Cricket Hall of Fame

[pskov]

If there were to be a Cricket Hall of Fame and you were the chief selector who would put in the inagural class?

Maximum of 10 players, must have been retired from international cricket (ODIs and tests) for at least 5 years.

My selection:

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
W.G. Grace
George Headley
Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton
Imran Khan
Greame Pollock
Viv Richards
Garfield Sobers

I tried to fit as many 'titans' of the game in as possible and emphosose the history and tradition of the game, hence the emphasis on older generation players. I feel that Bradman, Headley, Sobers and Hobbs are no-brainers anyway whilst anything that tries to look at the whole history of the game has to include Grace. Syd Barnes had such a phenomenal strike rate (189 wickets in 23 tests, I believe) and was clearly the greatest bowler of his generation (perhaps ever, but it could never be proven) so I chose him over other pacemen such as Trueman, Lillie and the Windies attack. (It might seem that I copped out of choosing a Windies paceman, but it just seemed almost unfair to include one of them without adding some of the others. The were a unit that worked together and can never be seperated from one another in my mind.) Hutton was selected because of the whole professionalism boundary and of course his fine record as a batsman. Pollock IMHO was probably the second greatest batsman ever and losing virtually 3/4 of his career is surely one of the sports greatest tragedies; he is the Duncan Edwards of cricket. I feel that my most controversial choices are the two 'modern' players, Richards and Khan. Well, Richards has become such an icon, immortalised by his style and more importantly he is easily the best ODI batsman ever IMHO with an strike rate of over 90 even before they had fielding restrictions and the new attacking mindset etc. Khan I think is the second best allrounder ever second to Sobers of course and was a fine captain of a fine team, and in the interest of fair representation there needs to be a sub-continental player there (otherwise there would be riots in Lahore and Delhi no doubt ).

So that's my list. Feel free to crticise and please post yours.

 

[The Baconator]

i can't really justify them but these are my 10

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
Gary Sobers
Viv Richards
Richard Hadlee
W.G Grace
Jack Hobbs
George Headley
Jim Laker
Graeme Pollock

I too didn't choose any West Indian fast bowlers because I didn't think there was really one that stood significantly out from the rest

 

[Anil]

don bradman
garfield sobers
malcolm marshall
sydney barnes
imran khan
jack hobbs
viv richards

 

[NikhilN]

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
Wasim Akram
George Headley
Jack Hobbs
Sachin Tendulkar
Imran Khan
Greame Pollock
Viv Richards
Garfield Sobers

 

[superkingdave]

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
Gary Sobers
Viv Richards
Rikki Clarke
W.G Grace
Jack Hobbs
Anthony Mcgrath
Jim Laker
Graeme Pollock

 

[age_master]

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
Gary Sobers
Viv Richards
Rikki Clarke
W.G Grace
Jack Hobbs
Anthony Mcgrath
Jim Laker
Graeme Pollock

 

[marc71178]

Dave obviously forgot that they've not been retired 5 years yet...

 

[masterblaster]

I would not have any current player in there yet Nikhil.

Sachin Tendulkar will be a sure shot fit for the hall of fame after he retires.
For now, he's one of the best current players, but really a current player should not be inducted into the hall of fame.

 

[SJS]

1. WG Grace - Father of Cricket, lord and master of the cricket field and the one to revolutionise batting by bringing in backfoot play

2. Jack Hobbs - Nearest to technical perfection in a batsman, proved that if skills were married with technical perfection, wge became immaterial.

3. Sydney Barnes - Bowler extraordinaire-Showed there was more to bowling than a break-back and how !! He didnt just make the ball talk , he made it do his bidding defying al established norms.

4. Donald Bradman - Greatest ball player that ever existed. Cricket was fortunate to have him favour this sport. Mastered the craft in a manner to rise above the technicalities. The word legend falls to short for him

5. George Headley - Think of Don Bradman , with a more orthodox technique but with the same explosiveness and near-invincibility, add to that the unimaginable pressure of being a blackman in those times and the relative poverty of general as well as cricketing resources available to him and we can get something approaching an inkling of what this man achieved.

6. Garfield Sobers - Many have claimed , including some of the most respected names in the game, that he was the greatest left handed batsman ever, others have said that his fastest delivery was as fast as anyone in the world at that time and as accurate, he could bowl finger and wrist spin with al the variations and bowl them as if each was his stock delivery, arguably the greatest all round fielder from slip, gully, covers , anywhere AND could double up for the keeper !! When 95(out of hundred) of those voting for Wisden's Geatest Cricketers of alltime named him as one of the five, the surprise was not that as many as 95 chose him (Don got 100 votes) but who were the 5 who did not and why (the hell) ???

I am not sure anyone else fits into THIS class so I must end here. After these six there is daylight, debate and arguments.

 

[a massive zebra]

1. WG Grace - Father of Cricket, lord and master of the cricket field and the one to revolutionise batting by bringing in backfoot play.

Wrong. Grace did not invent backfoot play. There had been many backfoot players before him. Billy Beldham, Robert Carpenter and Arthur Haygarth among them. He revolutionised cricket by playing off both the front AND back foot. Before him you were either a back player or a forward player.

[6. Garfield Sobers - Many have claimed , including some of the most respected names in the game, that he was the greatest left handed batsman ever, others have said that his fastest delivery was as fast as anyone in the world at that time and as accurate, he could bowl finger and wrist spin with al the variations and bowl them as if each was his stock delivery, arguably the greatest all round fielder from slip, gully, covers , anywhere AND could double up for the keeper !! When 95(out of hundred) of those voting for Wisden's Geatest Cricketers of alltime named him as one of the five, the surprise was not that as many as 95 chose him (Don got 100 votes) but who were the 5 who did not and why (the hell) ???

Sobers got 90 votes out of 100.

 

[a massive zebra]

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
W.G. Grace
George Headley
Jack Hobbs
Walter Hammond
Imran Khan
Greame Pollock
Garfield Sobers
Malcolm Marshall

 

[SJS]

Wrong. Grace did not invent backfoot play. There had been many backfoot players before him. Billy Beldham, Robert Carpenter and Arthur Haygarth among them. He revolutionised cricket by playing off both the front AND back foot. Before him you were either a back player or a forward player.



Sobers got 90 votes out of 100.

I never said he 'invented' it. Yes people played off the backfoot before. But WG went about perfecting the art of batting and brought it very close to the way it is played today. Before that it was not being looked at seriouly although there were those who went back (and only back as you rightly point out). I think I might be able to locate a reference to this somewhere in my archives.

There is a film available of WG playing back in the nets defensively. This is not being mentioned (to prove anything but just as a point of interest) and inspite of the jerkiness of all old films and the fact that he doesn't move right across as the orthodox coaching book says, it is remarkable for how close it was to the modern backfoot defense.

About Sobers, yes you are right. I was speaking from memory, but as with all statistics that I quote, this to is to butteress an argument and IS NOT THE ARGUMENT , which remains unaffected by the difference you point out.

Thanks all the same.

PS : An interesting aside :-
WG's mother , 'the keenest and the shrewdest' of the family, 'when writing to George Parr, The manager of the All England team, recommending to him her son E>M>, made bold to add that she had a younger one whose back-play would make him the best of the bunch. How satisfying that history so compellingly endorsed this brilliant woman's perceptiveness....'

'...EM, the third son, 6 years old when WG arived, who first caught the eye of cricketers."....."...His batting, greatly successful, was the despair of his teachers, who were unnerved by his incorigible cross bat pull and the vices that derived from it.' (emphasis mine).
- Ronald Mason - Barclay's World of Cricket

 

[superkingdave]

Dave obviously forgot that they've not been retired 5 years yet...

Oh i read Should have been retired for 5 years, my bad.

 

[Nate]

Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
Wasim Akram
George Headley
Jack Hobbs
Sachin Tendulkar
Imran Khan
Greame Pollock
Viv Richards
Garfield Sobers

good at reading the rules, arent you nikhil?

 

[deeps]

1D. Bradman
2S. Gavaskar
3D. Lillee
4K. Dev
5I. Botham
6G. Sobers
7V.Richards
8M.Marshall
9I.Khan
10W.Grace

 

[Deja moo]

D Bradman
G Sobers
J Hobbs
S Gavaskar
W Hammond
V Richards

From all accounts G Pollock was a great , but he couldnt play enough International cricket . His First clas career cannot qualify him IMO .

 

[BoyBrumby]

From all accounts G Pollock was a great , but he couldnt play enough International cricket . His First clas career cannot qualify him IMO .

To be fair, the circumstances were beyond his control. And he did manage 2000+ test runs @ v nearly 61.

I think Barry Richards may've gone onto test greatness too. Pity we'll never know. Certainly had a promising start to his test career!

 

[Western Warrior]

I too didn't choose any West Indian fast bowlers because I didn't think there was really one that stood significantly out from the rest

I'm just wondering what a West Indian bowler has to do to 'significantly stand out' in your eyes.

We have:

CA Walsh, 519 wkts @ 24.44
CEL Ambrose, 405 wkts @ 20.99!!!
MD Marshall, 376 wkts @ 20.95!!!
LR Gibbs, 309 wkts @ 29.09

In this list we have the most successful fast bowler in crickets history and two of the most economical. I don't think you could ask for much more.

 

[SJS]

I'm just wondering what a West Indian bowler has to do to 'significantly stand out' in your eyes.

We have:

CA Walsh, 519 wkts @ 24.44
CEL Ambrose, 405 wkts @ 20.99!!!
MD Marshall, 376 wkts @ 20.95!!!
LR Gibbs, 309 wkts @ 29.09

In this list we have the most successful fast bowler in crickets history and two of the most economical. I don't think you could ask for much more.

Come one-at-a-time among three other mediocre bowlers so that one can appreciate them better