Former England batsman Nick Compton picks his all-time XI

Nick Compton, former England opener may be the most despised player on Twitter given the number of tweets he has made criticizing the Indian players and their performances. His messages on the social media forum have made him public enemy no.1 for the Indian fans in general, something which he seems to enjoy.

Nick Compton is the grandson of illustrious England player Denis Compton and appeared for England in 16 Tests scoring 775 runs with two hundreds and two fifties and a best score of 117. Compton has been active on the short messaging platform and in past has called out Virat Kohli, when he had asked the Indian fans to stop booing the former Australia captain Steve Smith during the India-Australia World Cup 2019 encounter.

Compton makes a surprise Indian pick in his all-time XI

Nick Compton recently unveiled his all-time XI in a conversation with ESPNCricinfo, which had a condition that the players he picked should be the one’s he either played alongside or against. It was given that the XI is full of England players with a dash of cricketers from other nations, including one surprise pick from India.

He picked former India off-spinner Murali Kartik in his XI, given that the duo played English county cricket for Somerset together. Kartik is known for enraging the English crowd when he mankaded Somerset’s Alex Barrow in a 2012 County Championship match while playing for Surrey. He was booed by the crowd in Taunton on that day and it remains a controversial incident to this day.

“For me, one of the best finger spinners of modern times and very unlucky not to have played 70 or 80 Test matches. Beautiful bowler. Guile, flight, confidence – arrogance at times – very good cricket brain, and a street-fighter. He was someone I played a lot of cricket with at Somerset, and I thought he was a phenomenal bowler,” Compton was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo while explaining his choice of Kartik in his all-time XI.

Murali Kartik was unfortunate that his career coincided with the era of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, who dominated the Indian cricket scene, leaving Kartik with only 8 Tests and 37 ODI appearances for India and he picked 24 wickets in Tests and 37 in ODI cricket.

Nick Compton’s all-time XI

Sir Alastair Cook (ENG), Philip Hughes (AUS), Hashim Amla (SA), Kevin Pietersen (ENG), Ed Joyce (ENG-IRE), Ben Stokes (ENG), Jonny Bairstow (WK-ENG), Vernon Philander (SA), Mitchell Starc (AUS), Stuart Broad (ENG), Murali Kartik (IND)