Forum Wide Tier List Project Interest Check

[mr_mister]

oh yeah forgot Harvey. Always forget someone

McCabe def worthy of the B+ tier as well


and after much internal debate, I reckon Sanga is pushing hard for an A rating. His record speaks for itself(especially without the gloves)

 

[Brian Lara]

oh yeah forgot Harvey. Always forget someone

McCabe def worthy of the B+ tier as well


and after much internal debate, I reckon Sanga is pushing hard for an A rating. His record speaks for itself(especially without the gloves)

Oh yeah, Stan McCabe is B+ easily!

As for Sangakkara, he's A- at least. People are quick to overlook him or exclude him from the greats for some reason. I'm unsure on A because it will be so exclusive, but we can cross that bridge when we come to him.

So mr_mister, what are your final thoughts on:
Ponting
G. Chappell
Border
S. Waugh
Trumper
Clarke
Harvey
Macartney
McCabe

??

I'm personally thinking A- for Ponting, Border, S. Waugh, Trumper and Harvey
B+ for McCabe and Macartney
Unsure on A or A- for Chappell

 

[mr_mister]

Trumper is so hard to rate due to his era. Some people consider him our best player after the Don and they mean it too. But yeah I'd personally have Ponting just above Chappell, I know Ponting had a crappy end to his career but **** he played some great innings. Was averaging 60+ after like 100 tests or some crazy stat

 

[viriya]

Sanga is A. What does he lack to be considered A- over those on A? Too many rate this batsman threads right now though.

 

[Brian Lara]

Trumper is so hard to rate due to his era. Some people consider him our best player after the Don and they mean it too. But yeah I'd personally have Ponting just above Chappell, I know Ponting had a crappy end to his career but **** he played some great innings. Was averaging 60+ after like 100 tests or some crazy stat

I mean, trumper I think is widely regarded as easily a top 10 opener of all time and by some a top 5 opener so it's plausible, although personally I can't put him above Chappell or ponting.
Maybe Chappell is best at A-, but if he's A-, he is the top of it
I will add those cricketers to the OT when I get home.

I will leave you with:
Hayden
Morris
Langer
Mark Waugh
Ponsford
Simpson
I. Chappell

 

[Brian Lara]

Sanga is A. What does he lack to be considered A- over those on A? Too many rate this batsman threads right now though.

Don't you own a website that rates players?

 

[Brian Lara]

Do you guys think maybe its easier if we just try to fill in the tiers one at a time? I feel this process would have more structure that way

We could start by filling A and continue down a tier at a time

 

[Red]

Bradman needs to be A++

Then I'd have:


Ponting: A
G. Chappell: A+
Border: A
S. Waugh: A-
Trumper: A+
Clarke: B+
Harvey: A-
Macartney: B+
McCabe: A-

 

[Brian Lara]

Bradman needs to be A++

Then I'd have:


Ponting: A
G. Chappell: A+
Border: A
S. Waugh: A-
Trumper: A+
Clarke: B+
Harvey: A-
Macartney: B+
McCabe: A-

If we make an A++ tier exclusive to Bradman (which I'm perfectly fine with), then I more or less agree with you list except I would potentially drop Trumper to A and McCabe to B+

 

[jimmy101]

WG Grace deserves an A+ too IMO

 

[Brian Lara]

WG Grace deserves an A+ too IMO

Interesting. I know that Grace was so far ahead of his contemporaries in every way imaginable, but I struggle to think that he would be as dominant as Bradman in later eras. I feel like he would be more in line with the batsmen in A or A-.

I'm interested in hearing the opinions of the rest of the forum.

 

[NUFAN]

Do you guys think maybe its easier if we just try to fill in the tiers one at a time? I feel this process would have more structure that way

We could start by filling A and continue down a tier at a time

Nice idea for a thread BCL.

I would personally find it more helpful if you gave ballpark ratings on a few players. For instance who is a C- in your eyes?

What would you rate (approx) Atherton or Ramprakash?

 

[mr_mister]

yeah I'll also chuck in Fleming, Astle and McMillan to that^

 

[Brian Lara]

Nice idea for a thread BCL.

I would personally find it more helpful if you gave ballpark ratings on a few players. For instance who is a C- in your eyes?

What would you rate (approx) Atherton or Ramprakash?

Now that is a good question. It depends on whether we want to just rate pure batsmen or whether F symbolizes a man who cannot really use the bat at all e.g. McGrath.

I was thinking of using a said system, where it is something like the following:

A tier - simply the greatest batsmen in the history of the game and unanimous all time greats (example: A+ Bradman, A Tendulkar, A- Ponting)
B tier - very good - world class international batsmen in their era (example: B+ Chanderpaul, B Langer, B- Jayasuriya)
C tier - average international top order bat, very strong middle order bats (example: C+ Imran Khan, C Botham, C- Kapil Dev)
D tier - still handy bats 20-30 average range (although I hate to use circket averages!) (example: D+ Hadlee, D Benaud, D- Akram)
E tier - tail ender (example: E+ Marshall, E Warne, E- Lillee)
F tier - the end of the tail (example: Waqar, McGrath, Barnes)

Of course, we don't have to go all the way down to F haha, just a rough guide in my eyes.

I would be thinking Atherton is around a B- I suppose, high B- though, could be a B.
Ramprakash is a lot harder to rate because he was an exceptional first class player but was awful at test level for various reasons. Maybe C? I'm not really too sure

 

[Brian Lara]

yeah I'll also chuck in Fleming, Astle and McMillan to that^

Stephen Fleming on the B/B- border for me, probably B. He was a fantastic batsman for New Zealand for a very long time to be honest.

Nathan Astle and McMillan are in the C range imo, but both probably high C's but I'd have to think a bit harder on it.

 

[NUFAN]

Now that is a good question. It depends on whether we want to just rate pure batsmen or whether F symbolizes a man who cannot really use the bat at all e.g. McGrath.

I was thinking of using a said system, where it is something like the following:

A tier - simply the greatest batsmen in the history of the game and unanimous all time greats (example: A+ Bradman, A Tendulkar, A- Ponting)
B tier - very good - world class international batsmen in their era (example: B+ Chanderpaul, B Langer, B- Jayasuriya)
C tier - average international top order bat, very strong middle order bats (example: C+ Imran Khan, C Botham, C- Kapil Dev)
D tier - still handy bats 20-30 average range (although I hate to use circket averages!) (example: D+ Hadlee, D Benaud, D- Akram)
E tier - tail ender (example: E+ Marshall, E Warne, E- Lillee)
F tier - the end of the tail (example: Waqar, McGrath, Barnes)

Of course, we don't have to go all the way down to F haha, just a rough guide in my eyes.

I would be thinking Atherton is around a B- I suppose, high B- though, could be a B.
Ramprakash is a lot harder to rate because he was an exceptional first class player but was awful at test level for various reasons. Maybe C? I'm not really too sure

Cheers for explaining your thinking. I know you've just provided examples as a guide but I feel like there needs to be another grading between Langer and Jayasuriya or Jayasuriya and Imran. Basically for me, I would try and distinguish the proper batsman's grades more and offer less spots for guys in that under 30 average range. With Richard Hadlee for instance, if you disregard his bowling and assume (probably very unfairly) that he'd bat the same if he didn't bowl, I think he is more of a D or D- career Test batsman.

You can continue with your way though, I might just be a bit harsher marker.

 

[Brian Lara]

Cheers for explaining your thinking. I know you've just provided examples as a guide but I feel like there needs to be another grading between Langer and Jayasuriya or Jayasuriya and Imran. Basically for me, I would try and distinguish the proper batsman's grades more and offer less spots for guys in that under 30 average range. With Richard Hadlee for instance, if you disregard his bowling and assume (probably very unfairly) that he'd bat the same if he didn't bowl, I think he is more of a D or D- career Test batsman.

You can continue with your way though, I might just be a bit harsher marker.

No, actually, I would prefer more grades at the top and really we don't need to gauge bowlers to be honest. I just felt maybe it would be harder to distinguish between the grades in the middle. We could just disregard the bowlers altogether really and create more distinctions between the grades.

I feel like we should get started from the top down because I think it would be easier that way.

Does anyone have any objection to just Bradman in A+? I know jimmy mentioned on the previous page that he would like to see Grace at A+ as well? Thoughts on that?
For my money, he was so far above his contemporaries that its difficult to ignore, but I feel the game was in such a state of relative infancy, I'm not sure I could imagine him dominate any era like I imagine Bradman would with the bat.

 

[NUFAN]

If we are judging purely on Test matches, there is no way Grace is an A+.

 

[Brian Lara]

If we are judging purely on Test matches, there is no way Grace is an A+.

I think we should judge it on test performance to be honest. Keep it simple.

So for now we'll leave Bradman at A+ alone.

I'll throw out some names I think belong certainly in A:
Sir Jack Hobbs
Sir Leonard Hutton
Sunil Gavaskar

Sachin Tendulkar
Sir Vivian Richards
Sir Garfield Sobers
Brian Lara
George Headley
Wally Hammond
Graeme Pollock
Kumar Sangakkara

And I have Greg Chappell, WG Grace and Barry Richards as a question mark for A too.

Edit: We could judge batsmen on the longer formats of the game? So include first class? Up to you guys really.
I would prefer to keep it just limited to test cricket personally.

Also, tempted to make Bradman an exclusive A* standalone and have A+ contain Richards, Sobers, Hobbs, Tendulkar. Thoughts?

 

[mr_mister]

if we include first class that also includes tests and puts huge question marks of Hick, Ramprakash and Bevan who have ridic awesome FC records but crappy Test records