I'm a sucker for those "best of" lists. Top 100 films, top 50 music videos, 100 best actors, 50 funniest ads. Classic Sunday night viewing. Channel 4 even breaks the film category into genres: top 50 comedies was a personal favourite.

So it was with great delight that I, along with thousands of other cricket fans, devoured Shane Warne's fifty greatest cricketers. This select band picked from the great bowler's own era comprised 53 players (Australians can't count you know) ranging from the great to - in the case of Jamie Siddons at number 50 - the almost unknown.

The list has provoked huge reaction in homes, bars and on street corners around the cricket-loving world. But who are we to argue about an arbitrary list from the greatest player of his generation? Most of us don't have a lone Test wicket let alone 700. We can't bowl like Warne; we haven't experienced the dizzy heights of World Cup success; we haven't shared a dressing room with Steve Waugh (actually I have, more of which later) nor sampled the atmosphere of full houses at the MCG or Eden Gardens; most significantly we haven't stood 22 yards away from some of these players on his list either.

But we have followed the game; we understand it. There are statistics in cricket quite unlike other sports, which Warne seems to have disregarded. Whatever a great like Warne thinks, thousands of cricket fans around the world know better. We have our heroes and we believe that one player is superior to another.

After matches against Hampshire I've shared the occasional beer with Warne. He knows the game like few others. As a captain he's tactically astute, positive in everything he does and he can assess a player's strengths and weaknesses very quickly. His self-belief is uniquely high, which means he doesn't suffer fools and generally that he knows best. He also thrives on confrontation. When he's bowling he wants to engage with the batsman. There's plenty of eye contact and often a few verbals, some goading, some unrepeatable but he's looking for a reaction. It's the same with his list. He won't care that people don't agree with the order of the names on it or that he might have missed someone out. He will be pleased that it's provoked such ferocious debate.

Personally, I think he's miles wide of the mark with Steve Waugh at number 26. To say he's a match-saver rather than a match-winner is ludicrous. The guy was all about winning. As captain he swept all before him and pushed back the boundaries of what was possible for a team, winning 15 consecutive Tests and the World Cup of 1999. Warne might have been responsible for turning the semi-final against South Africa on its head but the Aussies would have been out had they lost the previous match against the same opponents. Waugh's improbable hundred to win the match was as good a knock as you could wish to see in the toughest of circumstances. The only thing he saved was Australia's bacon.

Other famous match-winning knocks include his two hundreds on a green-top at Old Trafford 1997 and his 200 in Jamaica 1994-95, which led to an historic series win.

I doubt Warne would have reached 700 Test wickets without Waugh's runs, which so often gave the master spinner a platform to work from, and without Waugh's attacking ethos as captain, which saw his side score at four runs per over giving Warne the time to work his magic. Yes Waugh inherited a fine side from Mark Taylor but Ricky Ponting inherited a great one from Waugh. Oh yes, he also scored the small matter of 10,927 runs at an average of 51.06 with 32 hundreds (many of them match-winning). The case for the defence of Steve Waugh rests. Put that one in your pipe and smoke it, blondie.