Cape Town - England opener Alastair Cook has revealed his best-ever cricket XI, with former Proteas all-rounder Jacques Kallis and ODI skipper AB de Villiers selected.

Cook named his all-time XI on the Lord's Cricket YouTube channel with the criteria being that he had to have played with or against them, or have been strongly influenced by the players chosen.

The former England Test skipper named the usual suspects, which included Brian Lara and Shane Warne, both of whom regularly make such lists.

De Villiers and Kallis slotted in Cook's middle-order along with Lara, former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting and former Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara.

Cook quipped that he would "pay a lot of money to watch that middle-order bat".



Kallis, who retired from international cricket in 2014, played 166 Tests for South Africa scoring 13 289 runs and taking 292 wickets in the process.

While De Villiers, who controversially ruled himself out of the Proteas Test team to England, watched as Cook and company thrashed South Africa 3-1 in the four-match Test series this month.



De Villiers has played 106 Tests for the Proteas to date and scored 8074 runs with an average of 50.46.

Meanwhile Cook, who is the No 13 Test batsman in the world, has played 144 Tests for England to date and scored 11 325 at an average of 46.03.

Alastair Cook's all-time XI:

Graham Gooch (England - captain), Matthew Hayden (Australia), Brian Lara (West Indies), Ricky Ponting (Australia), AB de Villiers (South Africa - wicketkeeper), Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka - wicketkeeper), Jacques Kallis (South Africa), Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka), Shane Warne (Australia), James Anderson (England), Glenn McGrath (Australia)