Dream Team

1. tim curtis

– Retired When I was playing, he was probably our most proficient batsman – his sheer weight of runs was enormous. He was also great when you were in trouble, as when the going got tough he would always be leading from the front, batting for long periods of time.

2. tom moody

– Retired My team could be for onedayers so I’ve put him here – a batsman of international class who could dominate any attack. I remember the knock in the final of the NatWest Trophy in 1994, when him and Hicky just dominated the crease and put on 198 runs against Warwickshire.

3. graeme hick

– Retired Is there anything I need to say? The way he would go about things was just phenomenal, he’d be calm and composed in all conditions and against all attacks. I didn’t actually play in the game he scored 405, but he was the kind of player who could hit someone’s best deliveries for four with ease.

4. vikram solanki

– Retired I played a fair bit with him, and he was very young when he first came into the team – he got a lot of his runs after I was finished. But you could tell he was going to be a great player, he had really good hands that got through the ball. He worked on his defensive game over the years and he got better on when to leave the ball after getting himself out cheaply one or two times – as all young cricketers do.

5. ian botham

– Retired We didn’t overlap for long at Worcestershire. But having watched that 1981 series for England, to share a dressing room with someone I idolised when I was just coming through as an 18 or 19-year-old was unbelievable. He got on with his job like any pro but he’d have time for a chat with everybody.

6. steve rhodes

– Retired Only keeper that I played with really! He was a good batter but with the gloves, outstanding. If he had played in a different era I think he’d have earned a lot more England caps than he ended up with. He was quite a student of the game, always making notes on players and thinking about how to improve, so I’m not surprised he’s coaching Worcestershire now.

7. richard illingworth

– Retired There weren’t many other spinners at Worcestershire while I was there – but you wouldn’t need anyone else. He’d do a job with the ball in the first innings, not going for many. Then he’d get the ball to turn and take a lot of wickets. Sometimes in one-day cricket you know you knew you could defend 160-odd with him bowling so economically.

8. phil newport

– Retired He took nearly 900 first-class wickets – many because he could not only swing the ball but also control it, in any conditions, at a reasonable pace. He was a great lad in a strong dressing room, that’s why that team was successful.

9. neal radford

– Retired He took even more first-class wickets than Phil, nearly 1,000 – you’ve got to have him in there as well, as even though I’ve got a long tail, he could bat a bit as well although No.9 is one too high for him. In his prime he bowled very quickly, a very clever player.

10. graham dilley

– Deceased He was a really good bloke and on his day was simply unplayable. I remember him looking after me when I was playing one of my first senior games, in a one-day quarter final, and I dropped a catch on the boundary. He came up to me immediately and we just had a chat about it – I knew what I’d done. Everyone has very fond memories of him and he did a great job up at Loughborough.

11. glenn mcgrath

– Retired He bowled quickly, back of a length, and he was just a metronome like that – he bullied teams in that way. He was a pantomime villain in England but he wasn’t like that at all, just a great guy and a good presence in the dressing room.