I asked an AI chatbot for its all-time XI, and it picked a team with no regular openers... so I tried again, asking about each group separately. Here are its picks and alternative suggestions:
Openers: Hobbs & Gavaskar (also mentioned: Hutton, B Richards, Sehwag)
Middle-order: Bradman, Tendulkar, V Richards, Lara (also mentioned: G Chappell, Crowe, Dravid)
All-rounders: Sobers, Botham (also mentioned: Kallis, Hadlee, Marshall)
Wicket keeper: Gilchrist (also mentioned: Dhoni, Sangakkara, Marsh)
Pace bowlers: Marshall, Wasim Akram, Steyn (also mentioned: McGrath, Holding, Lillee)
Spin bowler: Muralitharan (also mentioned: Warne, Kumble, Harbhajan)
On being asked which 2 players it would leave out of the 13 it had picked at this point, it chose Lara and Botham, leaving the following final XI:
Hobbs, Gavaskar, Bradman, Tendulkar, Richards, Sobers, Gilchrist, Akram, Marshall, Steyn, Muralitharan.
Obviously everyone's going to quibble with a few of the picks (and some of the alternatives mentioned), but I was most surprised that Imran didn't get a mention.
Openers: Hobbs & Gavaskar (also mentioned: Hutton, B Richards, Sehwag)
Middle-order: Bradman, Tendulkar, V Richards, Lara (also mentioned: G Chappell, Crowe, Dravid)
All-rounders: Sobers, Botham (also mentioned: Kallis, Hadlee, Marshall)
Wicket keeper: Gilchrist (also mentioned: Dhoni, Sangakkara, Marsh)
Pace bowlers: Marshall, Wasim Akram, Steyn (also mentioned: McGrath, Holding, Lillee)
Spin bowler: Muralitharan (also mentioned: Warne, Kumble, Harbhajan)
On being asked which 2 players it would leave out of the 13 it had picked at this point, it chose Lara and Botham, leaving the following final XI:
Hobbs, Gavaskar, Bradman, Tendulkar, Richards, Sobers, Gilchrist, Akram, Marshall, Steyn, Muralitharan.
Obviously everyone's going to quibble with a few of the picks (and some of the alternatives mentioned), but I was most surprised that Imran didn't get a mention.