Not many know that August 13 is celebrated as World Left-Handers’ Day.
First celebrated in 1976 by Dean Campbell, the founder of Left-Handers’ International, it aims to celebrate the feats of lefties and raise awareness on the many challenges they face in a world dominated by right-handers, who comprise about 90-93% of our planet’s population.
Human history has seen several successful left-handers such as Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Mark Zuckerberg and Barrack Obama. Sports has had its fair share too, with the likes of Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal, Martina Navratilova, Babe Ruth and Manny Pacquiao excelling with their left hand or foot.
Cricket, too, has produced a bunch of prominent left-handers, many of whom are among all-time greats. To mark this day, we embarked on an interesting and thought-provoking exercise of picking the best left-handed Test team.
Only those players who bat as well as bowl left-handed have been considered. Hence, players like Sourav Ganguly — a right-arm bowler – will make the cut only if he plays as a specialist batsman.
The best southpaws in business over the years have been clubbed into groups of openers, top and middle-order batsmen, wicketkeepers, allrounders, spinners and fast bowlers. The final selection has been made from those shortlists.
You are free to disagree with our picks and come up with alternative suggestions.
Here goes…
Openers: The options are Arthur Morris, Graeme Smith, Alastair Cook, Adam Gilchrist, Sanath Jayasuriya, Sourav Ganguly, Matthew Hayden, Saeed Anwar, Gary Kirsten, Justin Langer and David Warner.
It’s indeed a very difficult choice. I will go for Englishman Alastair Cook and big Australian Matthew Hayden.
Top-order and middle-order batsmen: The options are Clive Lloyd, Brian Lara, David Gower, Kumara Sangakkara, Allan Border, Neil Harvey, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ajit Wadekar, Graeme Pollock, Alvin Kallicharran.
My choices are prolific Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara, West Indian Brian Lara, the only man to score 400 in Tests, and solid Aussie Allan Border. Sangakkara will play as a batsman.
Allrounders: We have to choose between West Indian legend Gary Sobers, India’s Yuvraj Singh, Bangladeshi Shakib-al-Hassan, India’s Eknath Solkar and Englishman Frank Wooley.
I am picking one allrounder, so there’s no looking beyond Sobers. He walks into any team. He will also be the captain of this team.
Wicketkeepers: I have zeroed in on three names – Australian big-hitter Adam Gilchrist, Lankan Sangakkara and Zimbabwean Andy Flower.
Since Sangakkara has been included as a batsman, Gilchrist will don the big gloves.
Spinners: We have to choose from among India’s Dilip Doshi, New Zealander Daniel Vettori, Pakistan’s Iqbal Qasim, Sri Lankan Rangana Herath and our very own Ravindra Jadeja.
There is space for a lone spinner in my team, so I will go in for the wily Herath since the batting is already very strong.
Fast bowlers: There are quite a few champion bowlers in contention – Pakistan’s sultan of swing Wasim Akram, Australian quartet Alan Davidson, Bill Johnston, Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson, Sri Lankan Chaminda Vaas and Kiwi Neil Wagner.
Akram and Davidson are clear choices, with Johnson getting the nod as the third seamer.
So, my left-handed Test XI is as follows:
Alastair Cook, Matthew Hayden, Kumar Sangakkara, Allan Border, Brian Lara, Gary Sobers (captain), Adam Gilchrist, Wasim Akram, Rangana Herath, Alan Davidson and Mitchell Johnson.
As for my left-handed ODI XI, there will be quite a few changes, with four players common to both teams:
Sanath Jayasuriya, Adam Gilchrist, Sourav Ganguly, Brian Lara, Clive Lloyd (captain), Yuvraj Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Wasim Akram, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson and Chaminda Vaas.
