(*) Not Michael Clarke. What were you thinking?

If, as I think is reasonable, we assume that the players in the LMCoG XI are playing to their laureate year form, there is no need for the numbers three to seven batsmen. The captain would only have to decide when to call Chanderpaul and Chanderpaul in. Would it be 600 for 0, or maybe 700 for 0?

Sorry, is this not a game of word association? I see he’s scored a hundred before lunch. I hate him even more for this, if only because I generally fail to do anything before lunch most days.

David Warner.

With a lot of the previous LMOGs, you had a feeling they were having an outstanding year of electric form. Regression to the mean means you’d expect next year to be less outstanding. Shiv’s doubling-up act was one of the most phenomenal, and surprising, individual feats in the history of Test cricket. (We normally think of feats as being accomplished in a match or over a career, but I think a sustained year can constitute a feat in its own right.)

But with Ashwin, I didn’t really get the feeling he was “playing out of his skin” or “overperforming” (well, perhaps somewhat with the bat) or doing anything statistically freakish simply because the epsilons – and cricket is a sport of very many epsilons – were in his favour. He was just doing that job wot he does very well indeed. It was expected. It was expectable.

As such he must be overwhelming favourite for the 2017 crown. What if he really were to overperform this year? That would be quite der Hammer, as they say in Deutschland.

Monty Panesar. Calling it now.

10 years in we are approaching a pretty good LMOG XI

1. Chanderpaul
2. Chanderpaul
3. Williamson
4. Clarke
5. Bell
6. Mathews/McCullum*
7. Dhoni+
8. Ashwin
9. Steyn
10. Steyn
11.

Since next year needs to be a no. 11 I expect it will either be Rabada or Philander, depending on who marmalises England more effectively this summer.

Predictions for next year’s winner? Shall we just give it to Haseeb Hameed now to save time?