Sydney, July 20 (ANI): Former England captain and opener Geoffrey Boycott has rubbished the latest International Cricket Council's all time best eleven, saying that it is not even close to the best.
Describing the ICC's best ever Test team as fundamentally flawed and paying scant regard to the great players of the past, Boycott said in an article for the Sydney Morning Herald: "You must be joking. It is so biased it has no credibility. It takes no account of the history of the game and the great players of the past. It insults their records and achievements."
He further goes on to say that the selection shows no understanding or knowledge of players from past generations.
In a subtle criticism of the Indian cricket board's overbearing influence on the sport, Boycott writes: " I bet the vast majority of the votes cast on the International Cricket Council's website were from fans on the subcontinent. Five of the XI are from India and Pakistan."
"Apart for Donald Bradman, whose record is twice as good as most batsmen in the history, the rest are all players the current generation have seen play live. Just because you are dead doesn't mean your record should be forgotten," he adds.
"More than 250,000 fans took part to select 11 great players. But to dismiss the best from the past shows the voters' ignorance. We all like picking our best-ever teams. It is a lot of fun but in the end it comes down to opinion. There is no right or wrong. But you can't just go on players you have seen play or on statistics alone," he said.
He concludes by saying: "To make a proper judgment of all players you have to research the times people played in, the rules they played under and type of pitches they played on. And even then, when you have done all that, we will probably agree on only five or six players. It is just a matter of opinion." (ANI)
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