Wow!!!!
Blogging at it's best and that list of players is even awesome.
I like the way you justified those selections when there are more than one competitors for each of those XI positions.

Alistair Cook and Virender Sehwag are like Ice and Fire combo at the top and I think that kind of combo is very much required to make the test cricket more interesting and Alistair Cook is definitely the greatest English batsman of all time.

Then comes the captain cool(sorry Dhoni fans, I think this guy is equally cool as Dhoni) Kane Williamson, who is not just captain cool, but also cool batsman and can shift change the gear as per the situation and he will be a better choice than many other big names who played at Third position with the likes of Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid and others.

I like the selection of Brian Lara at Fourth position instead of Sachin Tendulkar for the fact that, Lara was left handed and adds more flamboyance and other fact is, he played almost 70 matches lesser compared to Tendulkar, but yeah, there will always be debates on who is best among these 2.

Nice to see Kumar Sangakkara getting into this XI as a pure batsman (as Gilchrist is there in this XI) and yes, his numbers speaks a lot and in the era of Sanath Jayasurya, Sachin Tendulkar, Marvan Attapattu and many more such great batsmen, this guy stands tall as a batsman and a good choice for Fifth position.

The lone all-rounder Andre Flintoff and that Ashes series speaks a lot about the big heart this guy has and I still remember me cheering him from my hotel room in Bahrain as I was working on an onsite assignment there and watching sports was one of the pass time for us since whole of Bahrain is of the size our Bangalore and was not having many friends and not many tourist places as well.

Then comes the giant assassin Adam Gilchrist, and this ever smiling batsman, as you mentioned was use to change the course of the match in just few deliveries with his fearless batting and he has done well whether he batted as a opener or even at Seventh or Eighth position.

If there any spin bowler who will be considered to play even in most awesome fast bowling pitches, it will be Shane Warne for his exploits even from such fast pitches and who can forget that ball of the century to Mike Gatting.

Although many may argue that Muralitharan was better than Warne, Murali had his ups and downs and all those controversies about bowling action.

Then comes the trio of fast bowlers, Zaheer Khan, Curtly Ambrose and Waqar Younis.

I like the choice of Ambrose over Courtny Walsh, Wasim Akram and Genn Mcgrath although I personally like Genn McGrath for his deadly swing bowling and even Wasim Akram is on the radar not just for his bowling, but also for his contributions lower down the order.

Thanks for sharing such a detailed one and kindly cross post this on 22 yards Community for the benefit of the new community and also as it's a requirement as mentioned in that contest blog.

Have a wonderful day :)