Peter Siddle Names Dale Steyn, James Anderson In His Best Test XI He Played Against.

Peter Siddle emerged as the bedrock of the Australian bowling-unit after the retirement of all likes of Glenn McGrath. Termed as the work-horse, Siddle was someone you could bank on to bowl and bowl and bowl despite the surfaces not offering anything.

Peter Siddle recently called time on his international career and Peter Siddle and a few days ago, named the Best Test XI that he played against for Cricket Australia’s website cricket.com.au, where named Dale Steyn and James Anderson as the leaders of his bowling attack.

It is fair to say that Dale Steyn and James Anderson are two of the greatest fast bowlers to have made their debut in the 21st century.

While Dale Steyn bamboozled batsmen around the world with his sustained pace and unrelenting aggression, James Anderson, despite having a mediocre start to his Test career, proceeded to age like a fine wine. Anderson, since 2010 has been a different beast altogether and currently tops the list for the most number of wickets by a pace bowler in the history of Test cricket.

“Jimmy and Dale are definitely opening the bowling. Jimmy can run into the wind, he won’t mind that at all. Steyn can take the new ball, doing his thing first up. Then Broad can come up first change. You can’t go past Steyn opening the bowling. Players that I’ve played against he’s definitely the best bowler. Had some really good battles with him, just watching him play, he’s amazing to watch. Luckily we got to play him in BBL this year and got the same run around again. He’s a beautiful bowler to watch,” said Peter Siddle in a podcast organized by cricket.com.au.

Read: James Anderson And Stuart Broad Reveal Graeme Smith As A “Nightmare” To Bowl To

No Ravi Ashwin or Graeme Swann in Peter Siddle’s Best Test XI

While naming the spinner in his XI, Peter Siddle overlooked Ravichandran Ashwin and Graeme Swann and picked Sri Lankan wizard Rangana Herath.

Herath was the tormentor-in-chief during Australia’s 2016 Test trip to the island nation.

“Herath was the one who troubled us a lot. He was unbelievable in that series in 2016, I don’t know, left-arm spin has always done well against us. Not bad considering that he came after Murali and still took 400 wickets. He’s a pretty handy spinner, plenty good spinners around but he was probably the best,” Siddle said.

Rangana Herath, who retired from Test cricket back in 2018, is the leading wicket-taker in five-day cricket, as far as left-arm bowlers are concerned. In 93 Tests Herath claimed 433 scalps and the fact that he did it, despite spending a majority of his career under the shadows of Muttiah Muralitharan, makes his feat even more astounding.

Read: Ajinkya Rahane Picks James Anderson As The Most Challenging Bowler He Has Faced

Here is Peter Siddle’s Best Test Opponents XI-

Alastair Cook, Graeme Smith, Kumar Sangakkara, Sachin Tendulkar, AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, MS Dhoni (wk), Stuart Broad, Dale Steyn, Rangana Herath, James Anderson, Ben Stokes (12th man)