Neil I disagree that Ponting deserves his place because he is one of the top four batsmen in the world. If we had this poll a year ago would Hayden have deserved his spot then?
If we did a similar poll for England would you really include Vaughan? Like I said, Ponting (and Vaughan) has had a great career so far, but if it all went pear shaped and he was dropped within a year, they wouldn't deserve that place.
It's like speculation in baseball about who will get in the HoF. You can only get in after you stop playing and then a couple of years on everyone looks at what you achieve, and then you get the nod.
You can't say Ponting has been one fo Australia's all time greatest players because he has 17 centuries! There are 7 (not including DGB) other Australian batsmen ahead of him. So if he is the 8th batsmen, how can he be in the top 15ish players by the time you include bowlers, wks, allrounders?
These arguments are always hard because you have to wigh up quantity against quality. Gilchrist has had a spectacular career (average 58, high SR plus keeps wicket), but only has 3000 runs, whereas Waugh has 10000 runs at 51 and Border has 11000 runs at 50. Which is better? That is a matter of opinion.
People always ask Benaud questions like this, and he would bias players form the 30s, 40s, 50s more than the present day. Is this because he played with those guys or because nobody else remembers how good they were?
Maybe a way to do it would be to pick the best team without Bradman and only include that 11? Of course in that situation you could only have one keeper out of Marsh, Healy and Gilchrist, so how would you decide which to have?
I'll have a crack anyway, please bear in mind this is off the top of my head and I have limited knowledge of past Australian cricketers:
Taylor
Border
Ponsford
Chappell (not Trevor!)
Harvey (not Ian!)
Waugh (not Mark!)
Healy
Warne
Grimmett
Lillee
McGrath