smash84
The Tiger King
Number 12 WG Grace
Highest Ranking 1
Total Points 633
Number of Votes Received 31/57
Rank in 1st Edition 3
It is more than 150 years since WG Grace was born, but there are other ways of measuring how distant he is in time. For one thing, no one still alive, not even Jim Swanton, can remember seeing him play (although in Sort Of A Cricket Person, EWS notes that "I am supposed to have watched [him] from my perambulator on the Forest Hill ground round 1910"). Eight decades have passed since Grace died, yet he dogs us still, demanding our attention at regular intervals. The statistics of his career are alone enough to explain why - more than 54,000 first-class runs (there are at least two different versions of the precise figure, so let's leave it at that) spread across 44 seasons, including 839 in just eight days of 1876, when he hit a couple of triple-centuries, and only one other batsman managed to top a thousand runs in the entire season; a thousand in May in 1895, when he was nearly 47; and 2800-odd wickets costing less than 18 runs apiece. I suppose we might wonder why his bowling average wasn't even more impressive, given the ropey pitches on which Dr Grace played. No modern cricketer would deign to turn out on them, which makes his batting all the more wondrous.
Number 11 Glenn McGrath
Highest Ranking 3
Total Points 637
Number of Votes Received 43/57
Rank in 1st Edition 13
The young Glenn McGrath was described by Mike Whitney as "thin - but Ambrose-thin, not Bruce Reid-thin". Much later, Mike Atherton compared McGrath to Ambrose on a vaster scale. Catapulted from the outback of New South Wales into Test cricket to replace Merv Hughes in 1993, McGrath became the greatest Australian fast bowler of his time. He went on to beat Courtney Walsh's 519 wickets in the 2005 Super Test to become the leading wicket-taker among fast bowlers and his claim to the title of Australia's greatest fast man is contested only by Dennis Lillee. His obituary was prepared a few times - he was doubted after coming back in 2004 from ankle surgery and there were similar fears following a long lay-off to care for his wife two years later - but he wrote his own farewells. He retired from Tests at the SCG - his home ground - after Australia whitewashed England 5-0 in the 2006-07 Ashes.
Highest Ranking 1
Total Points 633
Number of Votes Received 31/57
Rank in 1st Edition 3
It is more than 150 years since WG Grace was born, but there are other ways of measuring how distant he is in time. For one thing, no one still alive, not even Jim Swanton, can remember seeing him play (although in Sort Of A Cricket Person, EWS notes that "I am supposed to have watched [him] from my perambulator on the Forest Hill ground round 1910"). Eight decades have passed since Grace died, yet he dogs us still, demanding our attention at regular intervals. The statistics of his career are alone enough to explain why - more than 54,000 first-class runs (there are at least two different versions of the precise figure, so let's leave it at that) spread across 44 seasons, including 839 in just eight days of 1876, when he hit a couple of triple-centuries, and only one other batsman managed to top a thousand runs in the entire season; a thousand in May in 1895, when he was nearly 47; and 2800-odd wickets costing less than 18 runs apiece. I suppose we might wonder why his bowling average wasn't even more impressive, given the ropey pitches on which Dr Grace played. No modern cricketer would deign to turn out on them, which makes his batting all the more wondrous.
Number 11 Glenn McGrath
Highest Ranking 3
Total Points 637
Number of Votes Received 43/57
Rank in 1st Edition 13
The young Glenn McGrath was described by Mike Whitney as "thin - but Ambrose-thin, not Bruce Reid-thin". Much later, Mike Atherton compared McGrath to Ambrose on a vaster scale. Catapulted from the outback of New South Wales into Test cricket to replace Merv Hughes in 1993, McGrath became the greatest Australian fast bowler of his time. He went on to beat Courtney Walsh's 519 wickets in the 2005 Super Test to become the leading wicket-taker among fast bowlers and his claim to the title of Australia's greatest fast man is contested only by Dennis Lillee. His obituary was prepared a few times - he was doubted after coming back in 2004 from ankle surgery and there were similar fears following a long lay-off to care for his wife two years later - but he wrote his own farewells. He retired from Tests at the SCG - his home ground - after Australia whitewashed England 5-0 in the 2006-07 Ashes.
