Who is Australia's second best Test cricketer ever?

[G.I.Joe]

Pardon the laundry list of nominees. A similar exercise to the Indian one, with the aim of discovering which Australian cricketer Cricketweb considers to be second best only to the Don.

A wealth of talent here, from the all-round exploits of Armstrong, Benaud, Gilchrist, Miller and Noble to the specialists with secondary utility like Davidson, Lindwall, Walters, Waugh and Warne, to the specialists in the form of Border, Chappell, Grimmett, Jackson, Lillee, McGrath, O'Reilly, Ponting and Trumper.

Cast your vote in the poll, please.

[Uppercut]

McGrath.

[chaminda_00]

Miller

[G.I.Joe]

EDIT: Poll added.

[stephen]

I have a feeling it will come down to a choice between Warne, McGrath or Gilchrist and not just because of how recently they played. All three have very strong claims to be the second greatest Australian player of all time.

Miller might be the only one who would be in with a shot of displacing them, but he'd be a dark horse.

EDIT: Voted Gilly just because he's awesome and was the only player I named who hadn't got a vote.

I'd also suggest that Spoffoth (SP?) should be on the short list.

[stephen]

For the record my Australian XI looks like this (excluding the Don of course):

Hayden
Harvey
Ponting
Chappell G
Border (c)
Gilchrist
Miller
Warne
O'Reilly
Lillee
McGrath

If I included the Don, G Chappell would be pushed out and Ponting shuffled down to 4.

[The Sean]

We've had two Battle of the Australians (ex-Bradman), both of which IIRC have been won by Miller. Be interesting to see if CW feels the same way in this poll.

[The Sean]

Originally Posted by stephen

For the record my Australian XI looks like this (excluding the Don of course):

Hayden
Harvey
Ponting
Chappell G
Border (c)
Gilchrist
Miller
Warne
O'Reilly
Lillee
McGrath

If I included the Don, G Chappell would be pushed out and Ponting shuffled down to 4.

A superb team mate, though it's worth nothing that Neil Harvey never opened the batting in his Test career.

[Precambrian]

Shane Warne.

[G.I.Joe]

Originally Posted by stephen

I'd also suggest that Spoffoth (SP?) should be on the short list.

Knew I'd miss somebody. The poll can't be edited unfortunately.

I'm interested in the mini-battles here, like McGrath vs Lillee, or Warne vs O'Reilly or the batsmen vs all rounders vs bowlers.

Could end up being a three way race between Warne, Gilchrist and Miller though.

[stephen]

Originally Posted by The Sean

A superb team mate, though it's worth nothing that Neil Harvey never opened the batting in his Test career.

I know, but I had to slot him in somewhere.

Australia really has had a very large amount of wonderful middle order batsmen. We've had some great openers too I suppose with Simpson, Lawry and Hayden. If I was to include a specialist opener with Hayden I'd probably go with Simpson, despite all the accolades Trumper gets. He was a wet track bully and never really lived up to his potential on roads

[weldone]

For me it's a very close call between Gilchrist, Miller, McGrath, O'Reilly (and maybe Warne and Lillee and even Waugh, when you add his bowling and captaincy with his batting)...All of them are contenders in the all-time world XI (except Waugh, of course)...But I chose the person who is probably the strongest contender in an all-time world XI after Sir Don, that is Gilchrist

[Richard]

Miller easy second, Gilchrist probably third.

For mine.

[Ikki]

I think Warne. Although Miller is so close behind he keeps clipping the heel of Shane's shoe. I think if Miller actually cared for Cricket the way the likes of Warne did then he'd be indisputably number 2, not only for Australia but the world.

[four_or_six]

I don't know why, but although I think Gilchrist was a great player, I've never been quite so amazed by him as I have by some other players. I'm going to go for McGrath just for the totally ridiculous number of wickets he took, and therefore his amazing ability to keep going at such a high standard through such a long career.