Who is Australia's second best Test cricketer ever?

[zaremba]

Did he? I've read stuff from O'Reilly where he mentions extensively that many (from his own club) considered Trumper his superior (while conventiently stopping short of implicitly stating that he did such a thing), but not Grimmett.

I just read a few pages on the internet as you suggested. Here's an example of what I found: Better than Bradman

I'm not suggesting that Trumper was better than Bradman, btw. I doubt that anyone could possibly dispute that in terms of sheer hunger for runs and efficiency at compiling them, albeit often in luxurious batting conditions, Bradman was without rival. Since I never saw either play it's difficult to make any meaningful comparison. The view that Trumper was better was one fairly commonly expressed in the 1920s and 30s in Australia. However I accept that such views need to be taken with a pinch of salt, and rose-tinted spectacles distort the vision of most cricket followers (myself included), and Trumper's bewitching charm as a player may have clouded the judgment of many.

 

[zaremba]

And one of the oldest chestnuts on cricket's tree - and even CW's.

Yes, it's been debated long before your time and mine. And hopefully it will be debated long into the future. It gets much less airtime than the godawful "Warne v Murali" and, largely for that reason, it's a more interesting debate.

So many people think "so who's the 2nd best cricketer, after Bradman" - the stock answer is usually someone like Sobers - without giving much of a thought to the possibility that perhaps the title of the greatest ever should go instead to Grace, the man whose dominance over his contemporaries was (heresy! heresy!) the equal of Bradman's and whose influence was (heresy! heresy!) even greater.

 

[Anil]

dennis lillee, glenn mcgrath, keith miller, greg chappell in that order for me after the don...

 

[Burgey]

I'd happily acknowledge Barnes as the best bowler there's ever been, myself. And certainly conceivably one of England's best three cricketers.

However, his case is undoubtedly less unequivocal than those of the great batsmen of the '30s and '50s. There are still plenty who argue that his case to be a great bowler, never mind the best there's ever been, is not concrete. The sad reality is that Barnes spent the vast majority of his career playing Minor Counties cricket. If I could change one thing about cricket history, it'd be that someone made Barnes welcome playing First-Class county cricket for 25 years. Because I've precious little doubt that if that'd been done, no-one would doubt he was the best there's ever been.

Richard, there were some threads last year in which it was asked whether we actually knew what it was Barnes bowled.

At the NY test in Sydney, Benaud was on in a tea break and was talking abotu the 53(?) tour to England. Anyway, he mentioned SF bowled the first over of one of the tour matches, at whatever age he was then, and what a thrill it was for Richie to have met him, etc.

Benaud made mention that Barnes bowled medium-fast to fast-medium seamers, and described as almost a prototype Alewc Bedser. Meant to post this when I heard it but forgot. May clarify some things.

 

[adharcric]

Gilchrist is an all-time great but his greatness is exaggerated by how much better he was than any other wicketkeeper-batsman. McGrath > Warne as a bowler, barely by enough that the other aspects don't matter IMO. Miller's right up there as well but I'd still go with McGrath - that said, Warne and Miller are understandable as well.

 

[nightprowler10]

I went Miller.

 

[Athlai]

Warne isn't even Australia's best bowler ever. Mind boggling that he's leading. Heck he might not even be the best leg-spinner Australia's ever had.

 

[Prince EWS]

With fear of being called a heretic, I'd almost go as far to say that Miller would be more valuable than Bradman in the context of most teams.

Obviously Bradman's achievements are more impressive in not only their difficulty but in the fact that no-one came close to matching them. He was completely unparalleled in his art and he has rightfully been crowned the greatest ever cricketer based on this. However, in terms of shere value to a team, I'd probably rather have someone who was a world class batsman and an all-time great bowler than someone who is going to score absolutely freakish amounts of runs.

Hence, I'm pretty surprised that Miller isn't winning this poll.

 

[nightprowler10]

Warne isn't even Australia's best bowler ever. Mind boggling that he's leading. Heck he might not even be the best leg-spinner Australia's ever had.

Not really mind boggling. Australia has gone from a dominant number one to arguably the third best in the world and the biggest difference in the team is a lack of a quality spinner. People tend to miss him more than anyone else of the retirees from the past couple of years, even though IMO McGrath was more valuable to the team.

But yeah there's no way Miller shouldn't be winning this poll.

 

[Zinzan]

Miller, marginally ahead of Warne for mine

 

[Zinzan]

Warne isn't even Australia's best bowler ever. Mind boggling that he's leading. Heck he might not even be the best leg-spinner Australia's ever had.

Sorry, who's their best bowler ever then?

 

[Matt79]

Noting that the poll asked for 'best' rather than 'greatest' or 'most valuable' I went for McGrath just over Miller and Warne. If it had been the other questions, it would have been a toss up tween warne, miller and Lillee.

 

[Zinzan]

Noting that the poll asked for 'best' rather than 'greatest' or 'most valuable' I went for McGrath just over Miller and Warne. If it had been the other questions, it would have been a toss up tween warne, miller and Lillee.

Strange interpretation that, "2nd best" or "2nd Greatest" essentially mean the same thing to me

 

[Matt79]

Not to me.

 

[Something_Fishy]

Very interesting to see no votes for Steve Waugh and ONLY 1 FOR LILLEE!!!! Incredible. And Greg Chappell was good, but not Australia 2nd best ever. Not by a long shot.

 

[stephen]

Very interesting to see no votes for Steve Waugh and ONLY 1 FOR LILLEE!!!! Incredible. And Greg Chappell was good, but not Australia 2nd best ever. Not by a long shot.

Steve Waugh, while a champion, was outclassed by Border, Hayden, Chappell G, Ponting and probably Harvey too.

 

[Ikki]

Warne isn't even Australia's best bowler ever. Mind boggling that he's leading. Heck he might not even be the best leg-spinner Australia's ever had.

Warne's considered Australia's greatest bowler, in my experience, with most people. Lillee's there too.

 

[The Sean]

It'd have to be third-best for England. Grace and Hobbs are the top two for pretty well anyone who knows their stuff. The third, well, it's one hell of a question. I think there's so little clear-cut-ness that it'd be almost pointless. Hammond? Sutcliffe? Hutton? It'd just have to be one of the great batsmen of the '30s and '50s - there's never been an English seam-bowler of the absolute highest rank except maybe Fred Trueman and even he has the not-that-much-outside-England question that drags down all the best English seamers. And clearly a fingerspinner, even one of the calibre of Rhodes or Verity, would not be worthy as the worth of fingerspinners has declined with the covering of wickets in a way no other type of player has come remotely close to mirroring the decline of.

Worth a poll/battle I reckon - though I'm not convinced that Grace would win it. I reckon a lot of CWers would find the era he played in to be an immovable obstacle to considering him England's greatest ever.

As for Grace and Hobbs being unquestionably the top two - well if you as John Woodcock he's got Alfred Mynn sandwiched in between them.

 

[Beleg]

warne.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Worth a poll/battle I reckon - though I'm not convinced that Grace would win it. I reckon a lot of CWers would find the era he played in to be an immovable obstacle to considering him England's greatest ever.

As for Grace and Hobbs being unquestionably the top two - well if you as John Woodcock he's got Alfred Mynn sandwiched in between them.

We had a battle of the Englishmen. Hobbs beat Barnes 12-6 in the final, Ranji and Grace lost the semis.