Your question was "On what basis was Knott chosen ahead of Gilchrist"?
Nothing gets past Cribb.
What about wickets then? Its really a laughable matter if you say that Barnes was a more effective wicket taker than Mcgrath. Its not just about averages.
Should this really be a surprise? How many years do you consider "our generation" to be, may I ask? Test cricket has been around since 1877 which means, in an entirely even breakdown, you'd only get one player from each bracket of 12 years or so. The ICC XI picked one player who debuted before 1971 - that's 9% of the team for 70% of history. And that, mind you, ignores all cricket's pre-Test history as well.
I think Simples is a poor choice as 12th Man, you want a more versatile fielder.
Barnes's wicket tally was very high for his time. That more Tests were played during McGrath's era does not make him a better bowler.
And I disagree with the explanation because Gilchrist makes a team stronger than Knott would.
Regardless of that he's in for me as a middle order batsman I'd put him ahead of pretty much anyone except Bradman.
Why? The bloke took considerably more wickets per match at a considerably better average and he took the considerably faster than McGrath did.
If you've got a top 6 of Hobbs, Gavaskar, Bradman, Richards, Tendulkar and Sobers it could be argued that you can afford to pick the best keeper with less regard to his batting, especially when the keeper happens to be a perfectly competent batsman.
You're making it sound like Gilchrist was an inept keeper though, which is rubbish. Gilchrist was a good keeper in his own right, though Knott obviously better. There is such a huge gulf between their batsmanship though which makes it criminal to pick Knott over Gilchrist.
And if the Keeper is perfectly competent and has a proven track record to keeping against all time great attack, I would rather pick the Keeper who can also bat like an all time great batsman if needed.
Because he was neither here nor there - wasn't as good a batsman as Gilchrist or as good a keeper as Knott. You'd probably find people from both sides of the debate ranking him as #2.Why's Les Ames never mentioned?
Where do I imply that Gilchrist was inept? Gilchrist was a Test class keeper but not one of the very best.
actually, it 'does'. being able to remain excellent over a longer period of time does make one a better bowler. yes, it is unfair in that one would never know it barnes could have remained superb over a long period of time in tests but many would argue that a bird in the hand.....
He didn't maintain it over a longer period of time though; he just maintained it over more Tests in a period of a very similar length.