Traditionally, most dream teams devolve on nations and eras: an Indo-Pak Peace XI, a post-war Ashes XI. We at Wisden Asia Cricket have tried to go further by asking four distinguished cricket writers to select four great all-time state XIs. Barbados, Bombay, New South Wales and Yorkshire may have lost some of their sheen in recent times, but for the better part of the last century, these sides dominated domestic tournaments in much the same way that Australia dominates world cricket today. Shock: the New South Wales XI would perhaps beat the current Australian team by a mile; and horror: Steve Waugh and Glenn McGrath don't find a place. To start with, historian and cricket writer Ramachandra Guha's Bombay side from all time.

For a lad who grew up in the 1960s supporting Mysore, the bad dreams were always about Bombay. We played them often in the knock-out rounds of the Ranji Trophy. The script was wearyingly familiar, and it always ended the same way. We scored two or three hundred in our first innings; in reply, Ajit Wadekar would get that many off his own bat. There were, when I was coming of age, three or four such matches, of which I heard on the radio or read about in the newspapers. But there came a day, in March 1974, when I went in person to see Karnataka play Bombay in the then half-built Chinnaswamy Stadium. We batted first. Gundappa Viswanath was out plumb lbw first ball but given not out, and my side went on to score in excess of 400 (Vishy and Brijesh Patel both made centuries). In reply, Bombay lost Sunil Gavaskar early, but Wadekar came in and looked good from the start. Then he slipped, and was run out. Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar went through the rest and Karnataka won on first innings, thus ending the island city's 15-year reign as Ranji champions.

Years later, I reminded Wadekar about the incident. "New shoes," he said, enigmatically. I still believe that had he not slipped, Bombay would yet be Ranji champions. Nor would Karnataka have won had the (Bengali) umpire given Vishy out first ball. This man took the train back to Howrah and from the station proceeded straight to the Eden Gardens. There he told the Bengal cricketers: "I have done what you chaps couldn't do all these years – make sure Bombay does not win the Ranji Trophy."

In my all-time Bombay XI, Wadekar and Sachin Tendulkar will bat three and four. They will run the singles and the twos so long as dear Ajit is wearing his old shoes. But the first names to be pencilled in will be Gavaskar and Vijay Merchant, those classical openers with a wide and artistic range of shots. Surely no better batsmen have ever played for India. The question is, who will take the first strike? The maker of 10,000 Test runs, or the man Neville Cardus called "India's Good European"?

The batting places remain, and a host of contenders. The competition is so fierce that such greatly gifted batsmen as Rusi Modi, Dilip Sardesai, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar and Vinod Kambli don't even get a look-in.

But can one really leave out the stylish and erect Dilip Vengsarkar, he who made three Test hundreds at Lord's and six against West Indies? Sadly, one must, if only to accommodate Vijay Manjrekar and Polly Umrigar, those brave battlers of an earlier epoch. Manjrekar was a superb technician, while Polly could belt the ball and bowl a handy offbreak and field brilliantly besides. Nor, in my eyes, can Vengsarkar replace Wadekar, who always batted brilliantly for Bombay (as distinct from India), and was a left-hander to boot.

If one omits Vinoo Mankad, on the grounds that he was really a Nawanagar man, then in his place, but batting far lower, comes the superb slow left-armer Padmakar Shivalkar, who, had it not been for his career overlapping so completely with Bishan Bedi's, might have had 200 or more Test wickets. Partnering him will be Subhash Gupte, whose recent death was widely mourned. Old-timers reckon Gupte to be a better leggie than Chandra and even Shane Warne.

At least on Indian tracks, Shivalkar and Gupte will have plenty of bowling to do. But the new- ball pair aren't half bad either: Ramakant Desai, one of the very few men to have consistently had the better of the original Little Master, Hanif Mohammad, and Dattu Phadkar, a fine swing bowler and a better batsman. Batting, indeed, will be this side's real force. In mythical matches against New South Wales or Yorkshire, the likes of Merchant and Sachin will give their bowlers in excess of 500 every time. Apart from this cushion, the Bombay bowlers will have the help of perhaps the finest wicketkeeper who ever played for India – Naren Tamhane, whom Vijay Merchant once described as "as safe as the Bank of England".

My feelings with regard to Bombay cricket are a curious mixture of fear, loathing, admiration and triumph. A mixture, I suppose, which makes me as qualified as anyone else to pick a team of cricketers from the city. Still, to choose 11 names from among this glittering pool of talent has been, for me, as difficult as it once was for my fellow townsmen to bowl to Ajit Wadekar. I wish my editor had allowed me to pick a side of 22, or, better still, permitted the use of a pseudonym, to save me from the mocking abuse of my Bombay friend. After what I have done here, how will I face Vasu Paranjpe again?

The XI
1.Vijay Merchant [captain]
2.Sunil Gavaskar
3.Ajit Wadekar
4.Sachin Tendulkar
5.Vijay Manjrekar
6.Polly Umrigar
7.Dattu Phadkar
8.Naren Tamhane [wk}
9.Ramakant Desai
10.Subhash Gupte
11.Padmakar Shivalkar

To read the rest of the article – Tony Cozier on Barbados, Gideon Haigh on New South Wales and Steven Lynch on Yorkshire – pick up your copy of Wisden Asia Cricket, October 2002, today

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