CMJ's top 100

[wfdu_ben91]

What you don't rate Sangakkarra (IMO the best test bat around right now, except for perhaps sachin) or Yousuf? Jayawardene ain't bad either? I'm not saying pietersen is bad at the short ball, he's bad at the back of a length ball (that delivery was back of a length really) on off stump, especially if it moves a bit. Please note he hasn't really performed against the 'best' opposition 06/07 aside (even that attack wasn't taht good really with warne and macgrath on their last test quality legs), there haven't been to many top class bowlers around for him to face. He's generally struggled against the top bowlers outside england. Steyn this winter and johnson this summer are big tests, if he passes them I shan't have a word against him and shall be filled with praise. My opinon of pietersen is that he cashes in really really well when the conditions and bowling suit him (very entertaining to watch in such conditions), but quite reliably fails when they don't, that jamaica match was a prime example, by the 2nd innings it had become low and skiddy, taylor got one full on off swinging away, kp tried to muscle it through the on side instead of defending and off stump went for a walk. IRC he's never gotten the richy benaud accolade like tendulkar, lara, sangakkarra, dravid or even recently JP Duminy, that's always a pretty good acid test.

Sangakkara is good, but not great. What has he exactly done to be labelled great? His innings at Hobart? Surely, if you're going to credit that then you have to give credit to Pietersen for his success against Australia? The only difference was that Sangakkara made runs against Australia's weakest bowling attack (at that time) in the last decade whilst Pietersen made runs against McGrath & Warne. Sangakkara has made the most of batting on placid pitches against Pakistan, pitches that were flat enough to ensure that Thilan Sammaraweera boosted his Test average above 50. He has also scored heavily against Bangladesh. His good though, so I'd say his a 45-47 average batsman.

Mohammad Yousuf averages in the 20's against the 3 strongest bowling attacks of his generation (Australia, Sri Lanka & South Africa) and averaged over 100 against the 2 weakest bowling attacks of his generation (West Indies & Bangladesh). Pietersen averages over 40 against every Test playing nation. I'd say Mohd Yousuf is around 41-43.

Mahela Jayawardene is a typical subcontient bully, I'd rate him in the same class as Virender Sehwag as far as his success goes. Last time I checked, he averaged 38 outside the subcontient. I'd say his a 40-42.

Warne wasn't past it and nor was McGrath. If McGrath was past it then why did he go onto later win the Player of the Tournament in the 2007 World Cup? Just because he got older doesn't neccessilary mean that he deteriorated. Warne was still as dangerous at any stage of his career and his stats never showed deterioation because the class was always there. Pietersen has conquered the best 3 bowling attacks he has come across thus far, Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa. That's enough for me to rate him ahead

As far as Richie Benuad goes, that's his opinion. We're all living in the same era, so no one has the correct opinion, not even him. For example, he thinks that Adam Gilchrist is one of the best players that he has ever seen and I always thought Gilly was overrated both as a batsman and as a keeper.

 

[zaremba]

CMJ's list's country wise distribution

ENG: 34
AUS: 24
WI: 15
IND: 8
PAK: 6
SA: 6
SL: 4
NZ: 2
ZIM: 1

Revealing statistic. As I've said in a previous post, no-one's top 100 will be devoid of personal bias.

 

[The Sean]

CMJ's list's country wise distribution

ENG: 34
AUS: 24
WI: 15
IND: 8
PAK: 6
SA: 6
SL: 4
NZ: 2
ZIM: 1

I'd personally have a few more Aus/WI and a few less Englishmen, but overall that split is fairly sound IMO and not too far from what I'd expect.

 

[Richard]

Well, you're the one attacking my posts, not the other way round - I'm merely defending myself from your unprovoked rubbish.

Actually I'm merely one of a large number pointing-out that you don't really have much of a clue what you're on about, in any number of respects. You'd have a hard job defending the indefensible, so it's best not to even bother trying.

Go back and read through, because you did start it. Really, if anyone deserves to be punished it's you. Not like you're one of the most knowledgable either - I've come across more then several members that know more then you and I personally don't like the majority of them. So go ahead and cook the fact that you believe that you are the most respected member on this forum and continue to let me laugh it up.

I don't need to cook anything up - I actually know far more about those on this forum than you do, so thus the fact you think there are many people on here more knowledgeable than me is completely irrelevant. There are indeed a handful who are more knowledgeable than me on here, but not many, so try to learn about your subject before wasting everyone's time.

 

[Migara]

"Mahela Jayawardene is a typical subcontient bully, I'd rate him in the same class as Virender Sehwag as far as his success goes. Last time I checked, he averaged 38 outside the subcontient. I'd say his a 40-42."

Where as Pietersen who averages 38 in the subcontinent is a real 50+ player and is a great? Double standards?

 

[bagapath]

here is a split up based on player type

Batsmen: 45
Pacers: 21
Spinners:; 10
Captain + 6
All-rounders: 12
WK: 2
WK/AR: 4

Total: 100

I've assumed that gilchrist, andy flower, les ames and sagakkara are in the list for their keeping and batting skills while healy and knott are in as wicket keepers alone.

also, i have assumed imran, benaud, armstrong, peter may, clive lloyd and frank worrell's aura as players is substantianlly improved by their great captaincy records and thus warrant a separate category.

 

[Uppercut]

21 pacers seems pretty poor. Bowlers>Batsmen IMO.

 

[Manee]

There are indeed a handful who are more knowledgeable than me on here,

Thanks mate, that means a lot.

 

[bagapath]

There are indeed a handful who are more knowledgeable than me on here

Thanks mate, that means a lot.

Yeah. Thanks Richard. Wonder who the other three are.

 

[zaremba]

There are indeed a handful who are more knowledgeable than me on here,

Yeah. Thanks Richard. Wonder who the other three are.

The list has shortened by one now that sammy2 has been banned...

 

[bagapath]

21 pacers seems pretty poor. Bowlers>Batsmen IMO.

you should add seven more pacers from the all-rounders category

 

[zaremba]

you should add seven more pacers from the all-rounders category

And 1.5 from the captains (Imran / Worrell)

 

[bagapath]

Rank	Player			Country	Type
1	Don Bradman			Australia	Batsman
2	WG Grace			England	Batsman
3	Gary Sobers			West Indies	All-rounder
4	Shane Warne			Australia	Spinner
5	Jack Hobbs			England	Batsman
6	Viv Richards			West Indies	Batsman
7	SF Barnes			England	Pacer
8	Walter Hammond			England	Batsman
9	Sachin Tendulkar			India	Batsman
10	Adam Gilchrist			Australia	WK/All-rounder
11	Malcolm Marshall 			West Indies 	Pacer
12	Glenn McGrath 			Australia 	Pacer
13	Muttiah Muralitharan 			Sri Lanka 	Spinner
14	Imran Khan 			Pakistan 	All-rounder *
15	Wilfred Rhodes 			England 	All-rounder
16	Keith Miller 			Australia 	All-rounder
17	Len Hutton 			England 	Batsman
18	Ian Botham 			England 	All-rounder
19	Dennis Lillee 			Australia 	Pacer
20	George Headley 			West Indies 	Batsman
21	Denis Compton 			England 	Batsman
22	Fred Trueman 			England 	Pacer
23	Bill O'Reilly 			Australia 	Spinner
24	Brian Lara 			West Indies 	Batsman
25	Richard Hadlee 			New Zealand 	Pacer
26	Sunil Gavaskar 			India 	Batsman
27	F.R. Spofforth 			Australia 	Pacer
28	Barry Richards 			South Africa 	Batsman
29	Alec Bedser 			England 	Pacer
30	Victor Trumper 			Australia	Batsman
31	Ray Lindwall 			Australia 	Pacer
32	Everton Weekes 			West Indies 	Batsman
33	Jim Laker 			England 	Spinner
34	Wasim Akram 			Pakistan 	Pacer
35	K.S. Ranjitsinhji 			England 	Batsman
36	Waqar Younis 			Pakistan 	Pacer
37	Graeme Pollock 			South Africa 	Batsman
38	Greg Chappell 			Australia 	Batsman
39	Frank Worrell 			West Indies 	Batsman *
40	Frank Woolley 			England	All-rounder
41	Richie Benaud 			Australia 	Spinner *
42	Peter May 			England 	Batsman *
43	Herbert Sutcliffe 			England 	Batsman
44	Graham Gooch 			England 	Batsman
45	Clyde Walcott 			West Indies 	Batsman
46	Ken Barrington 			England; 	Batsman
47	Ricky Ponting 			Australia 	Batsman
48	Kapil Dev 			India 	All-rounder
49	Harold Larwood 			England 	Pacer
50	George Lohmann 			England	Pacer
51	Curtly Ambrose 			West Indies 	Pacer
52	Jacques Kallis 			South Africa 	All-rounder
53	Geoffrey Boycott 			England 	Batsman
54	Clarrie Grimmett 			Australia 	Spinner
55	Allan Border 			Australia 	Batsman
56	Learie Constantine 			West Indies 	All-rounder
57	Javed Miandad 			Pakistan 	Batsman
58	Kumar Sangakkara 			Sri Lanka 	WK/All-rounder
59	Hedley Verity 			England 	Spinner
60	Kevin Pietersen 			England	Batsman
61	Arthur Shrewsbury 			England 	Batsman
62	Bishan Bedi 			India 	Spinner
63	Steve Waugh 			Australia 	Batsman
64	Les Ames 			England 	WK/All-rounder
65	Stan McCabe 			Australia 	Batsman
66	John Snow 			England 	Pacer
67	Sanath Jayasuriya 			Sri Lanka 	Batsman
68	Warwick Armstrong 			Australia 	All-rounder *
69	Alan Knott 			England 	Keeper
70	David Gower 			England	Batsman
71	Jack Gregory 			Australia 	All-rounder
72	Clive Lloyd 			West Indies 	Batsman *
73	Martin Donnelly 			New Zealand 	Batsman
74	Rahul Dravid 			India 	Batsman
75	Ted Dexter 			England 	Batsman
76	Andy Flower 			Zimbabwe 	WK/All-rounder
77	Maurice Tate 			England 	Pacer
78	Colin Cowdrey 			England 	Batsman
79	Mahela Jayawardena 			Sri Lanka 	Batsman
80	C.B. Fry 			England	Batsman
81	Bill Ponsford 			Australia 	Batsman
82	Andrew Flintoff 			England 	All-rounder
83	Allan Donald 			South Africa 	Pacer
84	Gilbert Jessop 			England 	Batsman
85	Michael Holding 			West Indies 	Pacer
86	Zaheer Abbas 			Pakistan 	Batsman
87	Neil Harvey 			Australia 	Batsman
88	Abdul Qadir 			Pakistan 	Spinner
89	Brian Statham 			England 	Pacer
90	Lance Gibbs 			West Indies	Spinner
91	Ian Healy 			Australia 	Keeper
92	Courtney Walsh 			West Indies 	Pacer
93	Graeme Smith 			South Africa 	Batsman
94	Bhagwat Chandrasekhar 			India 	Spinner
95	C.T.B. Turner 			Australia 	Pacer
96	Vijay Merchant 			India 	Batsman
97	Shaun Pollock 			South Africa 	All-rounder
98	Gordon Greenidge 			West Indies 	Batsman
99	Vinoo Mankad 			India 	All-rounder
100	Charlie Macartney 			Australia 	Batsman

 

[bagapath]

And 1.5 from the captains (Imran / Worrell)

already added imran

 

[Redbacks]

I think sammy2's list contained 100 WI's

 

[wfdu_ben91]

"Mahela Jayawardene is a typical subcontient bully, I'd rate him in the same class as Virender Sehwag as far as his success goes. Last time I checked, he averaged 38 outside the subcontient. I'd say his a 40-42."

Where as Pietersen who averages 38 in the subcontinent is a real 50+ player and is a great? Double standards?

It's not at all double standards at all. Whether or not a non-subcontient player has success in the subcontient isn't as relevant as a subcontient player who dominates in the subcontient because it's more of a matter of them taking advantage of similar home conditions and having an extended home advantage, whereas other countries outside the subcontient don't have this same benefit. Needless to say that Sri Lanka is probably an exception but only for touring batsman because since 2000, statistics say that Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa have been most difficult for touring batsman.

 

[Richard]

Yeah. Thanks Richard. Wonder who the other three are.

Who said anything about a limit of five?

 

[The Sean]

Who said anything about a limit of five?

Playing on your "handful" comment I reckon mate.

 

[The Sean]

I think sammy2's list contained 100 WI's

Reckon his top 100 would have about 150 Windies TBH.

 

[Cruxdude]

Mahela Jayawardene is a typical subcontient bully, I'd rate him in the same class as Virender Sehwag as far as his success goes. Last time I checked, he averaged 38 outside the subcontient. I'd say his a 40-42.

Well you seem to rate Sehwag pretty low. He averages 53 in tests in Australia and England. His performance in New Zealand is not as good as it could be because of playing in some well watered gardens in 2002.