Right, time for the middle order as promised. Again we will have a two tier poll with initial votes from the 15 batsmen we have, then the shorter shortlist vote for the final three positions. The players we have are;

Clive Lloyd (West Indies)
Brian Lara (West Indies)
Viv Richards (West Indies)
Steve Waugh (Australia)
Alan Border (Australia)
Mark Waugh (Australia)
Greg Chappell (Australia)
Ricky Ponting (Australia)
Rahul Dravid (India)
Sachin Tendulkar (India)
Stephen Fleming (New Zealand)
David Gower (England)
Graeme Pollock (South Africa)
Prasanna Jayawardene (Sri Lanka)
Javed Miandad (Pakistan)


Please vote away and give your reasons for picking (or not picking).

EDIT - I have picked 5 players with the intention of reducing this to three for the final pick.

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Steven

I've chosen seven names- Lara, Richards, S. Waugh, Border, Chappell, Tendulkar, Javed Miandad. IMO the shortlist doesn't need to go too far beyond these players. But we're really spolit for choice here- I have no idea who my final three will be.

3 or 4 decent shouts for captain there as well.

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Steven

I've picked 5 like you Phantom. I've chosen Lara, Richards, Tendulkar, Dravid, Waugh. Btw why is Prasanna Jayawardene on this list?? He's a wicket keeper and by no means a middle order batsmen!!!. Was it a mistake in your attempt to have Mahela Jaywardene on that list?? I think Sangakarra makes the cut in that top 15 considering he's given up keeping in tests and should probably be considered as a middle order batsman.

Looking at cutting it down to 3 from the five, i'm almost sure of having dravid at number 3 and waugh at number 5, i'm slightly leaning towards tendulkar at number 4 right now but its a close call between lara and tendulkar for that position. Eitherway I choose I think I have a solid middle order who have proven themselves as solid batsmen on a variety of pitches, conditions and situations.

Apologies, I was looking to copy and paste his name in and picked the wrong one. I shall see if I can change it.

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Steven

Ponting, Kalls, Lara and Tendulkar. Why the hell is Kallis not there? The man has nearly 10,000 test runs for christs sake. Terrible decision. Stephen Fleming over Kallis

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Freddie Flintoff=God

For the purposes of this excercise, I think Kallis has been classified as an allrounder and so will appearin the next thread.

I think that was a bit rough on Kallis, although he is unlikely to push to the top votes of either group, I think he is better suited with the batsmen.

But thats only my personal opinion.

Kallis was a tough one. I suppose he is a batsmen whose bowling is good enough to acheive all rounder status.

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Steven