Top 100 Test Batsmen of all time newly revised

[Days of Grace]

As many of you know, in my free time I have been working on a rating formula for batsmen and bowlers since around 1998. Every year it gets more detailed, and thus more realistic or in tune with general opinion.

Around August I came up with the idea that each batsmen or bowlers' series runs/wickets would be adjusted according to the strengh of the opposition. I did this by taking an a runs per wicket number that I thought was genuine across the history of the game: 32.5, and then getting each batting and bowling teams runs per wicket averages across a certain era.

Thus I have adjusted averages for batsmen, together with adjusted averages for away matches, and against the top opposition of the time. I also take into account a players peak period of 20 matches. I am quite pleased with the results.

Anyway, I would like to write a feature article on this, so could someone please show me how to do this? I have been to the features webpage but I can't see any link that allows me to write a feature.

Cheers.

Until then, a sample of the top 50 Test batsmen from my new system:

Adj. Ave. Rating
1 DG Bradman 88.14 1452
2 JB Hobbs 58.84 951
3 L Hutton 54.98 934
4 SR Tendulkar 52.82 921
5 RT Ponting 50.70 919
6 WR Hammond 51.23 907
7 GS Sobers 54.55 903
8 BC Lara 50.86 889
9 SM Gavaskar 50.67 879
10 KF Barrington 55.21 860
11 GS Chappell 53.46 856
12 IVA Richards 49.30 849
13 AD Nourse 53.35 846
14 SR Waugh 48.47 842
15 JH Kallis 48.86 834
16 ED Weekes 54.31 831
17 H Sutcliffe 52.89 830
18 AR Border 50.42 829
19 ML Hayden 46.60 823
20 GA Headley 56.11 821
21 CL Walcott 53.18 819
22 DCS Compton 48.32 816
23 R Dravid 49.15 811
24 Javed Miandad 50.02 803
25 Mohammad Yousuf 49.66 802
26 V Sehwag 48.85 796
27 RG Pollock 60.24 795
28 KC Sangakkara 46.98 791
29 A Flower 49.09 782
30 AC Gilchrist 43.36 776
31 RN Harvey 46.51 769
32 Inzamam-ul-Haq 46.48 760
33 DPMD Jayawardene 45.49 756
34 S Chanderpaul 46.36 749
35 CH Lloyd 45.77 749
36 G Boycott 46.85 748
37 KP Pietersen 45.71 748
38 B Mitchell 45.76 741
39 AR Morris 45.30 738
40 FMM Worrell 49.22 733
41 MEK Hussey 53.64 732
42 GA Faulkner 49.28 731
43 CG Macartney 43.14 730
44 KD Walters 46.81 730
45 Younis Khan 45.21 730
46 C Hill 49.48 729
47 MD Crowe 44.25 727
48 JL Langer 41.69 725
49 VS Hazare 49.43 725
50 KS Ranjitsinhji 55.05 723

 

[silentstriker]

You can apply to be a staff member if you want to contribute on any sort of a regular basis. If you only want to contribute a one-off, you can email Pasag or James and I'm sure they'll be able to work with you on that.

 

[archie mac]

Headley seems a long way down, he would have only played mostly Tests against Aust and England and they were the two best teams around during his era?

 

[silentstriker]

Headley seems a long way down, he would have only played mostly Tests against Aust and England and they were the two best teams around during his era?

Did he always play their best XI though?

 

[Days of Grace]

Well, I never look at who is playing, just the team name.

Unfortunately for Headley he just misses the mark of 25 tests which I set for batsmen after WWI to get a full rating. He played 22 tests, so gets 12% off his rating. This is partly made up by a 7.5% increase for players who missed matches due to the Wars.

 

[Days of Grace]

Just did Archie Mac, btw.

Just misses out on the top 100, but his overall batting average increased to 41.00.

 

[S.P. Fleming]

suprised to see Martin Crowe down as low as 47

 

[Days of Grace]

When you look at the players above him, it's not that surprising tbh.

 

[archie mac]

Just did Archie Mac, btw.

Just misses out on the top 100, but his overall batting average increased to 41.00.

Well I was pretty handy

How far do you have Trumper behind Hill? They had very similar figures

 

[Migara]

I am finding it puzzling to see Jayawardane in front of Chanderpaul and Pietersen. And I think Sangakkara is much better than Sehwag, Yousuf or Dravid infact. And Sobers at 7! I would think he's only behind Bradman with batting.

 

[sanga1337]

How did Arthur Nourse get as high as 13 and above some great players such as waugh, Sutcliffe and weekes?

 

[archie mac]

How did Arthur Nourse get as high as 13 and above some great players such as waugh, Sutcliffe and weekes?

The Australians who played against Dudley Nourse thought him one of the very best of that period

 

[fredfertang]

Where does Colin Cowdrey end up?

 

[Days of Grace]

Where does Colin Cowdrey end up?

In 56th with 713 points

 

[Days of Grace]

Well I was pretty handy

How far do you have Trumper behind Hill? They had very similar figures

Trumper finishes in 78th place, with 682 points, showing the conjestion in the middle of the list.

While you say their figures are similar, this only equates to their adjusted overall averages. The rest of their figures that I used for ranking them are almost all in favour of Clem Hill:

Adj. Ave: Hill 49.48 Trumper 48.54
Away Ave: Hill 50.94 Trumper 43.92
Ave vs. top opposition (in this case, vs. England): Hill 46.15 Trumper 43.26
Consistency reaching 50+: Hill 0.295 Trumper 0.247
Centuries: Trumper 8 Hill 7 (Hill missed out in the 90s on a number of occasions)
50+ average: Trumper 60.59 Hill 48.52
50+ strike rate: Hill 82.62 Trumper 76.09 (Hill even outshines Trumper in scoring speed, which I found very surprising considering all the talk about Trumper)

And, finally adj. peak average (best period of 20 tests): Hill an incredible 71.53, Trumper 50.59.

So, there we are. In statistics if nothing else, Clem Hill looked to have the better record in almost all departments.

 

[Michaelf7777777]

Could you please tell me where Bert Sutcliffe ranks on your list?

 

[fredfertang]

....... better still just post the next 50

 

[Days of Grace]

Top 100

Small adjustments made after I studied some of the earlier batsmen's strike-rates, working out how many balls per minute they faced in their era.
Turns out that Clem Hill 50+ scoring-rate was about 65 runs per 100 balls, whilst Trumper's was 78


1 DG Bradman 88.14 1452
2 JB Hobbs 58.84 951
3 L Hutton 54.98 934
4 SR Tendulkar 52.82 921
5 RT Ponting 50.70 919
6 WR Hammond 51.23 913
7 GS Sobers 54.55 903
8 BC Lara 50.86 889
9 SM Gavaskar 50.67 879
10 KF Barrington 55.21 860
11 GS Chappell 53.46 856
12 IVA Richards 49.30 849
13 AD Nourse 53.35 846
14 SR Waugh 48.47 842
15 JH Kallis 48.86 834
16 H Sutcliffe 52.89 830
17 AR Border 50.42 829
18 ED Weekes 54.31 828
19 ML Hayden 46.60 823
20 GA Headley 56.11 821
21 DCS Compton 48.32 818
22 CL Walcott 53.18 814
23 R Dravid 49.15 811
24 Javed Miandad 50.02 803
25 Mohammad Yousuf 49.66 802
26 V Sehwag 48.85 796
27 RG Pollock 60.24 795
28 KC Sangakkara 46.98 791
29 A Flower 49.09 782
30 AC Gilchrist 43.36 776
31 RN Harvey 46.51 769
32 Inzamam-ul-Haq 46.48 760
33 DPMD Jayawardene 45.49 756
34 S Chanderpaul 46.36 749
35 CH Lloyd 45.77 749
36 G Boycott 46.85 748
37 KP Pietersen 45.71 748
38 B Mitchell 45.76 741
39 AR Morris 45.30 738
40 KS Ranjitsinhji 55.05 736
41 FMM Worrell 49.22 734
42 MEK Hussey 53.64 732
43 GA Faulkner 49.28 731
44 CG Macartney 43.14 730
45 KD Walters 46.81 730
46 Younis Khan 45.21 730
47 FS Jackson 60.21 729
48 MD Crowe 44.25 727
49 JL Langer 41.69 725
50 VS Hazare 49.43 725
51 AL Hassett 44.64 719
52 G Kirsten 42.62 716
53 C Hill 49.48 716
54 M Azharuddin 44.56 714
55 CG Greenidge 43.31 713
56 MC Cowdrey 43.29 713
57 DI Gower 44.18 712
58 GA Gooch 42.63 711
59 DR Martyn 44.04 710
60 DB Vengsarkar 42.17 709
61 RB Kanhai 45.83 708
62 GC Smith 41.85 707
63 PBH May 46.60 706
64 PA de Silva 40.66 705
65 WM Lawry 46.89 702
66 VVS Laxman 44.95 701
67 MA Taylor 41.61 701
68 SM Nurse 46.94 699
69 DC Boon 42.40 697
70 Saeed Anwar 43.74 695
71 AI Kallicharran 45.73 695
72 Zaheer Abbas 42.48 694
73 DL Amiss 43.41 688
74 ME Waugh 41.22 686
75 DM Jones 44.12 685
76 RB Simpson 44.27 685
77 W Bardsley 43.66 683
78 VT Trumper 48.84 683
79 ER Dexter 45.31 678
80 Saleem Malik 41.59 677
81 RB Richardson 42.38 676
82 M Amarnath 43.10 673
83 GP Thorpe 42.99 673
84 IM Chappell 42.65 666
85 GR Viswanath 41.48 665
86 WH Ponsford 41.93 663
87 MJ Slater 41.27 662
88 WW Armstrong 45.66 660
89 JH Edrich 43.07 659
90 EH Hendren 44.66 657
91 SJ McCabe 42.61 654
92 MP Vaughan 37.53 654
93 Hanif Mohammad 41.39 651
94 DL Haynes 40.34 646
95 HH Gibbs 38.50 643
96 ME Trescothick 39.74 642
97 SC Ganguly 39.95 641
98 M Leyland 40.48 637
99 DJ Cullinan 41.60 636
100 HW Taylor 40.69 634

 

[weldone]

Hanif Mohammad deserved to be there in the top 50...Well, this is better than your previous rankings no doubt...

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Move Richards and Chappell into the top 10 instead of Ponting and Barrington and it would be passable.