Tim Ambrose’s meek performances against New Zealand and South Africa, coupled up with Matt Prior’s impressive displays in the recent ODIs, have re-opened the debate over England’s Test wicketkeeper. In the meantime, James Foster’s stellar performances for Essex and the consistent excellence of Chris Read are also putting pressure on the selectors. We asked our panel who they would take to India as their first-choice Test wicketkeeper.

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Graeme Hick’s retirement will have many a county bowler, me included, breathing a huge sigh of relief. I have bowled against him a number of times over the years and he has scored several hundreds against us, including two in one match at Worcester which were his 99^th and 100^th first-class hundreds (the 12^th man brought out a glass of champagne for him when he reached the landmark – he drained it). I can’t remember ever getting him out. In fact he mostly took a healthy liking to my brand of medium pace.

His relative failure at Test level has been widely discussed, and as another similar king of county cricket, Mark Ramprakash, will surely not be far away from retirement, here is my best county cricket XI of the last 15 years, made up of players who failed to live up to expectation at Test level.

Here’s my attempt:

1. Nick Knight

2. John Crawley

3. Mark Ramprakash

4. Graeme Hick

5. Matthew Maynard

6. Chris Adams (capt)

7. Chris Read (Wk)

8. Chris Lewis

9. Ian Salisbury

10. Andrew Caddick

11. Devon Malcolm

Notes:

John Crawley would have to open if he wants to make the team.

I feel a bit guilty about Caddick who ended up with a very respectable Test record but he’s included because he has been such a great county bowler but often frustrated England fans.

Chris Adams is perhaps unlucky as he was only given five Tests to prove himself, but I needed a good captain and so he was the obvious choice.

There’s a long list of ready replacements to call up if any of the above should get injured during the warm up…

2008 is Robin Martin-Jenkins’ benefit year, visit www.rmj2008.co.uk for further details.