My turn.
World
Jack Hobbs
Sunil Gavaskar
Don Bradman*
Sachin Tendulkar
Wally Hammond
Garry Sobers
Adam Gilchrist+
Imran Khan
Malcolm Marshall
Muttiah Muralitharan
Sydney Barnes
Australia
Victor Trumper
Bob Simpson
Don Bradman*
Greg Chappell
Ricky Ponting
Keith Miller
Adam Gilchrist+
Ray Lindwall
Dennis Lillee
Bill O'Reilly
Glenn McGrath
Perhaps Morris at his best was a higher calibre batsman than Simpson. However, Morris was eventually worked out by Bedser and Simpson averaged 56 as an opener. He also brings a couple of over dimensions that Morris lacked with his great splip fielding and occasional leg spin bowling.
Davidson very unlucky to miss out and perhaps should have been selected.
O'Reilly over Warne as he was far more successful against the best players of spin of his time (av 25 vs 47)
Bangladesh
Tamim Iqbal
Shahriar Nafees
Habibul Bashar
Junaid Siddique
Rajin Saleh
Shakib-Al Hasan*
Mahmudullah Riyad
Mushfiqur Rahim+
Mohammed Rafiqie
Mashrafe Mortaza
Shahadat Hossain
Anyone but Ashraful...
Many would argue Aminul Islam deserves a place but he averaged something like 14 after their first test and was never really a consistently prolific scorer even in the Birmingham league.
I personally think Nazmul Hossain is a better bowler than Shahadat but he hasn't been given the opportunity to prove himself.
England
Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton*
Wally Hammond
KS Ranjitsinhji
Ken Barrington
Ian Botham
Alan Knott+
Wilfred Rhodes
Jim Laker
Fred Trueman
Sydney Barnes
Hutton over Sutcliffe as he prospered against better fast bowlers under a harsher LBW law.
Barrington/Compton is a marginal one. In the end went for weight of runs over someone with a modest record away from England.
India
Sunil Gavaskar
Virender Sehwag
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Vijay Hazare
Vinoo Mankad*
Kapil Dev
Syed Kirmani+
Amar Singh
Erapalli Prasanna
Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
Really wanted to include Merchant and Bedi. Unfortunately Sehwag has done enough to justify selection and with Mankad a definite pick the team looks better balanced with the variety of a legspinner.
New Zealand
Glenn Turner
Stewie Dempster
Bert Sutcliffe
Martin Crowe*
Martin Donnelly
Chris Cairns
Daniel Vettori
Richard Hadlee
Ian Smith+
Shane Bond
Jack Cowie
John Reid overrated IMO.
Pakistan
Saeed Anwar
Hanif Mohammad
Mohammad Yousuf
Javed Miandad
Inzamam-ul-Haq
Imran Khan*
Wasim Akram
Saqlain Mushtaq
Wasim Bari †
Fazal Mahmood
Waqar Younis
Many would select Zaheer Abbas but his record against quality pace bowling is woeful.
Abdul Qadir is a popular choice but he didn't have the bowling brain to adapt his game to unfamiliar conditions.
Mohammad Yousuf perhaps out of place at 3 but he is simply a higher calibre batsmen than the alternative options.
South Africa
Barry Richards
Graeme Smith*
Jacques Kallis
Graeme Pollock
Dudley Nourse
Aubrey Faulkner
Denis Lindsey+
Mike Proctor
Shaun Pollock
Alan Donald
Dale Steyn
Smith/Mitchell and Steyn/Adcock were close ones. Smith selected for his captaincy and toughness, Steyn for being clearly the best bowler in the world.
Tayfield has to make way for more destructive bowlers. He was a very orthodox bowler who IMO would have been no where near as destructive in the modern era of covered pitches.
Sri Lanka
Sanath Jayasuriya
Tillekeratne Dilshan
Kumar Sangakkara+
Aravinda De Silva
Mahela Jayawardene*
Roy Dias
Thilan Samaraweera
Chaminda Vaas
Rangana Herath
Asantha De Mel
Muttiah Muralitharan
Atapattu is the popular choice as opener but he was a notoriously bad starter and actually averaged just 32 against the top 8 teams.
Had difficulty splitting De Mel and Malinga but went for the former as he led the attack.
Roy Dias was considered one of the most beautiful batsmen in Asia around the time of Sri Lanka's admission to Test cricket and would have scored far more runs in a stronger team.
West Indies
Conrad Hunte
Viv Richards*
George Headley
Everton Weekes
Brian Lara
Garry Sobers
Clyde Walcott+
Malcolm Marshall
Michael Holding
Curtley Ambrose
Joel Garner
Some might pick me up on opening with Richards but batsmen 2-5 are simply far higher calibre than any available opener and I'm sure King Viv would have been more than capable of adapting like Sehwag has.
No point selecting a spinner if you are going to significantly weaken your attack by doing so.
Tempted to go for Roberts over Garner as the former would bring another dimension to the attack while the Big Bird is arguably a replica of Ambrose. In the end resisted the temptation as was difficult to look past a man with a bowling average of 20.
Zimbabwe
Grant Flower
Kevin Arnott
Murray Goodwin
Dave Houghton*
Andy Flower+
Alastair Campbell
Guy Whittall
Paul Strang
Andy Blignaut
Heath Streak
David Brain
Taibu feasted on Bangladeshi bowling and his record against top 8 nations is mediocre even by Zim standards.
Strang and Blignaut over Price and Olonga for their batting
The Rest (players not seected for their own countries All Time XI)
Herbert Sutcliffe
Arthur Morris
Neil Harvey
Denis Compton
WG Grace
Frank Worrell*
LEG Ames+
Alan Davidson
Shane Warne
Hedley Verity
Andy Roberts
Most of these very unlucky to miss out on their own Countries XI.
Non Test (players not to play test cricket)
Jamie Siddons
John Langridge
Ken McEwan
Mahadevan Sathasivam
Bhausaheb Nimbalkar
Clive Rice*
Darren Berry+
Bart King
Vincent Van Der Bijl
Charles Kortwright
Rajinder Goel
Pre Test (players from before the start of Test cricket)
Richard Daft
Robert Carpenter
William Beldham
Fuller Pilch
Thomas Hayward
George Parr*
Alfred Mynn
Ted Pooley+
George Freeman
John Jackson
Fred Lillywhite
Hopeless Batsmen (some of the worst batsmen to play Test cricket)
Mark Dekker
Imrul Kayes
Jehan Mubarak
Saleem Elahi
Louis Stricker
John Sparling
Herbert Strudwick
Bert Ironmonger
Jack Saunders
Pommie Mbangwa
Chris Martin
The Fast Men (Fast scoring batsmen and very quick bowlers)
The Fast Men
Victor Trumper
Virender Sehwag
Don Bradman
Viv Richards
Kevin Pietersen
Adam Gilchrist
Shahid Afridi
Gilbert Jessop
Frank Tyson
Shoaib Akhtar
Jeff Thomson
The Slow Men (stonewallers and tight bowlers
The Slow Men
Alick Bannerman
Bruce Edgar
Chris Tavare
Mike Brearley
William Scotton
Trevor Bailey
RG Barlow
Bob Taylor
Hedley Verity
Bapu Nadkarni
Alfred Shaw