Wasim Jaffer picks his underrated XI of all-time; names Mark Taylor as captain

In world cricket, there have been players who have put in hard yards for their respective national teams, but still did not attain the accolades they deserved. Some of them have been overshadowed by their teammates or played in the wrong era. The former Indian cricketer Wasim Jaffer picked his underrated XI of all time and felt they have a high class, but are not rated quite highly.

Jaffer thinks Shikhar Dhawan is an outstanding player in One Day Cricket, but has been overshadowed by the presence of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and KL Rahul. He picked former Australia player Mark Taylor as the captain and opening partner of Dhawan and said he has been one of the best openers/leaders in the past. In Tests and ODIs, Taylor finished with 7525 and 3514 runs respectively. In terms of captaincy, he had more than a 50% success rate in both formats.

At the subsequent batting positions, Jaffer chose Tillakaratne Dilshan, Younis Khan, and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. While speaking on the show, Sky247.net presents ‘Not Just Cricket’, he mentioned that Dilshan has 10000+ runs in ODIs, while Younis and Chanderpaul amassed over 10000 runs in Tests. Jaffer also pointed out that Younis always played in the shadow of Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Yousuf, while Brian Lara overshadowed Chanderpaul.

Jaffer picks a strong bowling attack

In the core middle-order, Jaffer picked Michael Hussey, Paul Collingwood, and Abdul Razzaq. He felt Hussey was an outstanding player and scored over 10000 runs in international cricket, but was quite under-rated. Then he hailed Razzaq as one of the finest all-rounders in shorter formats. He finished with more than 5000 runs and picked up a total of 269 wickets in ODIs.

Jaffer felt that Herath came into the team after the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan and picked up more than 400 wickets in the test format, while he added that Chaminda Vaas is not highly rated among the former pace bowlers, but has picked up more than 700 wickets in his career.

Jaffer further reckoned that if Ryan Harris was injury-free, he would have been a fantastic bowler. He chose Ross Taylor as the 12th man in the side, who retired from international cricket in 2022 and finished with over 15000 runs across all the formats.

Wasim Jaffer’s underrated XI of all-time: Shikhar Dhawan, Mark Taylor (C), Tillakaratne Dilshan (WK), Younis Khan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Michael Hussey, Paul Collingwood, Abdul Razzaq, Rangana Herath, Chaminda Vaas, Ryan Harris, Ross Taylor (12th man)