1 Don Bradman
From the late 1920s until his retirement in 1949, the greatest of all
specialist batsmen had a wider role as a hero of popular culture and the
unwitting symbol and unifier of the Australian nation. Bradman's unequalled
batting achievements, and the fact that he was playing at a time when his
country was asserting its right to complete independence, made him the most
famous cricketer since W.G. Grace. Like the champion himself his steely
determination, hunger for success and genius for sport put him in a
different class from any contemporary. By a whisker, if that is the
appropriate phrase, he may be deemed the greatest of all cricketers, because
his superiority over all contemporaries was even greater.
He was brought up in the country town of Bowral in New South Wales, where he
taught himself to bat by hitting a golf ball rebounding from the brick stand
of a water tank in his parents' back yard.
When he came to England as a 21-year-old in 1930, he had already scored the
highest Australian first-class score of 452 not out for New South Wales
against Queensland. He scored a century in the first Test, a double-century
in the second, 334 in the third at Leeds (the world-record Test score at the
time) and another double-century in the fifth at the Oval.
At Headingley he had scored a hundred before lunch, another in the middle
session and a third between tea and the close.
Against the South Africa touring team in 1931-32, he was still more merciless,
scoring 1,190 runs against them in eight innings, three for New South Wales,
at an average of 170. In five Test innings his average was 201.5. Such
brilliance and remorselessness spawned Douglas Jardine's ruthless strategy
in England's return series in Australia.
Bradman was merely scathed by bodyline bowling but his batting average of
56.57 in 1932-33, 14 runs higher than anyone else's, represented failure,
embarrassment and defeat for him. Had he not been so cut down to size in
that series, his final Test average would have been more than 100. Famously,
it was 99.94, and in first-class cricket he scored 117 centuries, on average
a hundred every third time that he batted.
He continued to dominate through the 1930s, to some extent a man apart in the
dressing room because of his single-mindedness and his controversial move to
Adelaide to accept a lucrative job as a stockbroker in 1934. At the end of
his tour to England that year, he had an emergency operation to remove an
acutely inflamed appendix and only narrowly avoided the peritonitis that
might have been fatal.
This was a front-page drama, with his young wife, Jessie, summoned to travel
by sea from Australia. He had a long convalescence but in 1936-37,
inevitably, became Australia's captain.
When G.O. Allen's England side arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia, they
were greeted with the news that the new leader's past seven first-class
innings had been 233, 357, 31, 0, 1, 369 and 212. Australia came back from
defeat in the first two Tests to win the series 3-2. Bradman had innings of
270, 212 and 169 in the three games that transformed the series.
Used as a PT instructor early in the war, he was invalided out of the Army in
1941, but returned to cricket afterwards almost by popular demand. He
captained his unbeaten team to England in 1948 with pragmatism and made a
great diplomatic success of his final visit.
Such were his reactions, fitness, keenness, intelligence and deep
determination that he would have been a champion in any era since, not least
the present one. It is true that the need to change tempo for 50 and now for
20-over cricket against defensive fields and often on slower pitches would
have tested even so fast a scorer as the Don, but in his prime he would have
relished and risen above the challenge.
His speed of foot and eye, not to mention modern bats, would have enabled him
to compensate for a slight physique compared with some of the muscular
players of today. His preference for keeping the ball along the ground would
either have been tempered by a calculated decision to hit some balls for six
- no batsman ever played the percentages so shrewdly as Bradman - or by his
skill in finding gaps in the field with full-blooded strokes played late.
Short-pitched bowling would have been no handicap given the extra protection
of a helmet. His powers of concentration - he scored 37 double and 12 triple
centuries - would have ensured the same prolific achievements in first-class
cricket now as then, especially given covered pitches. That he could not bat
on wet or sticky pitches was a myth based largely on a couple of failures
against Hedley Verity on the drying pitch at Lord's in 1934.
There was another paradox: he was a hero with the masses but not a popular man
with most of his team-mates and opponents. He was too private and
single-minded for that. Bill O'Reilly, his rival from boyhood, said: “He
felt it his bounden duty to reduce every bowler to incompetency.”
2 W.G. Grace
Grace was no saint, sometimes pushing gamesmanship to the limit, but for the
last 30 years of the 19th century he had been the country's greatest batsman
and most famous sportsman. He made plenty of money from cricket but these
days the agents and image-makers would have multiplied his wealth many
times.
3 Garry Sobers
No cricketer has so often and so easily reached sublime heights as batsman,
bowler and fielder as Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, a lithe Barbadian of sunny
temperament who found cricket as easy as walking. There was about him that
air of supreme natural talent that has only been equalled in any sport since
by Tiger Woods.
4 Shane Warne
Comfortably the most influential Australian cricketer since Don Bradman, he
experienced notoriety as well as adulation and fame. The more his fame and
success grew, the more he tended to push gamesmanship to the limit in
talking to umpires and opposing batsmen. He had such charm that he generally
got away with it.
5 Jack Hobbs
No bad word was ever published or, apparently, spoken about a batsman who
wearied bowlers for 30 years by the unrivalled mastery of his batting. It
marks Sir John Berry Hobbs as little less than a saint, as well as a popular
hero. He was the model of cricket's art and spirit.
6 Viv Richards
A proud and passionate man with the physique of a heavyweight boxer, he would
saunter to the wicket like a gladiator entering the arena without a thought
of failure. The faster his opponents bowled at him, the more fiercely he
hooked and drove them.
7 S.F. Barnes
A giant in every sense, Sydney Barnes, of Staffordshire, was to all batsmen
like a judge to a convicted felon or a dentist looming over a patient who
knows he has neglected his teeth for too long. He extracted 189 batsmen in
27 Tests and his contemporaries knew him simply as the greatest bowler of
all.
8 Walter Hammond
Hammond in command at the crease was one of the most majestic sights in
cricket: a galleon in full sail. Withal he was England's surest slip fielder
and capable of devastating spells as a fast-medium bowler.
9 Sachin Tendulkar
Compact power, perfect timing, the ability to hit good balls for four,
humility, discipline and extraordinary concentration have made Tendulkar the
highest run-scorer in international cricket. It is doubtful whether any
great sportsman has conducted himself better despite a career spent
constantly in the public eye.
10 Adam Gilchrist
For the first seven years of the 21st century, indeed, he was the game's
greatest match-winner. A keen-eyed, agile wicketkeeper of high quality, he
also took control of many a one-day international as a barnstorming opening
batsman.
And completing the century:
11 Malcolm Marshall (West Indies); 12 Glenn McGrath (Australia); 13
Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka); 14 Imran Khan (Pakistan); 15
Wilfred Rhodes (England); 16 Keith Miller (Australia); 17 Len
Hutton (England); 18 Ian Botham (England); 19 Dennis Lillee
(Australia); 20 George Headley (West Indies).
21 Denis Compton (England); 22 Fred Trueman (England); 23
Bill O'Reilly (Australia); 24 Brian Lara (West Indies); 25
Richard Hadlee (New Zealand); 26 Sunil Gavaskar (India); 27
F.R. Spofforth (Australia); 28 Barry Richards (South Africa); 29 Alec
Bedser (England); 30 Victor Trumper (Australia).
31 Ray Lindwall (Australia); 32 Everton Weekes (West Indies); 33
Jim Laker (England); 34 Wasim Akram (Pakistan); 35 K.S.
Ranjitsinhji (England); 36 Waqar Younis (Pakistan); 37 Graeme
Pollock (South Africa); 38 Greg Chappell (Australia); 39 Frank
Worrell (West Indies); 40 Frank Woolley (England).
41 Richie Benaud (Australia); 42 Peter May (England); 43
Herbert Sutcliffe (England); 44 Graham Gooch (England); 45
Clyde Walcott (West Indies); 46 Ken Barrington (England; 47
Ricky Ponting (Australia); 48 Kapil Dev (India); 49 Harold
Larwood (England); 50 George Lohmann (England).
51 Curtly Ambrose (West Indies); 52 Jacques Kallis (South
Africa); 53 Geoffrey Boycott (England); 54 Clarrie Grimmett
(Australia); 55 Allan Border (Australia); 56 Learie
Constantine (West Indies); 57 Javed Miandad (Pakistan); 58
Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka); 59 Hedley Verity (England); 60
Kevin Pietersen (England).
61 Arthur Shrewsbury (England); 62 Bishan Bedi (India); 63
Steve Waugh (Australia); 64 Les Ames (England); 65 Stan McCabe
(Australia); 66 John Snow (England); 67 Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri
Lanka); 68 Warwick Armstrong (Australia); 69 Alan Knott
(England); 70 David Gower (England).
71 Jack Gregory (Australia); 72 Clive Lloyd (West Indies); 73
Martin Donnelly (New Zealand); 74 Rahul Dravid (India); 75 Ted
Dexter (England); 76 Andy Flower (Zimbabwe); 77 Maurice Tate
(England); 78 Colin Cowdrey (England); 79 Mahela Jayawardena
(Sri Lanka); 80 C.B. Fry (England).
81 Bill Ponsford (Australia); 82 Andrew Flintoff (England); 83
Allan Donald (South Africa); 84 Gilbert Jessop (England); 85
Michael Holding (West Indies); 86 Zaheer Abbas (Pakistan); 87 Neil
Harvey (Australia); 88 Abdul Qadir (Pakistan); 89 Brian
Statham (England); 90 Lance Gibbs (West Indies).
91 Ian Healy (Australia); 92 Courtney Walsh (West Indies); 93
Graeme Smith (South Africa); 94 Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (India); 95
C.T.B. Turner (Australia); 96 Vijay Merchant (India); 97 Shaun
Pollock (South Africa); 98 Gordon Greenidge (West Indies); 99
Vinoo Mankad (India); 100 Charlie Macartney (Australia).
- Christopher Martin-Jenkins's book can be ordered for £13.49 inc p&p
(rrp £14.99) from The Times BooksFirst (0845 2712134)
