The rules
1. Every cricketer will be from Pakistan or South Africa.
2. As per the all-time ICC rankings, the top six batters and five bowlers will be selected.
3. The top six batters should include a wicketkeeper. If there is none, the top-ranked batter among wicketkeepers will replace the lowest-ranked batter of the six.
4. The bowlers will include at least three seamers and at least one spinner. If the top five bowlers do not include these, we shall go down the order to ensure they do.
5. The batters should ideally include two openers, but they can go without one if the best opener is significantly behind the top six middle-order bats.
6. There should be at least one bona-fide all-rounder.
Hashim Amla
Top rating: 907 v Pakistan 2013
All-time global rank: 31
Amla opened only twice in Test cricket, but his experience at the top in shorter formats will come in handy here. He had a phenomenal 2012, when he averaged 78 for his 1,249 runs, and continued with his form in 2013. A hundred in Abu Dhabi propelled him to a career-best rating of 907.
Javed Miandad
Top rating: 885 v New Zealand 1989
All-time global rank: 45
Miandad is another makeshift option who opened thrice in the format. His Test average famously never dropped below 50, but this was going to be his last great year at this level. The top rank came on the back of a run of 211, 43, 107, 27, 24 (against Australia), 118, 271 (in New Zealand).
Note: No specialist opener from either country is in the top 80 of the all-time rankings.
Graeme Pollock
Top rating: 927 v Australia 1970
All-time global rank: 18
Graeme Pollock’s best rating came after he had plundered 49 and 50, 274, and 52 and 87 in South Africa’s 1969/70 Test against Australia. He played only one Test after that, as did – for 22 years – his nation. He is one of the three South Africans in this side who never played against Pakistan.
Jacques Kallis
Top rating: 935 v New Zealand 2007
All-time global rank: 13
Kallis, who shares the top batting spot in this XI with AB de Villiers, also fills the all-rounder’s spot, allowing us to pick the extra batter. He attained his best rating after the last of his 18th consecutive innings where he went past 10, culminating in a run of 155 and 100 not out, 59 and 107 not out, 29 and 186, and 131. He also had a best bowling rating of 742.
AB de Villiers (wk)
Top rating: 935 v Australia 2014
All-time global rank: 13
De Villiers equalled Kallis’ rating six years down the line after an excellent home summer against Pakistan, India, and Australia. Like Kallis, he saves a spot by keeping wicket while batting in the top five. It is not a forced choice: his batting average as keeper (53) was not overly inferior to that as a specialist bat (55). In addition, his peak batting rating came during a spell with the big gloves.
Mohammad Yousuf
Top rating: 933 v West Indies 2006
All-time global rank: 16
In 2006, Yousuf set a world record by amassing 1,788 runs – still the most in a calendar year – at a ridiculous average of 99. The top rating came after he made 192 and 8, 128 (in England), 192, 56 and 191, 102 and 124 (against the West Indies). That is six hundreds (including three 190s) in eight innings.
Dudley Nourse
Top rating: 922 v England 1951
All-time global rank: 20
Another South African in this XI who never played Pakistan, Nourse was past his 40th birthday and playing in his final series. Having scored at least 400 in each of his last five series, he began the 1951 tour of England with 208 at Trent Bridge to retrospectively secure a rating of 922. He is still in the top twenty.
Imran Khan
Top rating: 922 v India 1983
All-time global rank: 3
Of course, with a career-best batting rating of 650, Imran could also have got the all-rounder’s spot. Already a terrific bowler in the late 1970s, Imran broke new barriers once he mastered the reverse swing in the early 1980s. He ended 1982 with his most famous performance (3-19 and 8-60 against India at Karachi including 5-3 in the second innings). In the New Year’s Test, he added 6-98 and 5-82 (and scored a hundred) to scale 922 – a rating not equalled by anyone since the First World War.
Shaun Pollock
Top rating: 909 v England 1999
All-time global rank: 12
In 1998, Shaun Pollock had 69 wickets at 20 apiece. In 1999, he had another 48, at 17 (he would average below 22 in 2000 and 2001 as well). The career-best rating came after his 4-16 and 4-64 against England at Johannesburg, followed by 14 wickets in two Tests against Zimbabwe. He is the second member of the family in this XI.
Note: The closest of all the picks. Tied on 909 with Dale Steyn and Waqar Younis, Shaun Pollock was picked for solely his batting abilities: he did attain 565 at one point.
Vernon Philander
Top rating: 912 v India 2013
All-time global rank: 7
Philander’s inclusion ahead of some legendary fast bowlers is testimony to the fact that the ICC ratings value peaks more than careers. After seven Tests, his career stood at 51 wickets at 14 with six five-wicket hauls. By his 10th Test, he had breached the 850-mark in ICC ratings. By his 19th – 4-61 and 3-68 against India at Johannesburg in 2013/14 – he reached a rating bettered by only six others in all of Test cricket.
Hugh Tayfield
Top rating: 895 v England 1957
All-time global rank: 33
The parsimonious Tayfield had taken 5-130 and 1-33, and 1-21 and 8-69 in the two previous Tests against England. Now, at Johannesburg, he followed 4-79 with 9-113 – a spell Wisden rated as the best in 20th-century Test cricket. It also took Tayfield (the third South African to have never played against Pakistan) to an all-time rating of 895 – and inside the top ten among spinners around the world.