Greatest LIVING Cricketers

[SJS]

Knott over Gilly? I agree that Hadlee warrants a place, IMO above Warne, possibly Murali too. Difficult to leave Graeme Pollock out of that list too. Mike Procter as well. Mcgrath's got to get a look in. So does Holding. Wasim Akram? This is too hard!

This batting side is good enough for me. For keeping alone i can think of half a dozen keepers better than Gilchrist - actually more.

Pollock is another tough one. If he was an opener, I would have taken him. Here he has to fight for a spot with Lara and again its a toss up.

Proctor has no place in the side as an all rounder.

Holding and Akram are great bowlers as are Garner and Ambrose and Waqar and Hadlee, How many can one fit in a playing squad

 

[Maximus0723]

Sir Sachin Tendulkar

 

[Zinzan]

1. Gavaskar Sunil
2. Richards Barry
3. Richards Vivian
4. Tendulkar Sachin
5. Lara Brian
6. Sobers Garry
7. Imran Khan
8. Alan Knott
9. Shane Warne
10. Dennis Lillee
11. Andy Roberts
12. Muralitharan

Here is a twelve member squad of the greatest living cricketers.

Its difficult to rank them except that Sobers is undoubtedly on top.

Of course, because Andy Roberts was a better cricketer than Richard Hadlee

 

[Jono]

Haha, NZers are touchy with Hadlee like Indians are touchy with Sachin. Its funny to see.

 

[SJS]

Of course, because Andy Roberts was a better cricketer than Richard Hadlee

He was the better bowler in my opinion and thats all it is - an opinion. If you feel better if we all put here what's your opinion here . . . fill in the blanks. . . . .

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[Xuhaib]

Its interesting to see how high Roberts is rated by those who have seen him.

 

[Noble One]

Its interesting to see how high Roberts is rated by those who have seen him.

You see many 70's era cricketers rating Roberts as one of the greatest bowlers of all time. He definetly put enough into hospital care.

Was another West Indian who just had the complete package. Physical atributes like his height and athleticism. That bowling action of his, allowing Roberts to get a variety of angles on the ball at release. Combined with his pace, one of the quickest of all time. He must have been a such a tricky cricketer to face.

 

[Burgey]

He had the Sonny Liston stare going too. Seriously intimidating character.

SJS, I'm interested in your thoughts on B Richards. You obviously rate him enormously (with good reason). I can only recall his WSC career, in which he was fantastic. Did you have any reservations re. naming him given he only played 4 tests?

I also recall the wonderful commentary from Tony COzier when Viv and Barry Richards were going off in a partnership in WSC: "For our viewers at home with black and white TVs, Barry Richards is the one in the helmet".....

 

[Matt79]

Sobers at #1 is an easy call.
Imran
Warne
Tendulkar
Gilchrist

I guess would round out my top 5. With apologies to many, including Richards, Lara, Ambrose, McGrath, Wasim, Hadlee, Kallis, Botham, Waugh, Border, etc

 

[Matt79]

Always think the commonly seen ranking of Roberts as clearly behind Holding and Garner is a bit dubious.

 

[Manee]

Why is that? It is taken off a significant difference in bowling average. Such a simplistic analysis can be wrong, but why is it so, here?

 

[SJS]

He had the Sonny Liston stare going too. Seriously intimidating character.

SJS, I'm interested in your thoughts on B Richards. You obviously rate him enormously (with good reason). I can only recall his WSC career, in which he was fantastic. Did you have any reservations re. naming him given he only played 4 tests?

I also recall the wonderful commentary from Tony COzier when Viv and Barry Richards were going off in a partnership in WSC: "For our viewers at home with black and white TVs, Barry Richards is the one in the helmet".....

Of course his Test career is too short to base any assessment of him purely on that. Plus one has never really seen him play live. But the opinion is so unanimous on his exceptional class of everyone who saw him play that one has to just accept it as a given.

He did play against the best players in the world in both English and Australian domestic cricket where he played against visiting international sides too. I have yet to find an assessment of his caliber which has used anything but the most fantastic adjectives to describe him and this has included cricketing greats who played before the WW II like Bradman right upto those who played cricket right into the eighties.

If cricketing giants and writers of over fifty years consider him one of the truly great batsmen (inspite of having played just four Test matches) we have to accept the same

 

[Langeveldt]

Kallis
Sobers
Lara
Warne
Khan
Richards
McGrath
Donald
Pollock
Akram
Gilchrist

Wow, the late nineties were incredible times, looking back on them..

 

[SJS]

Of course his Test career is too short to base any assessment of him purely on that. Plus one has never really seen him play live. But the opinion is so unanimous on his exceptional class of everyone who saw him play that one has to just accept it as a given.

He did play against the best players in the world in both English and Australian domestic cricket where he played against visiting international sides too. I have yet to find an assessment of his caliber which has used anything but the most fantastic adjectives to describe him and this has included cricketing greats who played before the WW II like Bradman right upto those who played cricket right into the eighties.

If cricketing giants and writers of over fifty years consider him one of the truly great batsmen (inspite of having played just four Test matches) we have to accept the same

Its like what people say of Archie Jackson. Without a single exception, not one, everyone who saw him play and wrote about him, said he was the finest batsman of his generation and remember his generation included Bradman. The fact that death disease and death took him away at such a tragic young age does not stop people from comparing him with Bradman and saying they found him better every-time they saw them playing together. The argument doesn't have to be whether he was better than the Don but that inspite of such a brief career, it was clear that he was an awesome talent and a truly great batsman whose loss through different causes than those that deprived us of Barry Richrds were as tragic.

Similarly, no one has talked of Barry Richards being a lesser batsman than Graeme Pollock whose considerable Test accomplishments are from a longer career although not as long as normal. Bedser, below, clearly considers Barry Richards the better batsman which is a massive compliment in itself. Here is some of what has beer written about him by those from more than a generation before him.

John Arlott (writing in 1977) :

Barry Richards is a great batsman. To say he is a great batsman is not simply a technical assessment but a universally valid fact. Anyone who has watched him make a big score has felt a whole groundful of people, many of them completely unconcerned with technique, respond from the heart, to the splendour of his batting. On the other side of the coin, when he is out cheaply, the delight of the opposing side is matched only by the disappointment of the spectators.

Once in two or three generations comes a virtuoso batsman who beguiles even his opponents: such is Barry Richards. When he plays a major innings it appeals both to the savage and to the artist in us. He butchers bowling, hitting with a savage power the more impressive for being veiled by the certainty of his timing. Yet simultaneously he appeals to the aesthetic sense because of the innate elegance of his movement, the sensitivity with which he harnesses the ball's course, such a princely ease of style as makes the batting of some Test players seem workaday stuff.​

Alec Bedser writing in 1981

Sadly for Barry Richards, and for cricket at large, the prime of his career coincided with South Africa's banishment from the international scene. Probably the best batsman to come from South Africa - where standards where standards have invariably been very high..... He was an Olivier denied the use of a central stage.

Out of the limelight of Test cricket his genius could not be proved over a period of time, but it is blindingly obvious that he should not have been denied the full honours of becoming the foremost batsman of this or any age. There can be little doubt that had he played at Test level regularly his achievements would have matched everything he accomplished in the best grades in three different countries. To suggest otherwise would be foolish. . .

Some declared that Richards was in such a class apart that he lacked the incentive of challenge with the passing of time. Perhaps he was human enough to despair his situations - cruelly denied. . .His driving was frequently compared with Wally Hammond and Sir Len Hutton and he had every known stroke.

A sure sign of his greatness was that when he was well set he could offer more than one stroke to any delivery. He was good on the eye as he stood up and made full use of his height as he made his shots. He also stood perfectly still and calmly till he decided what stroke to employ - and he had them all, from the delicate glance to the explosive drive. Equally good on either front or back foot he showed the full face of the blade, always came down straight from his back lift and did not hit across the line of the ball. In short a textbook correctness of technique merged with singular power and judgement. It almost seems superfluous to add that his timing was perfect, so perfect in fact that the ball left the bat like a rocket without seeming effort.​

 

[SJS]

Its interesting to see how high Roberts is rated by those who have seen him.

You see many 70's era cricketers rating Roberts as one of the greatest bowlers of all time. He definetly put enough into hospital care.

Was another West Indian who just had the complete package. Physical atributes like his height and athleticism. That bowling action of his, allowing Roberts to get a variety of angles on the ball at release. Combined with his pace, one of the quickest of all time. He must have been a such a tricky cricketer to face.

I was reading Mike Proctors autobiography today (written in 1981) and find that he names three fast bowlers as the best he ever saw and gives different reasons for why he likes each of them. Here is what he writes.

The best bowlers I have ever faced ? Difficult to answer that easily.

Michael Holding has been the fastest, Andy Roberts the most dangerous because he varies his pace so well and manages to bowl two types of bouncers : a slower one that deceives you into playing too soon and the other a fast straight ball straight at the throat that really whistles through. Dennis Lillee has been a great resourceful fast bowler; he never seemed to waste a single ball at his peak. And what a great Test match performer.

You will find that most people who saw the great fast bowlers of the 70's onwards will rate these three bowlers very close to the top.

 

[Uppercut]

Why is that? It is taken off a significant difference in bowling average. Such a simplistic analysis can be wrong, but why is it so, here?

This is what i've always wondered. I'd have guessed it might have something to do with Roberts's personality- he famously often lost his head. As in this fantastic piece of folklore from Martin Crowe:

He bowled me two bouncers in a row at one point, so I charged him and hit him back over his head for a six. That was it. It was game on. I remember Peter Willey at gully going "Oh dear ... that was very silly of you." Roberts warned me about what was coming. "You've got to watch now, be careful." And he hurled two beamers at my head! I could see the whites of his eyes and I remembered what I had read about his anger. He taught me a big lesson about facing West Indies. I never faced anyone so intimidating.

Roberts took 7 for 47 in that innings. But Martin Crowe was not-out on 70, and Roberts went wicketless in the second innings as Crowe and Peter Roebuck put on 300 for the third wicket to win the match. It begs the question as to whether Roberts's ultra-intimidatory tactics were the best way to win his side cricket matches.

 

[bagapath]

like alec bedser, arthur morris deserves a mention too and so does neil harvey. those of us living outside australia dont have to listen harvey's comments. so he is still a legend for us. and pl dont forget ian botham.

 

[Migara]

Sachin Tendulklar
Gary Sobers
Brian Lara
Adam Gilchrist
Imran Khan
Viv Richards
Glenn McGrath
Richard Hadlee
Shane Warne
Curtly Ambrose
Muralidaran

 

[Migara]

Kallis
Sobers
Lara
Warne
Khan
Richards
McGrath
Donald
Pollock
Akram
Gilchrist

Wow, the late nineties were incredible times, looking back on them..

Tendulkar > Kallis or any batsman in that list. Murali > any bowler in that list (when Test and ODI combined). Hadlee > Donald / Pollock. Ambrose > Donald / Pollock

 

[andyc]

Tendulkar > Kallis or any batsman in that list. Murali > any bowler in that list (when Test and ODI combined). Hadlee > Donald / Pollock. Ambrose > Donald / Pollock

Tendulkar > Sobers? Very contentious.