On another thread I asked Ern which of the following attacks he'd prefer:

1. Lee, Mahmood, Tait, and Steyn

2. Hoggard, Clark, Kumble and Muralitharan

The poll gives everyone a chance to answer the same question....

Edit: assume that your top 7 will (as most do) include at least one useful occasional bowler... but NOT someone who would routinely bowl ahead of the specialists - I'm thinking of someone like Gayle or Jayasuria as a spinner and of someone like Kallis as a seamer.

I have voted in your poll, but have given my answer in full on the other thread.

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Ern

Surely it all depends on the pitch and the conditions R?

However, if one has to choose, the answer is easy - one option contains an international class Test regular (Lee) and three 'kids'; the other option has three international class Test regulars, plus an all-time bowling great.

Murali alone should be enough to make anyone choose option 2. Hardly a fair choice

Edit: Well, okay, not 'anyone'; I had fogotten Ern.

Now, if option 1 had Waqar, Ambrose and Donald instead of Mahmood, Tait, and Steyn - would anyone still say no to pace (except RdT)? I doubt it.

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OK... I get your drift: Murali is an all time great so you'd better include Ambrose as his equal... and on uncovered wickets, Kumble would perhaps be to spin bowling what Donald was to seam bowling (though a fairer comparison on modern pitches might be Ntini). Throwing Waqar into the mix kinda ruins the comparison though: Harmison and Lee vs. Hoggard and Clark would be a fairer contest (though that's contrasting a pairing that's reliably good with a pairing of players who vary from the better than just good to the downright poor).

To my mind, Ambrose, Ntini, Harmison and Lee vs Hoggard, Clark, Kumble and Murali really would be a contest in which any sane captain would want to review the pitch and conditions.

I'm sure that on many Aussie wickets.... most captains would be tempted by Ambrose, Ntini, Harmison and Lee... but not (for instance) at the SCG - which is conventionally viewed as the greatest of all the Aussie Test venues. For that.. as for most wickets in India and Sri Lanka, and for many English wickets from the century before they were covered (and stopped from wearing properly through injudicious use of Surrey Loam), I'd certainly expect many (perhaps most) to favour Hoggard, Clark, Kumble and Murali.

Come to think of it... I think I've just hit on a workable definition of a good cricketing pitch: one on which a captain would want the balance and variety of Hoggard, Clark, Kumble and Murali rather than the one-paced line up of Ambrose, Ntini, Harmison and Lee

Mahmood? Surely you don't mean Sajid Mahmood? If so, how did that third-rater get in among those other bowlers? He is a waste of space even in a First Class team, let alone tests.

I have to vote for option 2 simply because option 1 contains the pie thrower Mahmood.

He'd probably get that wrong too and give that "why is the whole world against me" look.

hahaha, what a funny poll. Kumble and Muralitharan are two of the subcontinent's greatest ever spinners, and on the flip side you have Sajid "Does my ball look straight in this?" Mahmood and Shaun Tait who can also be off target.

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Frank Skinner: "You know when Glenn McGrath trod on that cricket ball? Don't you wish it would've been a landmine?"

Well he did get selected for the England squad - so someone must have thought he had something about him, one day he will take lots of wickets like Tait will.

The same was said of Devon Malcolm, who had a knack of getting top order batsmen out, and found himself dropped not long after destroying South Africa.

Lee - Mahmood - Tate and Flintoff, would be capable of ripping through the best batting line ups, given a fair contest between bat and ball, rather than on the dead pitches Mahmood had to bowl on most of the time.

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Ern

Surely the POINT of genuinely fast bowlers is that they can do more than their more pedestrian colleagues to take the pitch and conditions out of the equasion: on a "sporting" wicket the pace of bowlers like Gus Fraser has always been more than enough... and the bizarre argument for favouring faster bowlers like Malcolm (over a bowlers as classy as Fraser) has long rested on the notion that they offer more on a flat wicket!

Of course... the same also goes for the spinners: on a "sporting" wicket the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Stuart MacGill offer a huge amount... but once you get on the baked mud of many pitches in Pakistan... or on perfectly manicured pitches like the typical Gabba or Oval offering... selectors suddely start looking, instead, to speedsters who can take the pitch out of the equasion.