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CMJ's top 100

bagapath

International Captain
no kumble in top 100? that is strange.

alan davidson may not find a place too.

the top 10, i guess, could be

bradman
sobers
grace
hobbs
richards
warne
tendulkar
hammond
barnes
gilchrist
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
This guy has no clue what his talking about. No Matthew Hayden but yet Sangakkara, Pietersen, Jayasuriya, Jayawardene and Smith all made the list.

Jayasuriya rated ahead of Dravid, Flower, Donald, Holding, Walsh, Greenidge, etc. :sleep:
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
This guy has no clue what his talking about. No Matthew Hayden but yet Sangakkara, Pietersen, Jayasuriya, Jayawardene and Smith all made the list.

Jayasuriya rated ahead of Dravid, Flower, Donald, Holding, Walsh, Greenidge, etc. :sleep:
I would say the same thing if Hayden listed in top 10 ahead of Murali, Marshall and Imran
 

NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
Love reading lists and it's an impossible task really as he mentioned in the article.

A little surprised that he'd have KP already ahead of Steve Waugh, but ah well.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Listing Pietersen, Jayawardene, Smith and probably even Jayasuriya ahead of him is a confusing move, though.
Yeah Jayasuriya is surprising; there's a case for saying that the others you've mentioned deserve to be above Hayden though. I haven't read his reasoning yet but I'm looking forward to doing so. I imagine his rating of Jayasuriya is heavily influenced by the impact SJ has made in ODI cricket.
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
Yeah Jayasuriya is surprising; there's a case for saying that the others you've mentioned deserve to be above Hayden though. I haven't read his reasoning yet but I'm looking forward to doing so. I imagine his rating of Jayasuriya is heavily influenced by the impact SJ has made in ODI cricket.
There is no way that Sangakkara, Smith or Jayawardene are better then Hayden. Pietersen in the future, maybe, but Hayden's in the top 5 openers of alltime.

Anyways I put together a list of my own...

001. Sir Donald Bradman
002. Sir Garfield Sobers
003. Sir Jack Hobbs
004. Shane Warne
005. Sachin Tendulkar
006. Sir Vivian Richards
007. Imran Khan
008. Ricky Ponting
009. Walter Hammond
010. Glenn McGrath
011. Malcom Marshall
012. Wasim Akram
013. Graeme Pollock
014. Curtly Ambrose
015. Muttiah Muralitharan
016. Keith Miller
017. Brian Lara
018. Greg Chappell
019. Sunil Gavaskar
020. Sir Leonard Hutton
021. Sir Richard Hadlee
022. Dennis Lillee
023. Fred Trueman
024. Michael Holding
025. Joel Garner
026. Ian Botham
027. Dennis Compton
028. Matthew Hayden
029. Steve Waugh
030. Allan Border
031. Jacques Kallis
032. Javed Miandad
033. Rahul Dravid
034. Hebert Sutcliffe
035. Neil Harvey
036. Allan Donald
037. Kevin Pietersen
038. Adam Gilchrist
039. Frank Worrell
040. Jim Laker
041. Waqar Younis
042. Allan Davidson
043. Andy Flower
044. Courtney Walsh
045. Shaun Pollock
046. Anil Kumble
047. Clyde Walcott
048. Bill Ponsford
049. Jeff Thomson
050. Ken Barrington
051. Barry Richards
052. Ray Lindwall
053. Kumar Sangakkara
054. Victor Trumper
055. Bill O'Reilly
056. Everton Weekes
057. Bon Willis
058. Richie Benaud
059. Kapil Dev
060. Peter May
061. Arthur Morris
062. Gordon Greenidge
063. Graeme Smith
064. Headley Verity
065. Geoffrey Boycott
066. Abdul Qadir
067. Lance Gibbs
068. Sydney Barnes
064. Wilfred Rhodes
065. Allan Knott
066. Clarrie Grimmett
067. Alec Bedser
068. Graham Gooch
069. Bill Johnston
070. Peter Pollock
071. Derek Underwood
072. Bishan Bedi
073. John Snow
074. Les Ames
075. Stan McCabe
076. Clive Lloyd
077. Andrew Flintoff
078. David Gower
079. Wes Hell
080. Andy Roberts
081. Mohammad Yousuf
082. Colin Cowdrey
083. Inzamam-ul-Haq
084. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
085. Bruce Mitchell
086. Doug Walters
087. Ted Dexter
088. Harold Larwood
089. George Lohmann
090. FR Spofforth
091. Vijay Merchant
092. Shoaib Akhtar
093. Brian Statham
094. Gary Kirsten
095. Dudley Nourse
096. Bill Lawry
097. Zaheer Abbas
098. Bob Simpson
099. Clem Hill
100. Sir Conrad Hunte
 

Beleg

International Regular
no inzi?

I can understand not picking him in the top fifty, but top hundred?

taking the piss.
 

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah Jayasuriya is surprising; there's a case for saying that the others you've mentioned deserve to be above Hayden though. I haven't read his reasoning yet but I'm looking forward to doing so. I imagine his rating of Jayasuriya is heavily influenced by the impact SJ has made in ODI cricket.
I don't think Pietersen has any case to be considered above Hayden. For now, at least.
 

King Pietersen

International Captain
Ben, Hayden ahead of Sutcliffe, Ponsford, Dravid, Kallis, Richards, Barrington, Trumper, Weekes, Walcott, Waqar, Sydney Barnes, Courtney Walsh, Roberts and Benaud? Can't say I agree with that. Hayden should probably be in the top 100, but certainly not in the top 30 for me. I don't think Ricky Ponting is the 8th greatest player to have ever played the game either. Probably in the Top 30odd, but not the Top 10.
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
Ben, Hayden ahead of Sutcliffe, Ponsford, Dravid, Kallis, Richards, Barrington, Trumper, Weekes, Walcott, Waqar, Sydney Barnes, Courtney Walsh, Roberts and Benaud? Can't say I agree with that. Hayden should probably be in the top 100, but certainly not in the top 30 for me. I don't think Ricky Ponting is the 8th greatest player to have ever played the game either. Probably in the Top 30odd, but not the Top 10.
Hayden's better then all of those players that you mentioned. You even said that you rated Hayden an alltime great but yet you don't consider Dravid to be one, now you're saying Dravid over Hayden? Crazy man.

No shame in putting Ponting in the top 10. Statistically, probably the 2nd best batsman ever (not saying he is), and his such a great batsman to watch. Makes runs in the tougher conditions, when the team is in trouble aswell. Playing 130 odd Tests and his lowest average against an opposition country is 47.

Performance wise, he arguably stakes greater claims then Warne or Sobers, who moreso get in people's good books because of reputation and their ability to produce something amazing. What people ignore is that Sobers was moreso a lower-order batsman, who cashed in heavily against India on flat Indian tracks when India was very, very feeble and that although he could bowl pace & spin; he wasn't a talisman with the ball, striking at every 92 balls per wicket, so he was never going to run through an opposition.

Warne also got destroyed by every International batsman who was good enough to make hay against spin bowling. The best two batsman he bowled to in International cricket both murdered him - Tendulkar & Lara. However, Warne was unique and successful, so of course he should be in the top 10 cricketers of alltime, despite the fact that he failed miserably against the best opposition that he faced. Not to say Murali is better because he suffered similar treatment.
 

King Pietersen

International Captain
The only reason I said Hayden was an all-time great over Dravid on MSN to you is because I honestly didn't want to get into a discussion about Hayden with you, as they're incredibly tedious. I don't rate Hayden anywhere near as highly as you do, and having read up more on Dravid, watched a few video clips I now hold him in far higher regard. He still wouldn't be in my top 20 or probably 30, but I'd have him ahead of Hayden.

As for the claims that Sobers was a lower order batsman that cashed in on flat tracks, it's a pretty laughable opinion tbh. I don't even think it's worth attempting to prove you wrong with stats, as frankly it's so incorrect. A Hayden fan slagging off Sobers for cashing in on Flat tracks is pure hilarity. Sobers was a far better batsman than Hayden could ever hope to be. Sobers was also very good in the field, and was an expert in the close in positions, most notably at slip and leg-slip, and although his bowling was never Marshall-esque, he offered a useful option with his medium-fast seam bowling, and then a very useful left-arm spin option. He is the definition of all-rounder, and the most naturally talented cricketer the game has seen, miles ahead of Ponting.

I notice there's no WG Grace in your list as well?
 
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Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Love reading lists and it's an impossible task really as he mentioned in the article.
Just always makes me ask why people bother. I can't see any use whatsoever in such exact things.

I like general lists - like categorising the seam bowlers into various categories with no exact rankings - but this one-to-hundred sort of thing is, IMO, completely and totally pointless.
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
The only reason I said Hayden was an all-time great over Dravid on MSN to you is because I honestly didn't want to get into a discussion about Hayden with you, as they're incredibly tedious. I don't rate Hayden anywhere near as highly as you do.

As for the claims that Sobers was a lower order batsman that cashed in on flat tracks, it's a pretty laughable opinion tbh. I don't even think it's worth attempting to prove you wrong with stats, as frankly it's so incorrect. A Hayden fan slagging off Sobers for cashing in on Flat tracks is pure hilarity. Sobers was a far better batsman than Hayden could ever hope to be. Sobers was also very good in the field, and was an expert in the close in positions, most notably at slip and leg-slip, and although his bowling was never Marshall-esque, he offered a useful option with his medium-fast seam bowling, and then a very useful left-arm spin option. He is the definition of all-rounder, and the most naturally talented cricketer the game has seen, miles ahead of Ponting.
Sobers is hardly a far better batsman than Hayden could ever hope to be. Sobers batted the majority of his career at 5 & 6 and occassionally batted at 3 & 4, compared to Hayden who opened the batting in every single innings he played. Mind you, without days off, so after spending days in the field, Hayden would immediately have to go in and bat, without no break.

In the aspect of a true allrounder, Keith Miller & Imran Khan both better Garry Sobers. Hell, you could argue that Jacques Kallis is better because he bats top-order not lower-middle-order and doesn't have the luxery of days-off during Tests like Sobers. Especially considering that Kallis bats in the most difficult conditions in world cricket over his generation whilst Tony Kozier once referred to West Indies pitches during the 1960s as featherbeds.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'm not remotely interested in the Sobers-vs crap again, but do you really believe off-days in Tests were advantageous to players? The game lasts five days if you wait a week between them.
 

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