers as ever strapped on pads and even if Michael Vaughan is very lucky to be included on his Yorkshire record we know him to be a big match player.

Matches don’t come much bigger than they do against Mars (especially as they are allowed to play all their Kolpak players) but at Headingley I’m backing the Tykes.

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