The ideal Test XI of cricketers who made their debut in the first decade of the 21st century

#1 Virender Sehwag (2001-2013)

Sehwag enthralled the MCG with a pulsating 195

There are few batsmen who come in and change the way the position in which they bat was once perceived - Adam Gilchrist did that with the wicket-keeping position in the late 90s and early 2000s; Virender Sehwag certainly did that to Test match opening.

Unlike the erstwhile notion of openers' leaving the ball outside the off stump, Sehwag believed in taking the attack to the opposition and he did it with disdain throughout his career, scoring runs at breathtaking ease and becoming the only Indian cricketer to score two triple hundreds.

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#2 Alastair Cook (2006- 2018)

Cook signed off his Test career with a masterly 147 at the Oval

With aggression on one end, one needs defiance and grit to balance it out at the other, and England's Alastair Cook fits that role with aplomb.

One of those rare Test match openers of the modern-era whose favorite shot is leaving the ball outside the off-stump and batting for a long period of time, Cook announced himself with a defiant debut hundred at Nagpur in 2006 and over the course of 12 years remained England's bedrock.

Cook's finest hour in international cricket is undoubtedly his marathon performance Down Under in 2010-11 where he scored over 700 runs to help England win the Ashes in Australia after 24 years and his baptism with fire on raging turners in India (3 hundred in 4 matches) which paved the way for England's first series win after 28 years in 2012.

In a 161-match Test career that culminated with him hitting his 33rd Test ton against India at The Oval, Cook's average never dropped below 40 - a feat achieved only by the likes of Miandad, Gower, Ganguly and Clive Lloyd.

He finished with 12,472 runs, pipping Kumar Sangakkara to become the fifth highest run-getter in Test cricket.