Sobers says recent Australian teams aren't the best

Sir Garry Sobers, one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the 20th Century, believes Australia's sides of the past decade fall short in any debate over the game's greatest teams. Steve Waugh's men won an unprecedented 16 Tests in a row and the outfits captained by Waugh, Taylor and Ponting have dominated the world, but Sobers told The Australian there were other more powerful squads.

"I never saw Bradman's teams play but you don't even have to go back that far," Sobers said. "I don't think they would have even won a single Test against Clive Lloyd's team, to tell you the truth. Look at how the Aussies struggled against Steve Harmison in England. What would they have done against an attack with Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall? The Aussies have done so well for all these years because of two players: Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath."

Warne was also a Cricketer of the Century, but Sobers picked Subhash Gupte as his all-time favourite slow bowler. "Warne's a great, but the best legspinner I've ever seen is still Gupte," he said. "He could do things that I still don't believe all these years later." Gupte played 36 Tests for India, taking 149 wickets at 29.55, and died in Trinidad in 2002. Warne currently holds the world record with 659 victims at 25.15 over a 14-year career.