Last week, Newsline asked you to pick your best Test team of the decade. Thanks for all your responses

Here is the finest XII of the decade, as chosen by you:

Openers

Matthew Hayden and Virender Sehwag

One-Down

Ricky Ponting

Middle Order

Sachin Tendulkar and two of Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid, since the latter three all received the same votes. I guess one of them would be 12th man.

Wicketkeeper

Adam Gilchrist

Bowlers

Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Makhaya Ntini and Glenn McGrath.

The team I would have chosen is only slightly different.

Openers

Matthew Hayden and Virender Sehwag

One-Down

Ricky Ponting

Middle Order

Rahul Dravid, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Andrew Flintoff

Wicketkeeper

Adam Gilchrist

Bowlers

Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath and Dale Steyn

There are only a few significant differences between the team of Test cricketers I chose and that chosen byNewsline readers. Going by stats alone, Kallis is a superior all-rounder to Flintoff. But with Murali and Warne automatic choices, there was a need for a bowling all-rounder to supplement McGrath and Flintoff beats Kallis there.

I wasn’t particularly at having to choose Steyn, but what other choices were there? Steyn may not have had the longevity of Ntini but the few years he has played Test cricket have shown him to be a word-class pacer, probably the best in the world right now. Although that doesn’t really mean much. This decade, with its graveyard pitches and T20s, has been a nightmare for fast bowlers. Both Shane Bond and Shoaib Akhtar could have been great had they spent more time on the field than in ER.

With the batsmen, I chose to leave out Tendulkar and Lara because they had up-and-down decades. Lara is probably the greatest match-winning batsman and Tendulkar the most consistent over an unthinkable period of time. But for this decade alone they were overshadowed by Ponting and Dravid. Inzamam was a touch choice to make — and not just because I wanted at least one Pakistani in there. If this was a ODI team he would have automatically slotted into number six. But even in Tests he averaged over 50 this decade, took Pakistan to many crucial wins and was a man for a crisis.